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

nytimes.com

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

#131
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.

> I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. I think a better idea is to force them to provide an API for interoperability, alternative clients and exporting the user data. Together with the federated social networks, it will change everything: https://the-federation.info .

Cambridge Analytica happened because of an API and users who will click anything to learn if they're a Samantha or a Carrie.

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

#132
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who gets to define "hate"? I really dislike this argument. A lot of democratic countries have defined hate speech. In the US, individual companies define it and moderate it as they see fit. In other countries, their legislators and courts define it. The US has defined lots of difficult terms to define already. >And why ban speech that is actually legal (even if highly offensive) anyway? I mean if we're talking about…

If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Odd, the speech you're talking about being legal hasn't seemed to affect things much at all. Actually, we've done nothing but thrive despite hate speech being legal. Why haven't people been clamoring for decades to change the co…

>If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government

Because of the first amendment, and how the courts have very consistently interpreted to allow hate speech.

>and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal?

If by "do so well for centuries" you mean the US's economic output and world status over the centuries, I would argue that profiting off of Europe rebuilding itself after two world wars probably outweighed the detrimental effects of hate speech (among probably several dozen other reasons).

If you mean "how has the US done so well handling the negative effects of hate speech for centuries without making it illegal", I would argue that hate speech has contributed to some of the most shameful and barbaric social dynamics over the centuries, and the US is historically well behind other modern countries on this front.

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

#134
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.

> I think Facebook should be broken up but I havent heard any good ideas yet regarding how to somehow regulate social networks. I think a better idea is to force them to provide an API for interoperability, alternative clients and exporting the user data. Together with the federated social networks, it will change everything: https://the-federation.info .

I think treating Facebook like a public utility and requiring federation is akin to breaking up Ma Bell(the telephone monopoly, see: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/att-breakup-spin...). The cost to society of phone calls dropped dramatically. It took a long time to break up the monopoly since the government benefited (according to https://talkingpointz.com/the-breakup-of-ma-bell/).

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

#135

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. I think a better idea is to force them to provide an API for interoperability, alternative clients and exporting the user data. Together with the federated social networks, it will change everything: https://the-federation.info .

Cambridge Analytica happened because of an API and users who will click anything to learn if they're a Samantha or a Carrie.

No, it's not because of an API, it's because of the monopoly of Facebook. Without the monopoly they would value security of their users and would be afraid to loose them.

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

#136
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No service that Facebook depends on decided to stop doing business with Facebook the way AWS decided to stop doing business with Parler. Parler built thier infrastructure in one place, with critical dependency on that provider. So when the provider booted them, they ended up having to shut the service down.

Apple and Google still have the Facebook app in their respective stores. Why not hold everyone to the same standards? Or are there differences I'm not seeing at a high level? Maybe sophistication/existence of content moderation is better?

is this rhetorical? Clearly because Westerners don't care about Myanmar but do care about the US; there's nothing more to it

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best argument against this is that it means your data will potentially end up splatted across even more more different servers controlled by various unaccountable parties.

How? Your data will only be on server(s) which you choose. I did not suggest that everyone can download everyone's data.

If I want to chat and share posts with 3 friends who use 3 different federated nodes, my details end up on all 3 of those nodes.

Consider email as an example of a federated network: My name, email address, and text of my emails exist today on hundreds (thousands?) of different servers. If I decided I want to "delete" my name from the global email network, that's close to impossible.

The same would be true of a federated social network, but with a more intrusive and personal set of data. Users will not understand that they cannot delete their own mastodon toots (or whatever it calls them).

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

#138
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government, and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? Odd, the speech you're talking about being legal hasn't seemed to affect things much at all. Actually, we've done nothing but thrive despite hate speech being legal. Why haven't people been clamoring for decades to change the co…

>If this speech threatens democracy, peace, and safety, why hasn't it been made illegal by the government Because of the first amendment, and how the courts have very consistently interpreted to allow hate speech. >and how has the US managed to do so well for centuries with it being perfectly legal? If by "do so well for centuries" you mean the US's economic output and world status over the centuries, I would argue t…

I've noticed a high correlation between people who callously want to ban all sorts of speech and people who just seem completely miserable and think the US is the most awful place on earth.

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

#139

On the internet everything can appear equally legitimate. Breitbart looks as legit as the BBC. Sacha Baron Cohen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM Excerpts: Voltaire was right when he said "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to millions of people. President Trump using Twitter has spread conspiracy theories more t…

lol you’re the one spreading misinformation now. 2/3 of millennials have heard of auschwitz. you just made that stat up or are citing a false report with questions that don’t explicitly ask that. you should be banned for fake news under your own system.
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