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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

#91

Post by jplayer01 »

stef25 wrote: post #62

Couldn't they take down the content but keep it available for neutral third parties to evaluate and collect? There has to be a better way to collect evidence of war crimes than leaving decapitation videos visible on social media for all to see. Maybe the ICC could even launch their own platform where this kind of content can be submitted.

You don't think there's value in people seeing what horrible things are being committed? If we reduce "news" to the words on a newspaper page or the heavily curated images in a TV news report, who's ever going to give a shit about anything?

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#92

Post by gdy »

tracer4201 wrote: post #52
subjoriented wrote: post #32

The article centers around activity in Syria, but the problem is much more endemic. In the United States, Apple has consistently taken down apps providing information about US government airstrikes - including those that strike wedding processions, children, bystanders, etc. Recent efforts to identify and scrub foreign propagandists in the United States have silenced legitimate voices of domestic dissent, as foreign…

Not a surprise. Many of us grew up believing we as Americans are exceptional, that we are inherently the good guys in any international conflict. The reality is our government has interests. Morality and interests are orthogonal, with the latter being influenced primarily by profits or some perceived direct or indirect threat to America’s elite.

"Many of us grew up believing we as Americans are exceptional, that we are inherently the good guys in any international conflict."

Sounds like the USSR, only that we get rid of this delusion almost 30 years ago. Now it's slowly coming back thanks to the Russian government's propaganda, but it is still far from the present US level.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#94

Post by gdy »

v_lisivka wrote: post #89

Number looks very little, if compared to Russia backing. Russia has whole TV channels backed by FSB, whole troll fabrics, and their own agents even in major Western media. Why few orders of magnitude greater effort cannot help Russia, while much smaller effort helps USA a lot?

"Number looks very little, if compared to Russia backing. Russia has whole TV channels backed by FSB, whole troll fabrics, and their own agents even in major Western media."

[Citation needed]

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#95

Post by ben_w »

v_lisivka wrote: post #89

Number looks very little, if compared to Russia backing. Russia has whole TV channels backed by FSB, whole troll fabrics, and their own agents even in major Western media. Why few orders of magnitude greater effort cannot help Russia, while much smaller effort helps USA a lot?

Quantity isn’t always the most important quality. The US (and the UK?) seems to present propaganda as something the bad guys do, which is easier to believe if the changes are limited. Limited doesn’t mean unimportant, and it being limited forces focus on important changes.

(I’m not assuming competence here: I assume that’s random over time)

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#96

Post by megous »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #61

These platforms can do no right. If Facebook/Youtube leave a video online of a beheading of John Smith from then inevitably calls them out for promoting and hosting this "illegal" content. Now, they're being chastised for taking it down too. Maybe, just maybe, these companies have internal processes for handing over such materials to the relevant authorities, and don't need to rely on armchair detectives to investiga…

Ok, what these processes are, and where are they docummented? Because I seriously doubt they exist. I've certainly not read any articles about tech companies having any such thing, and actually helping researchers and archiving organizations.

Also there's no jurisdiction or relevant authorities for many war zones. So archiving and docummenting is the only option now, to help potential investigations and trials in the future.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#97

Post by gdy »

baybal2 wrote: post #85
subjoriented wrote: post #32

The article centers around activity in Syria, but the problem is much more endemic. In the United States, Apple has consistently taken down apps providing information about US government airstrikes - including those that strike wedding processions, children, bystanders, etc. Recent efforts to identify and scrub foreign propagandists in the United States have silenced legitimate voices of domestic dissent, as foreign…

Things are much more simple I'd say. Those "algorithms" I'd say are very dumb, nor human flaggers that are better. Even very innocent family videos are being flagged all the time, you just have to speak a foreign language and look like a middle easterner. Some say that just speaking in elevated tone in Arabic and having a beard is enough to be flagged on big dotcoms. And if you are openly are a member of just any soc…

"The Egyptian national symphonic orchestra was once banned by Facebook as a "terrorist organisation""

I'd love to see a source for that bit :)

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#98

Post by dsfyu404ed »

HNthrow22 wrote: post #70
subjoriented wrote: post #32

The article centers around activity in Syria, but the problem is much more endemic. In the United States, Apple has consistently taken down apps providing information about US government airstrikes - including those that strike wedding processions, children, bystanders, etc. Recent efforts to identify and scrub foreign propagandists in the United States have silenced legitimate voices of domestic dissent, as foreign…

> Reddit is another example a company that has recently scrubbed itself of most controversial content, I agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists. They go as far as shadowbanning users who bring up their lack of action to shine a light on their culpabili…

> agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists.

They banned IRA_memes because IRA I guess and quarantined waterniggas because it had "niggas" in the title even though the whole sub was just about drinking water. They're definitely taking an approach of culling anything that advertisers might not like.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#99

Post by coldtea »

coldtea wrote: post #81
ben_w wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously, I had much the same experience despite being from the UK — Americans were always the heroes. British too (e.g. colonialism, empire, and commonwealth presented as an unmitigated good thing), but if there was a conflict of any sort between the UK and the USA, the USA were almost always the good guys.

Well, for one, all the major movies and tv series are American, so they will present any war, conflict, etc, under American viewpoints, to an international audience (including politically naive, historically ignorant and impressionable young ones). Even when the plot will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the conflict and the actions of the heroes, those will still be the protagonists (and with the humanizing superiori…

Case in point 1:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley...

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hollywood-cia-washingto...

Or e.g.:

https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ve-day-70th-...

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#100

Post by mattlondon »

rlt wrote: post #2

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Yep. What do people want? First everyone goes crazy that people can find stuff on these platforms, then they go crazy that you can't.

I find all this pinning of the world's problems on Facebook/Twitter/Google irritating. Sure they have a lot to answer for, but it's not like propaganda, censorship, or media manipulation did not exist before. Sigh. I guess they are an easy target to pick on.

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