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Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

theatlantic.com

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Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#11

Post by bilbo0s »

tetrisgm wrote: post #6

The problem is that we've equated some platforms with a certain kind of media. Youtube is video, Twitter is news, Facebook is.. reality tv, I dunno. It's pretty debatable whether those platforms are the right place for the coverage of war crimes. I'm not going to start an argument about the media not doing their job right. However, this discussion would be moot if there was a news platform on par with the above, and…

This.

If your evidence for war crimes is Twitter, there's a problem. And the problem is not Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom.

Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage.

Hint: That's not "look at this tweet I got!"

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#12

Post by pergadad »

Very interesting article. Essentially: there is a legitimate need for such content, namely to hold the perpetrators accountable. So the question might be: how can this content still be accessed later by e.g. researchers/prosecutors/...? On the other hand that then opens the door for a dictator (we seem to have plenty of them nowadays) to ask for deletion of content and then use the stored materials still to identify e.g. regime critics. Really difficult issue.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#13

Post by saagarjha »

bilbo0s wrote: post #11
tetrisgm wrote: post #6

The problem is that we've equated some platforms with a certain kind of media. Youtube is video, Twitter is news, Facebook is.. reality tv, I dunno. It's pretty debatable whether those platforms are the right place for the coverage of war crimes. I'm not going to start an argument about the media not doing their job right. However, this discussion would be moot if there was a news platform on par with the above, and…

This. If your evidence for war crimes is Twitter, there's a problem. And the problem is not Twitter. Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom. Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage. Hint: That's no…

I guess the reason people put these things on social media is to raise awareness of it. The problem is that they fail to also send a copy to the relevant authorities.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#14

Post by hellllllllooo »

The issue with doing things at huge scale are all the edge cases. If Facebook wants to have all the benefits and money it gets from owning its huge network it also has the responsibility of having to treat different content with nuance. These kinds of issues are one reason why Facebook wants to move towards a more private network with more private interactions so it can avoid having to deal with the endless complexity of human interaction in public.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#15

Post by iscrewyou »

I just wish it was easy to turn their algorithms off. All these companies were good before those algorithms started. Like feed for Facebook & Twitter, recommendations for YouTube.

That would solve a lot of problems. It would make sure people aren’t exposed to things unwillingly and these companies won’t be on the hook for it but it will also make sure things aren’t getting reported and taken down as much as they should (for law enforcement tracking purposes).

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#16

Post by wnoise »

behringer wrote: post #3

I'm not interested in seeing war crimes on facebook. If you want to disseminate that stuff, use a public forum where that stuff is welcome. There are countless places. Facebook and the spin users give is not welcome by me and no doubt by others.

Facebook is millions, if not billions of tiny public forums. The problem is that people seem to want them all to have the same standards. If you don't want stuff like this on your wall or feed, it's easy to keep out. If the admins of a group don't want this showing up, they too can filter it out. But people seem to be demanding that not only do they not have to see content they dislike, but that no one else can either.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#17

Post by andrepew »

tetrisgm wrote: post #6

The problem is that we've equated some platforms with a certain kind of media. Youtube is video, Twitter is news, Facebook is.. reality tv, I dunno. It's pretty debatable whether those platforms are the right place for the coverage of war crimes. I'm not going to start an argument about the media not doing their job right. However, this discussion would be moot if there was a news platform on par with the above, and…

These platforms aren’t being used to cover war crimes by an entity consciously trying to deliver news.

These posts are first hand accounts of individuals currently living an event. It is as raw as it gets. I don’t think you can very easily direct where content like that gets created. People will use the platform they’re already using for the other parts of their life.

I understand the desire to not traumatize people by causing them to accidentally view horrible events. But at the same time I think deleting the content is a disservice to humanity in the long run for a lot of reasons this article highlights.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#18

Post by intended »

tetrisgm wrote: post #6

The problem is that we've equated some platforms with a certain kind of media. Youtube is video, Twitter is news, Facebook is.. reality tv, I dunno. It's pretty debatable whether those platforms are the right place for the coverage of war crimes. I'm not going to start an argument about the media not doing their job right. However, this discussion would be moot if there was a news platform on par with the above, and…

We would all love to see that but it is - within the context of the current economy - impossible for the majority of people.

This is a scenario where the regular incentives of the market result in perverse outcomes.

Firstly - it’s not tech which did this. Tech mutated and accelerated a pre existing trend for the worse.

The news cycle effect was well known, driving more and more sensational news reporting till at the cost of reason.

At the same time newspapers were constantly going under or being bought up.

With information distribution at scale, describing reality increasingly became the playground of nations (BBC, and lately various government owned news channels) or major firms (the Murdoch emptier.)

There’s a deep problem at the nexus of human behavior, factual reporting and income.

Attention and fear are easier and more reliable levers to pull in the human consumer.

Humans are easily distracted by sex, violence, gossip and easy to consume content - our brains are wired that way for some of those things, and it’s always pleasing to consume mental sugar than mental vegetables.

The only model which survives this is paying lots of money for specific information - usually linked to your profession.

However general news reporting It is unlikely to recover because of the news cycle effect which creates a tendency to compete on attention, a race to the bottom.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#19

Post by joeseeder »

bilbo0s wrote: post #11
tetrisgm wrote: post #6

The problem is that we've equated some platforms with a certain kind of media. Youtube is video, Twitter is news, Facebook is.. reality tv, I dunno. It's pretty debatable whether those platforms are the right place for the coverage of war crimes. I'm not going to start an argument about the media not doing their job right. However, this discussion would be moot if there was a news platform on par with the above, and…

This. If your evidence for war crimes is Twitter, there's a problem. And the problem is not Twitter. Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom. Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage. Hint: That's no…

I think you are completely missing the point why they are ending up on these platforms...

Try to imagine a world where "appropriate authorities" do not exist, as a first step.

Places where these materials get captured are not first world countries with respectable, recognised law enforcement.

Most of the people these sharing atrocities are aware only about platforms we call social media.

For them these are the only ways they know how to make it public, for the world to see and hope we will act.

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