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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

#121

Post by ghjjjj »

mattlondon wrote: post #100
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.

“First everyone goes crazy that people can find stuff on these platforms, ”

I don’t.

I get crazy when effectively censor at the behest of (any) government under the “we’re private” excuse.

I’m perfectly consistent about this. That and our imperative need to break apart the big tech companies (and bank, but that’s a different question)

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#122

Post by gumby »

otalp wrote: post #67
tracer4201 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An exceptional superpower would have to be one which does not consider itself exceptional

The British empire to the early 18th century could be considered an example of this as it was entirely a private sector phenomenon and not considered hugely relevant in government policy.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#123

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

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?

America has the same things besides national TV? Every country has one, I believe America us exception.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#124

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

> They go as far as shadowbanning users

Nevermind these users really don't do anything constructive since the problem at hand censorship.

Holocaust denial got worse because of efforts to silence some crazy people who did. Not slightly worse, it is really shit you have to think about it again. And people complaining aren't even jews or age above 50.

The self-righteousness, while the incentive might be good, really doesn't help at all.

And yes, denial of the holocaust is a form of censorship, so adjust your talking points correctly.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#125

Post by ionised »

navigatesol wrote: post #113
tracer4201 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> that we are inherently the good guys in any international conflict. How else could any human or organization function if not by acting in ways they believe are right? > The reality is our government has interests. The reality is everyone has interests. The "government" isn't some homogeneous entity pushing towards a single plan; it's an incredibly complex network of individuals. The nation isn't perfect, but does a…

> The nation isn't perfect, but does anyone really believe that, on net, America hasn't been a force for good in the world? What is your benchmark?

Lots of people all over the world who have been on the receiving end of US military or economic aggression enacted in the interests of the US plutocrats.

African Americans, Native Americans, most of South America, pretty much all of the Middle East and North Africa, anyone who has suffered structural violence as a result of the US's insistence on a morally bankrupt Friedman hack-job neoliberal economic ideology.

The US has done a lot of good things, but on balance I think it's done more damage and has merely replaced the British Empire as the current Anglo-sphere imperialist power.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#126

Post by Nasrudith »

navigatesol wrote: post #112
basetop wrote: post #106

Tech companies are deleting evidence of war crimes and everything else at the behest of media companies like the atlantic. Youtube, facebook, reddit, google search, etc have all been targeted by the atlantic, nytimes, washingtonpost, cnn, etc and bullied into scrubbing content and direct their users to "authoritative sources". Ironically enough, in china, russia and most countries, "authoritative sources" are state p…

> Or is the atlantic only interested in war crime evidence that suit their agenda ( pushing for war in syria, venezuela, etc )? I'm with you 90% of the way, but I don't understand this argument. It's like Hilary's emails or WikiLeaks; "But it came from hackers!" Who cares, if it reveals legitimate criminal activity. There's no equivalency.

It is the selective condemnation that makes it highly suspicious and contextual matters. It isn't like hacking where if someone surfaces evidence of say fraud they are automatically guilty regardless of others.

War crimes for one can be far more "transactional" and horrific with two sides. Side A is shooting surrendering soldiers! Now censor the false surrender killings of side B that prompted this.

Or Side C arming child soldiers and teaching them to shoot invaders until they stop moving - except it happened after Side D started waging no holds barred genocide and horrifically arming children was /the right thing to do/ lacking other alternatives. Censor Side D's atrocities as "inappropriate" content and Side C trying to survive now looks villainous instead of the desperate and unseemly but technically moral move it is.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#127

Post by sbenitoj »

basetop wrote: post #106

Tech companies are deleting evidence of war crimes and everything else at the behest of media companies like the atlantic. Youtube, facebook, reddit, google search, etc have all been targeted by the atlantic, nytimes, washingtonpost, cnn, etc and bullied into scrubbing content and direct their users to "authoritative sources". Ironically enough, in china, russia and most countries, "authoritative sources" are state p…

Great post, I think you’d get a lot out of reading this old blog post on Unqualified Reservations — Is journalism official?

https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/09/is-journali...

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#128

Post by makomk »

saulrh wrote: post #58
yoz-y wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It is simply not possible to have these platforms host this kind of content and it boils down to money. If you want Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the likes you need ads. Advertisers don't want to be displayed alongside gruesome content. If people were ready to pay for a platform with "raw" footage of others' lives there could be a place for it. So far the market has proven otherwise.

Not even that. Half of the people want heavy-handed moderation to save the children. The other half are yelling about censorship. Every decision ends with the messenger getting shot.

Also, the two groups don't even seem to be on different sides, not really. Notice how this article doesn't have a single word of criticism for either the media articles decrying how terrible it is that tech companies allow violent and terrorist content to remain up, or the campaigns by major advertisers to pressure them to mass-censor all that content. It just pretends they didn't exist. The coverage of those campaigns by major media outlets was almost universally supportive. It's like the press are intentionally setting up a catch-22 for major tech companies, who coincidentally are eating into their profits and power.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#129

Post by jtr1 »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #120
basetop wrote: post #106

Tech companies are deleting evidence of war crimes and everything else at the behest of media companies like the atlantic. Youtube, facebook, reddit, google search, etc have all been targeted by the atlantic, nytimes, washingtonpost, cnn, etc and bullied into scrubbing content and direct their users to "authoritative sources". Ironically enough, in china, russia and most countries, "authoritative sources" are state p…

What exactly are you claiming is being censored? The media regularly investigates and reports on itself. The press is far from perfect, but you’re alleging a vast and deep conspiracy when reality is likely far simpler: The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Sales and business have little impact on editorial. Editorial flies by the whims of a wide variety of strong personalities. Politicians and rele…

These do not have to be mutually exclusive accounts. There does not have to be a secret cabal of shadowy deep state operatives pushing a unified message, there just needs to be a propensity for the rich and well-connected (by definition a small group) to find their way into positions of influence in rough proximity to major media outlets. As you've said:

Politicians and relevant players get columnist and editorial roles because of their status and insight.

It's not difficult to see that wealth, status, and connection are self-compounding. I also don't think it's unreasonable to say that many people in this group hold views that are out of step with the majority of Americans, particularly when you are talking about the pro-military intervention crowd.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#130

Post by Nasrudith »

To be frank tech companies are a second order symptom of fucked up societal attitudes pushing the censorship.

The puritan mass market push towards "child friendly mass market" as a default which leaves no place for the ugliness of reality. They don't care about suffering - they just don't want to see it. It is narcissistic sociopathy as a norm - how dare they run out of a burning building in their underwear! Children might see them!

That it is the middle of the night is no concern - they don't want "inappropriate content" in a back alley. They want it gone.

The tech companies tend towards doing nothing until the masses of "think of the children" complaints about "objectionable" content. The absence of those masses of people is what I miss the most about the internet not being mainstream. I personally believe what we need is to offend those busybodies as much as possible until they fuck off into their own bubble.

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