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A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

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Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#161

Post by mschuster91 »

pjc50 wrote: post #150
082349872349872 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yugoslavia was well before the Arab Spring. Of course, that was broadcast, not clicks, but outrage was stoked. (In Lonnie Athens' theory of violentisation, there's a step where the to-become-radically-violent says to themselves, "I'll become the biggest badass and this will never happen to me again." Milošević has a famous TV speech where, after a spot of "spontaneous violence", he tells ethnic serbs he isn't going t…

Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio. You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes. Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to th…

> You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously

Genocides and other war crimes have been a staple of humanity since Ancient Greece. Authoritarianism, of which fascism is a subset, only depends on one thing, and that is masses willing to be led.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#162

Post by pjc50 »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #151
pjc50 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio. You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes. Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to th…

And social media is actually less dangerous in this regard then past media like radio and books, because it makes it easy to comment in a way that reaches the consumers of the original media. You can run a radio channel where you rail against ethnic prejudice, but the listeners of radio rwanda are unlikely to listen to your channel. You can write a book refuting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" but the readers o…

> If someone incites hatred against ethnic groups on facebook you can respond and reach the readers of the original post.

"Just tell people that racism is bad"

Somehow this seems to make the problem worse not better, because if you're one of the outsiders you just get added to their mental list of conspirators. And if you've commented under your real name you're at risk of reprisals.

Effective debunking is hard.

Oh, and algorithmic social media makes this worse - your act of commenting on a post tends to raise its profile and cause it to be shown to more of your followers.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#163

Post by pjc50 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #160
david_draco wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could allow a NGO/consortium in each country to do the moderation. No reason it has to be done centralized by Americans, based on American values.

> No reason it has to be done centralized by Americans, based on American values. So let's handle moderation in... let's say Saudi-Arabia, by having them silence LGBT and women's rights advocates? And who is responsible for Saudi-Arabian citizens in exile? Saudi-Arabia? The country where they live in? The country where they are currently on vacation?

This is one of those "only winning move is not to play the game" situations; if you're marketing a product - almost any product - into a repressive regime it'll end up being associated with repressive acts.

Hence the boycott of South Africa.

There was a brief window in which Twitter was allowed to spread dissent pretty freely in the Arab world. I've no idea what that looks like now.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#164

Post by codingdave »

jacquesm wrote: post #159
bostik wrote: post #118

I am surprised this segment (admittedly picked from Ars's secondary writeup) hasn't made a splash: "It's why I've seen priorities of escalations shoot up when others start threatening to go to the press, and why I was informed by a leader in my organization that my civic work was not impactful under the rationale that if the problems were meaningful they would have attracted attention, became a press fire, and convin…

Facebook is rotten from the core because it is rotten at the head . It is a very sad state of affairs that the one company that would have been able to be a force for good in all this ended up being run by someone who is so morally disconnected. At this point in time it will take an act of God to fix it, the lock-in is very strong and their ability to buy up anything that even begins to compete with them serves to ce…

> their ability to buy up anything that even begins to compete with them...

There is a key difference being being able to afford to buy anything, and actually being able to buy anything. The competing founders need to be willing to sell. If a competitor arises that is mission-driven, Facebook cannot buy them.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#165

Post by ethbr0 »

indigochill wrote: post #132
bostik wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: devote more resources. People, money, teams, management support . Even if the rational reason for being slapdash is lack of resources and lack of focus, that means the company is not investing enough on addressing the underlying problems. Things happen, and sometimes you need to jump to put out a fire - but if putting out fires is a routine mode of work, it's a symptom of a much wider problem. I am under no i…

Suppose you have enough resources to try to do it "right". How do you moderate in a way that's globally fair? There is disinformation (which should be moderated), but there are also legitimate disagreements (which should not). Even facts themselves are often open to interpretation, and people don't argue in objective terms. The degree of nuance leads me to believe it's just impossible to do at commercial/global scale…

That isn't what's being discussed here. This is the case of artificial amplification of opinion.

One person : one opinion seems a fair goal.

Posting all day about something as yourself is very different than running a network of accounts.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#166

Post by amadeuspagel »

pjc50 wrote: post #162
amadeuspagel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And social media is actually less dangerous in this regard then past media like radio and books, because it makes it easy to comment in a way that reaches the consumers of the original media. You can run a radio channel where you rail against ethnic prejudice, but the listeners of radio rwanda are unlikely to listen to your channel. You can write a book refuting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" but the readers o…

> If someone incites hatred against ethnic groups on facebook you can respond and reach the readers of the original post. "Just tell people that racism is bad" Somehow this seems to make the problem worse not better, because if you're one of the outsiders you just get added to their mental list of conspirators. And if you've commented under your real name you're at risk of reprisals. Effective debunking is hard. Oh,…

>> If someone incites hatred against ethnic groups on facebook you can respond and reach the readers of the original post.

> "Just tell people that racism is bad"

What do you think "inciting ethnic hatred" means? Telling people that ethnic hatred is good? So that the only possible reply is that actually ethnic hatred is bad? No it involves conspiracy theories about an ethnic group, accusations against them, in short, empirical statements that can be refuted.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#168

Post by shalmanese »

gverrilla wrote: post #167

Facebook is trying to get attention worldwide by playing this master political role amongst other things, which is just a decoy because everyday it's losing real world relevance - less people use it, less and less.

Maybe in the US but in many of the countries listed, Facebook and its associated properties are synonymous with the internet.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#169

Post by claudeganon »

mschuster91 wrote: post #161
pjc50 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The Rwanda genocide was incited by radio. You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously, but that's so overdetermined it's hard to attribute to particular causes. Then there's the original SARS of bad memetic propaganda, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Piece of leafleting from the early 1900s that's contributed to th…

> You could also argue that the original rise of Fascism was enabled by mass propaganda becoming possible where it wasn't really previously Genocides and other war crimes have been a staple of humanity since Ancient Greece. Authoritarianism, of which fascism is a subset, only depends on one thing, and that is masses willing to be led.

...and technologies, including mass propaganda, have extended their reach and scale. They didn’t have trains delivering millions to gas chambers in Athens, helmed by people listening to Hitler’s speeches on the radio.

Saying “x has always existed” is different from the scale at which x is present. That is, in fact, one way that we measure progress. Inarguably, we will never be able to stamp out our baser instincts and behavior, but we should strive to reduce their presence and impact.

Re: A whistleblower says Facebook ignored global political manipulation

#170

Post by nicothieb »

Thorrez wrote: post #156
bostik wrote: post #118

I am surprised this segment (admittedly picked from Ars's secondary writeup) hasn't made a splash: "It's why I've seen priorities of escalations shoot up when others start threatening to go to the press, and why I was informed by a leader in my organization that my civic work was not impactful under the rationale that if the problems were meaningful they would have attracted attention, became a press fire, and convin…

Wow, that creates a really weird incentive for him. He'll get paid more and promoted if he secretly becomes a whistleblower.

I believe Sophie Zhang is a woman.
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