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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

#81

Post by beaconstudios »

tomc1985 wrote: post #80
beaconstudios wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you're playing games with words. The various East India companies were imperialist because they dominated the countries they "traded" with. It was more of a militant occupation than an act of mutually beneficial exchange.

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

#82

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#83

Post by tomc1985 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #81
tomc1985 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you're playing games with words. The various East India companies were imperialist because they dominated the countries they "traded" with. It was more of a militant occupation than an act of mutually beneficial exchange.

But those were different times, when companies could get away with militant operations. To say nothing of strike-breakers, African rubber plantations, or what-have-you. Most companies we know of (esp. American) can't get away with those sorts of things now, at least not in the public eye.

Soft power is the new militant occupation. Facebook is taking cues from Pablo Escobar (minus the violence, we hope).

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

#84

Post by beaconstudios »

tomc1985 wrote: post #83
beaconstudios wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're playing games with words. The various East India companies were imperialist because they dominated the countries they "traded" with. It was more of a militant occupation than an act of mutually beneficial exchange.

But those were different times, when companies could get away with militant operations. To say nothing of strike-breakers, African rubber plantations, or what-have-you. Most companies we know of (esp. American) can't get away with those sorts of things now, at least not in the public eye. Soft power is the new militant occupation. Facebook is taking cues from Pablo Escobar (minus the violence, we hope).

so in this new world where "soft power" (which I assume means any power imbalance) across borders is imperialism, how can a company be international and not be "imperialist"? Because if they can't then that's the kind of "imperialism" I couldn't care less about.

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

#85

Post by charlesism »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #43
charlesism wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a trivial problem to be able to > identify what is hate speech in a regional > dialect automatically This sentiment, which I read repeatedly, really irritates me. Most of us program here. It's not that hard a problem! When social media execs claim it is, what they really mean is "it's a hard problem to solve for us , because we are unwilling to risk losing any percentage of account sign-ups ever , under an…

natural language processing is like one of the hardest problems that's left to crack, don't be so dismissive about it i.e: "get rid of all black people" "get rid of all black people unemployment problems" "get rid of all black people unemployment problems sending them back to Africa" this can be expanded almost infinitely in every direction, and we're not even beginning with the false positive problems. "I hate black…

    > natural language processing is like one 
    > of the hardest problems that's left to crack
You don't need to "crack it" or come anywhere remotely near to a perfect solution. False positives are okay, providing you accept that some percent of your users won't tolerate the errors, and will leave your platform.

And we're talking about social networks. So there's a wealth of additional information (ie: who you follow. previous behavior. who has reported you. account age) beyond plain text to augment this. And there's the setting of policy (eg: how come I can post within an hour of signing up on most social networks?).

The point is, what we have now on most social networks is not geared toward long-term customer satisfaction or the public good. It's geared toward medium-term account retention at any cost - regardless of whether the accounts are bots, sock puppets, or trolls.

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

#86

Post by charlesism »

magnetic wrote: post #46
charlesism wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a trivial problem to be able to > identify what is hate speech in a regional > dialect automatically This sentiment, which I read repeatedly, really irritates me. Most of us program here. It's not that hard a problem! When social media execs claim it is, what they really mean is "it's a hard problem to solve for us , because we are unwilling to risk losing any percentage of account sign-ups ever , under an…

> This sentiment, which I read repeatedly, really irritates me. Most of us program here. It's not that hard a problem! What solution do you think would work?

A combination of things. There's a wealth of information available if you're running a social network. Start by just banning text like "n-----" and "(((". Then give users a reputation, and do a page rank style analysis. So if someone has a good reputation, and they report another user, a moderator doesn't need to be involved. Take account age into consideration... you can't post publicly the instant you get your account. Be okay with some % of users quitting because of your false positives.

It's not hard to think of ways to aggressively moderate a social network. It's just that some users (certainly the most toxic ones) will leave.

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

#87

Post by BloodyHands »

Reuters is articulating an anti-American anti-Constitutional position. Why is Reuters doing this? There is no need to demand that American citizens flush their Constitution down the toilet, yet this is what Reuters plans, it plans to coerce the American people to the view that the Constitution of the USA is a gun that shoots hate speech.

Reuters is an enemy of the people of the USA.

Reuters attacks American values.

Reuters uses clever tricks to manipulate American public opinion.

In short, Reuters has demonstrated a HATRED of the American people and a HATRED of the Constitution of the USA. This means Reuters is NOT a reliable source of news, it is a reliable source of HATE. Reuters is a fire burning in a fireplace, and if it escapes, it will burn down the house of USA.

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

#88

Post by nafizh »

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…

Aung San Suu Kyi never even acknowledged that there is a genocide going on.

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

#89

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Kalium wrote: post #78
reuben_scratton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

China uses ethnic harmony as a justification for their whole censorship regime.

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

#90

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nafizh wrote: post #88
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…

Aung San Suu Kyi never even acknowledged that there is a genocide going on.

Yes, but that is quite different from being complicit in it. She isn't as bad as Modi who had first-hand involvement in a Muslim massacre.
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