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Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

nytimes.com

21–30 of 262 posts

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#21
post #12

I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I think a big issue is how facebooks algo (and others) are built for maximum profit which at the same time also radicalizes people in their filter bubble.

I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. Beyond hate speech, I dont see any reason to limit what people can say. Somehow limiting how the network connects people, or how content propagates, seems like the key. Only FB has done the social experiments at scale to know how to engineer this, which is faintly ironic.

It is a tough nut to crack. Social media as we know it today brings some benefits. I thank some aspects of "woke" twitter for making me realize the reality of several societal ills, pulling me out of the "theory only" political alignment that is Libertarianism (IMO). Letting everyday people, including the poor, minorities, and targeted groups, have a direct platform to share their story with the world, is a positive thing. In other words, good-faith usage of the platform.

Clearly, there is flipside. Private Facebook groups to share hate speech or otherwise echo awful thoughts. Legions of bots controlled by political organizations or nation-states trying to divide and conquer a population. It is a losing battle to moderate these platforms.

Facebook has no inherent right to exist as it does, or rather, make a profit as it does - and I wonder if extreme measures, such as a partial repeal of section 230, should be considered. Like all laws, small-p-progressive measures should be taken. Small and medium websites should not necessarily be held liable for content posted by others. But as a network grows to have hundreds of millions of users, perhaps they should?

I'm not sure either.

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#22

I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I think a big issue is how facebooks algo (and others) are built for maximum profit which at the same time also radicalizes people in their filter bubble.

The distinction is that Facebook are failing in their moderation efforts while Parler prohibits themselves from even trying. There's also the face that Facebook has such an enormous footprint of positive or neutral content. It would be like shutting down air travel because some planes crash.

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#23
post #20

I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I think a big issue is how facebooks algo (and others) are built for maximum profit which at the same time also radicalizes people in their filter bubble.

Even if you wanted to, Facebook can't be de-platformed. They are entrenched in the internet and own their own data centres, are also themselves domain registrars and members part of the ICANN.

Anything can be de-platformed.

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those arguments always forget 1 thing. Facebook recommend users to join groups, follow pages, and even shows content that is not from people you follow. So it isn't just a telephone company that allows you to make phone calls, it's a service that makes an editorial choice about what they show you. If they show you posts that incite violence in Myanmar and show you fake news that make you outraged about a certain ethn…

I fall on the side of 'curation and modification of feeds represents creative work and therefore makes the platform responsible' for this very reason.

Yeah, I don't think Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. get a free pass on this just because they automated the process and took humans out of the equation. They can't claim to not be responsible for their algorithms.

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#25

I guess you could argue Facebook should be shutdown as parlor was. Although parlor was only used for hate, Facebook didn't do anything to stop it either. I think a big issue is how facebooks algo (and others) are built for maximum profit which at the same time also radicalizes people in their filter bubble.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#26
post #7

I'd love Facebook to do more to prevent misuse of its platform, but I don't see why I should blame Facebook for Myanmar violence. Facebook at its core is a tool that helps people spread information and opinions - not too different from the telephone or email. The blame for Myanmar violence should be placed squarely on the people that are spreading misinformation that incites violence. Even if Facebook does a better j…

Those arguments always forget 1 thing. Facebook recommend users to join groups, follow pages, and even shows content that is not from people you follow. So it isn't just a telephone company that allows you to make phone calls, it's a service that makes an editorial choice about what they show you. If they show you posts that incite violence in Myanmar and show you fake news that make you outraged about a certain ethn…

> Those arguments always forget 1 thing.

> Facebook recommend users to join groups, follow pages, and even shows content that is not from people you follow

See comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25732255

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#28
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. Beyond hate speech, I dont see any reason to limit what people can say. Somehow limiting how the network connects people, or how content propagates, seems like the key. Only FB has done the social experiments at scale to know how to engineer this, which is faintly ironic.

It is a tough nut to crack. Social media as we know it today brings some benefits. I thank some aspects of "woke" twitter for making me realize the reality of several societal ills, pulling me out of the "theory only" political alignment that is Libertarianism (IMO). Letting everyday people, including the poor, minorities, and targeted groups, have a direct platform to share their story with the world, is a positive…

I am not on twitter, deactivate my FB accounts. Not a boycott, rather an attempt at quarantine. I want to remain friends with my friends at both ends of the political spectrum.

I feel that if we collectively understood social graph theory better we could propose tweaks to make these networks more "fair" and by fair I dont mean with a respect towards a point of view, but rather less likely to create emergent, undesirable social phenomena like ISIS, genocide, white nationalist rebellion.

But I have never seen any papers that explore these topics, on the other hand my interests have been elsewhere.

Re: Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar (2018)

#29
I was surprised the article and headline didn't use the world genocide. But it looks like it is consistent with other NY Times articles from the time.

This article was published (Nov. 6, 2018) after the UN official declared it a genocide. Yet, genocide doesn't appear in the article.

UN official convinced of Myanmar Rohingya ‘genocide’ - March 12, 2018 https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/12/asia/myanmar-rohingya-un-viol...

Another NY Times article from August 2018 also is reluctant to call it a genocide.

>United Nations officials have raised the prospect that the violence could be considered genocide, and officials at the United States State Department have debated using the term, according to American diplomats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/world/asia/rohingya-myanm...

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