Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#161

Post by andrewla » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

ehnto wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia lacks safe harbour laws which the US has had for some time. This has a chilling effect on certain types of platforms. Even something like a photo hosting site is very risk heavy in Australia as the type of content on your servers is your responsibility. I feel like those safe harbour laws in the US are at risk, at least in practice, as the idea of a content "conduit" begins being less plausible as platforms…

> I feel like those safe harbour laws in the US are at risk, at least in practice, as the idea of a content "conduit" begins being less plausible as platforms start moderating more and more. The way the US got the safe harbor to begin with was as follows. There was a court decision that essentially said that you weren't liable if you were just carrying bits, but if you did moderation then you were. The problem with t…

> There was a court decision ...

Out of curiosity, what was the court decision? I've been thinking about this recently from the same perspective; that once you start allowing moderation then you should lose the shield of liability, but wasn't aware that this had been articulated by the courts previously.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#162

Post by dillonmckay » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #147

navigatesol wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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's like trusting all the evidence presented by the prosecutor during a court case. Yes, likely none of that is faked or outright lies, but until you give the defense a chance to respond it shouldn't be trusted as accurate representation. If we wouldn't trust the evidence from a prosecutor by itself, why would we trust evidence from an entity fulfilling the same role in the court of public opinion?

The rules of evidence are different for the court of public opinion.

Take the OJ Simpson criminal trial, for instance.

...or the Lori Loughlin college bribery and money-laundering scandal.

...or the Aaron Swartz travesty.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#163

Post by tepidandroid » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #157

refurb wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On balance has done more damage? Do you believe that in the countries where the US has intervened that without US involvement things would be that much better? Seems to me that when the US supported a dictatorship, the alternative wasn’t a thriving democracy but just another dictatorship aligned to a different power.

> Seems to me that when the US supported a dictatorship, the alternative wasn’t a thriving democracy but just another dictatorship aligned to a different power. You're free to think that if it helps you sleep at night. You would be mistaken though. Some may have been just as bad as those they were replacing, but considering many of them were democratically elected governments that the US chose to overthrow in favour…

This was a very thorough rebuttal to a very ignorant statement. Thank you for taking the time to post this, or I would have had to.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#164

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

navigatesol wrote: post #118

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience being from and growing in Poland. I think I can give you a simple reason: Hollywood. Through movies and TV shows, America has been defining the mass culture for the past few decades, for almost the entire world.

> I think I can give you a simple reason: Hollywood. Through movies and TV shows, America has been defining the mass culture for the past few decades, for almost the entire world. I think this can conflate cause/effect. Hollywood creates these movies and stories because the people producing them believe the narrative. It's interesting to me which narratives are questioned, and which aren't. The Vietnam War is widely…

The issue isn't about Americans believing America is exceptional. Every nation believes themselves to be the protagonists. The difference between the US and everyone else is that the US managed to export its movies to the point they became an integral part of culture of half of the world. In any western nation X, for the past decades, you only had two categories of movies of importance: local movies, and American movies. And usually the latter were better / more interesting.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#165

Post by dillonmckay » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

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…

Online dating’s purpose is to facilitate ‘positive’ real-world relationships.

The intent of these ‘mundane’ applications is much less admirable.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#166

Post by dillonmckay » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

andrewla wrote: post #161

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like those safe harbour laws in the US are at risk, at least in practice, as the idea of a content "conduit" begins being less plausible as platforms start moderating more and more. The way the US got the safe harbor to begin with was as follows. There was a court decision that essentially said that you weren't liable if you were just carrying bits, but if you did moderation then you were. The problem with t…

> There was a court decision ... Out of curiosity, what was the court decision? I've been thinking about this recently from the same perspective; that once you start allowing moderation then you should lose the shield of liability, but wasn't aware that this had been articulated by the courts previously.

I think DMCA in 1996?

[edit]

DMCA was passed in 1998, based on WIPO treaties from 1996.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#167

Post by leftyted » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #153

leftyted wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely to me that there is no coordination between left wing media institutions. They say the same things at the same time using the same language. I don't read much right-wing media. I'm not saying there's a shadowy conspiracy (though I'm not ruling out people talking about "messaging" via email). It may be that they read each other's stuff and the demands of the 24 hour news cycle dictate that there's a…

In many cases the censorship is carried out by a 3rd party company setup in a low wage location where someone with their own biases, religious convections and influence of their own society moderates content for the west. The tech giants don't want anything to do with it because it means employing 1000's of extra people and the costs that go with that. So it just gets contracted out to the the lowest bidder. It can't…

> It can't all be automated yet, not some machine learning algorithm dreamt up be Facebook is any better of a prospect.

Some of it is automated. Youtube removes/demonitizes stuff based on automated checks. I suspect other platforms do this stuff too or are headed in that direction.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#168

Post by patrick5415 » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #157

refurb wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On balance has done more damage? Do you believe that in the countries where the US has intervened that without US involvement things would be that much better? Seems to me that when the US supported a dictatorship, the alternative wasn’t a thriving democracy but just another dictatorship aligned to a different power.

> Seems to me that when the US supported a dictatorship, the alternative wasn’t a thriving democracy but just another dictatorship aligned to a different power. You're free to think that if it helps you sleep at night. You would be mistaken though. Some may have been just as bad as those they were replacing, but considering many of them were democratically elected governments that the US chose to overthrow in favour…

Lots of accusations here with zero citations.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#169

Post by tepidandroid » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #108

HNthrow22 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Reddit has banned Russian [0] and Iranian [1] "propaganda accounts", now lots of people over there are calling to ban "Chinese propaganda" [2] aka anybody who gets tired of anti-Chinese submissions constantly being pushed on the front-page. Gee, one might wonder where that might be coming from? [3] That's the absurdity of the situation: Russian, Iranian and Chinese "propaganda" gets banned, while US propaganda [4] is…

Reddit has been a declining trash heap for quite some time now. It definitely has to do with its emergence into mainstream popularity (the problem gets worse the larger the subreddit). It's the perfect platform for every armchair expert with a bigoted view to gain admiration and affirmation of their views from other uninformed bigots. It happens to be much easier to be a loud and belligerent bigot than to express an informed and nuanced opinion.

The only thing stopping HN from completely morphing into that cesspool is the diligent and fair moderation and the diversity and quality of opinions expressed. For the most part, hackers tend to be more critical and suspicious of authoritative sources than other groups.

Re: Tech Companies Are Deleting Evidence of War Crimes

#170

Post by v_lisivka » Thu, May 09, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

gdy wrote: post #150

v_lisivka wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://euvsdisinfo.eu/ About EU vs Disinformation campaign This website is part of a campaign to better forecast, address and respond to pro-Kremlin disinformation. The ‘EU versus Disinformation’ campaign is run by the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force. The team was set up after the EU Heads of State and Government stressed the need to challenge Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns i…

You could have as well given a link to google.com. You have made several specific russophobic claims and I challenge you to substatiate them and not leave that as 'an exercise for the reader'.

These claims are not russophobic. We are at war with Russian Federation for 5 years. It's clearly demonstrates that we have no phobia. They are anti-russian.

Please, list claims you are interested to dig in.