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How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

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Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#81

Post by dang »

user111233 wrote: post #65
gooddelta wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea and determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit closeparen should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

So we should just ban the internet because some village in india couldn't use it right?

This comment breaks the site guidelines, which ask: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#82

Post by dang »

gooddelta wrote: post #46
closeparen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accountable... for letting people send text to each other? Shall we block or regulate the printing press? Hold its inventors and users accountable for its negative externalities? After all, none of these countries/churches need to be fatalistic about the printed word or these heretics...

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea and determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit closeparen should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

Please don't copy and paste what you posted elsewhere. That lowers the signal/noise ratio.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#83

Post by dang »

gooddelta wrote: post #57
solveit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic we should ban megaphones as well. You know what? Just ban shouting until people build the right tools to enable that safely .

Okay, if you're going to be willfully obtuse about it, why don't you try to come up with a better solution? Because that's actually what I'm suggesting with literally all of my comments on this article. And if you really don't understand the difference between optionally-anonymous, broadcast communication and a person standing in a group of people holding a megaphone, I'm sure you won't mind sharing your full name an…

You've repeatedly broken the site guidelines in this thread. We ban accounts that do that, so can you please not do that? Someone else being wrong is no reason to break the rules.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(I do appreciate that you apologized for going over the line in the previous comment.)

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#84

Post by nradov »

gooddelta wrote: post #3

I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way. What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, a…

I've done a lot of code reviews in my time and I've seen many, many neutral lines of code. So cut the hyperbole.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#85

Post by blindwatchmaker »

iamshs wrote: post #49
eccbits wrote: post #35

Why is this flagged? 1. negative about India 2. negative about Facebook 3. asks hard questioms sbout ethics & technology 4. all of the above

Negative about India. I have been receiving quite a bit of attention after posting India specific comments. And look how quickly it is dropping out from front page. Concerted effort.

Could you provide examples?

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#86

Post by esalman »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #2

This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. Either it will be easy to communicate or it won't be. If it is, it can be used as a force for good or a force for evil. The real problem is so much more difficult that it's easy to try to find something you can do, block the technology, so you feel like you are doing something even if it's completely ignorin…

This argument is invalid. Even more so after what happened in the 2016 US election. Silicon valley companies created the beast(s), they have an ethical obligation to tame it.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#87

Post by sooheon »

cwyers wrote: post #66
gooddelta wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I say "regulating speech"? No. If we're going to try to have a cogent conversation, please stop putting words in my mouth. Free speech != the right to a platform, which is synonymous with saying that, just because you have a voice doesn't mean your message has immediate merit, or that it is the truth, or that people have to give your voice equal weight to others, or that people have to listen to you.

The problem is that there's no solution to "deplatforming" people who incite lynch mobs that also doesn't give the power to "deplatform" peaceful protest against repressive regimes. You can't come up with a knife that only cuts what you want it to cut.

I'm pretty sure poster above is taking for granted that they (or other like-minded) would also wield the knife.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#88

Post by sterlind »

user111233 wrote: post #59
sterlind wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes it clear that the people of Rainpada are extremely uneducated, many lack literacy and tend to trust their tight-knit social groups. They don't see many locals, and they genuinely believed the strangers were harvesting organs. Try hard, and imagine being completely naive to internet hoaxes, and not even knowing how to read and write (note that the video had audio dubbing, precisely to target unsophis…

If the government thinks the locals are unable to handle the internet then it should either educate them or restrict the usage.

they cut off internet access for 24 hours following the murder, and within two hours ordered the local news channel to air an admonishment about the misinformation on repeat, along with a warning for prosecution for further spreading it.

the village is now a ghost-town; most of the men fled, and the women and children stay inside. elders are ashamed to mention their hometown.

there are two educational efforts: the police have posted numerous warning signs in public areas, and a group of students are traveling around giving a play to demonstrate how spreading rumors on WhatsApp caused a lynching.

in addition to those efforts, what can WhatsApp do to keep this from happening? India is doing their part. If WhatsApp thinks it's unable to handle the situation, they should turn administrative control of their service over to the government.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#89

Post by sooheon »

gooddelta wrote: post #29
lxrbst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a chat application. How people can be so ignorant to abuse such a simple thing is beyond me. As much as I hate Facebook, I don't get how you can put this on WhatsApp. From the looks of it, you could've achieved the same thing with someone printing and spreading around fliers. Doesn't mean a printing company selling printers should consider the "moral, ethical, political ramifications".

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea, and the determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit lxrbst should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people. You're basically describing why journalism is important, and still has an important place in our society.

Journalism is important, but not to the exclusion of other forms of communication. If your thrust is that barriers to entry for communication is good because it puts mass comm. powers in the hands of the few(er), I cannot agree.

Re: How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village

#90

Post by sooheon »

sterlind wrote: post #55
user111233 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used whatsapp but from what I understand it's just an IM app. I'm not sure how an IM app can be responsible for this behavior. It simply lets users send messages to each other. There are no algorithms sorting what you see or promoting certain kinds of interactions. It seems that maybe some societies are far too trusting of baseless rumors and can't handle the fact that they are now able to share rumors incr…

Indeed, rural villages with low literacy rates aren't able to handle sharing rumors at the speed of light. This is precisely the discussion we're having! Suddenly, high-speed internet is affordable even in places without reliable power. They can't spot fake news. They're unprepared for WhatsApp - do you blame them?

A: open communication and information never reaches them, we segregate them according to some prime directive, and they go on lynching each other and being backwards for all eternity until they arrive at internet #2 through convergent evolution.

B: open communication and information reach them, some use it for productive ends and some use it to mobilize lynchings, after 1~2 generations of adjustment, education, adaptation they largely outgrow and outeducate the worst of it.

C: How do you propose to regulate communication to find the best path that is neither fully A nor B?

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