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Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

reuters.com

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Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#71

Post by beaconstudios »

badosu wrote: post #69
beaconstudios wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both Soviet (and Chinese) parties in power were (and are) nominally "Communist", not "Socialist". I have to disagree with this, especially given that the CPC claims that China is in the "primary stage" of socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_stage_of_socialism . Communism in its original Marxist form is classless and stateless, which the PRC and the USSR certainly are/were not. Both countries were/are r…

> The benefit to small communities is that it is easier to police for attitude and morality. Even more so if it's a religious community, though I'm sure Marx is rolling in his grave that you would call a religious community communist given communism's materialist philosophy. See my comment above on how monasteries came from epicurean communes. See the title or Marx's PhD thesis: The Difference Between the Democritean…

that's an interesting piece of philosophical history I didn't know about, thanks for sharing that. I always thought there were strong parallels between ancient Greek philosophy and the primary strands of modern politics.

> Communism is Karl Marx's scaling attempt at Epicurean communes. Not a very good idea IMO.

I tend to think that the idea wasn't bad, but people trying to force it to occur faster than the natural societal evolution end up killing a lot of people. The debates we're seeing now about how to deal with automation of large swathes of the job market are similar to Marx's theory that socialism would automate production to the point of creating a post-scarcity society. Of course, that doesn't account for the environment, but then global warming wasn't on the menu in the mid 1800s.

The ironic thing is that it's capitalism that is doing the automating.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#72

Post by jakelazaroff »

imgabe wrote: post #63
jakelazaroff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what makes Facebook different? The content in question isn't private messages, it's public (and shareable!) posts. We would absolutely expect, for example, the New York Times to disallow classified ads organizing lynch mobs.

Hmm, with a specific crime, like if someone wanted to print a classified ad that said "Hey everyone, let's go lynch Joe at 5:30pm this Thursday", yes I think we'd expect the NY Times to report it to the authorities. Who are the authorities in this case? The Myanmar government? Why aren't they doing anything? They obviously know the lynchings are happening. It's their responsibility to maintain order and prevent or pu…

> It's their responsibility to maintain order and prevent or punish crimes in their country, not Facebook's.

Insofar as people are doing things on Facebook's platform that they themselves disagree with, it's absolutely their responsibility to stop it. How ridiculous does this sound: "Alice says she's going to buy this knife from me to stab Bob. I don't like stabbings, but I'm going to sell it to her anyway, because it's the government's job to stop stabbings, not mine."

> nor that they should if we're going to have free speech.

It's incumbent on states to recognize freedom of speech, not private entities. The NYT deciding whether or not to publish something has zero impact on that.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#73

Post by badosu »

beaconstudios wrote: post #71
badosu wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The benefit to small communities is that it is easier to police for attitude and morality. Even more so if it's a religious community, though I'm sure Marx is rolling in his grave that you would call a religious community communist given communism's materialist philosophy. See my comment above on how monasteries came from epicurean communes. See the title or Marx's PhD thesis: The Difference Between the Democritean…

that's an interesting piece of philosophical history I didn't know about, thanks for sharing that. I always thought there were strong parallels between ancient Greek philosophy and the primary strands of modern politics. > Communism is Karl Marx's scaling attempt at Epicurean communes. Not a very good idea IMO. I tend to think that the idea wasn't bad, but people trying to force it to occur faster than the natural so…

> I tend to think that the idea wasn't bad, but people trying to force it to occur faster than the natural societal evolution end up killing a lot of people.

Exactly, although I don't believe we can infer to which point the society would naturally evolve. If possible, the probable transition would be from scattered communes to a commune federation. The drawback being that it would be difficult to have political cohesion (not that this is bad, but easily corruptible by neighboring states).

> The ironic thing is that it's capitalism that is doing the automating.

Interesting insight.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#74

Post by imgabe »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #72
imgabe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, with a specific crime, like if someone wanted to print a classified ad that said "Hey everyone, let's go lynch Joe at 5:30pm this Thursday", yes I think we'd expect the NY Times to report it to the authorities. Who are the authorities in this case? The Myanmar government? Why aren't they doing anything? They obviously know the lynchings are happening. It's their responsibility to maintain order and prevent or pu…

> It's their responsibility to maintain order and prevent or punish crimes in their country, not Facebook's. Insofar as people are doing things on Facebook's platform that they themselves disagree with, it's absolutely their responsibility to stop it. How ridiculous does this sound: "Alice says she's going to buy this knife from me to stab Bob. I don't like stabbings, but I'm going to sell it to her anyway, because i…

Facebook isn't selling knives. The bits in Facebook's database are not killing anyone. The people doing the lynching are.

Yes, it is ultimately the state's responsibility to uphold the freedom of speech. That doesn't mean that any private actor is prohibited from providing a platform that upholds freedom of speech, only that they are not obligated to do so. You can do something even if you're not legally obligated to, you know.

> Insofar as people are doing things on Facebook's platform that they themselves disagree with, it's absolutely their responsibility to stop it.

So you mean like, if there were a candidate for US President that Facebook didn't like, then Facebook should refuse to run ads for that candidate. And if people used Facebook to talk about or promote that candidate, then Facebook should delete their posts right? I mean, if Facebook is responsible for stopping everything they disagree with, that should follow then.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#75

Post by otterley »

imgabe wrote: post #48
ardy42 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was present way before Facebook even existed. I think it's because they were given ample, clear warnings that their platform was being used to incite ethnic hatred and genocide, but chose to do nothing for years . I don't think they would be getting so nearly so much blame if they hadn't been so utterly negligent about the problem. They didn't…

If the lynch mobs were being organized over the telephone, would it be the telephone company's responsibility to intercept the communications and stop it? If not, what makes Facebook different? Do we want Facebook to be the arbiter of what we are allowed to say to each other, or do we want them to be a neutral carrier for communications?

The difference is that Facebook is not, and has never been, a common carrier. They are not obligated by law to serve the public.

Secondly, telephones, unlike Facebook, are designed primarily for person-to-person, not group communication. Communication dynamics are very different between the two models.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#78

Post by Kalium »

reuben_scratton wrote: post #70
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was present way before Facebook even existed. It was kept in check by an authoritarian military dictatorship and then bubbled up in the transition to more democracy, which really shouldn't have been unexpected. Facebook was just there at the wrong time, and happened to be the way people were communicating at that time; Aung San Suu Kyi has also g…

I completely agree. It's crazy to blame FB for shitty human behaviour, one might as well blame the computers and phone lines they use. It's even crazier to use the issue to advocate for ever greater censorship, as all media companies and politicians now appear to be doing.

If you believe the highest possible good is stopping hate speech cold, no matter the means, then any approach is viable. If it happens to set a precedent you can use to do the same thing elsewhere, well, that'd be pretty convenient!

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#79

Post by Kalium »

repsilat wrote: post #19
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually an interesting question, from a legal standpoint anyways. I don't think Myanmar has a safe harbor exemption like the US does, they actually have some pretty heavy handed censorship laws on the books. However, Facebook doesn't even have an office in Myanmar, they aren't officially there, and without a GFW Myanmar can't really block Facebook (nor would the people be ok with that, as Facebook has alread…

Linking this explicitly to safe harbour like you've done is important -- the knee-jerk response online is often to condemn Facebook for not policing content but to defend content hosters for not being able to filter out all instances of copyright violations. Maybe those positions are held by different people, and maybe there's some good-faith "make an effort" middleground, and maybe the standards should be different…

The middle ground is a great place to be if you want to take fire from everyone. In terms of legal and regulatory risk, it's an incredibly hazardous place to be because it has few defenders and many attackers.

Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of demanding that megacorporations do censorship for us on whatever arbitrary standards they can be convinced are good.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#80

Post by tomc1985 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #51
tomc1985 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is riding in on its royal horses trying to connect (read: own the primary means of communication) the world like all the classically imperialist westerners before them. The first thing they teach you in international business and/or marketing is that cultural considerations will destroy you if you do not devote effort to addressing them. If, in building a hyperlocal product (like facebook), you do not take t…

I mean, they do some pretty distasteful stuff but saying that providing an international communications platform is imperialist is just beyond silly.

Facebook trying to build an international (business) empire is not "imperialist"? When I used the word I was thinking of Dutch East Indies Co., etc.
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