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

Post by naim08 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #116

mratzloff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick a point and draw a line in the sand. Then enforce it. So many HN replies amount to "we all agree this is a problem, but we can't fix the entire problem perfectly, and it has some hypothetical drawbacks, so we shouldn't even try." (Never mind that as a result of inaction in the face of disinformation and hate speech our societies are rotting from the inside, and many, many real-world atrocities are being carried…

I tend to agree with this, but given we're discussing Myanmar here I think it's worth adding that knowing where to draw the line can get a lot more complex than deciding 'Hang Mike Pence' crosses it. Myanmar's language and culture are completely alien to people drafting Facebook policies, driving forces behind intercommunity violence include things like [likely at least partially true] news reports of other intercomm…

> Burmese people seemingly accepting the false claim the ethnically-cleansed Rohingya actually were Bangladeshi regardless of where they stand on other things

That was largely a result of campaigning against giving rights to the Rohingya.

> the outpouring of support for Aung Sung Suu Kyi after Western criticism that might have been signals that they believed the conflict was the generals' doing rather than hers or might have been mass endorsement of the government's violence

Yeah, because Aung Sung Suu Kyi keeps denying, on live TV, that any problem exist other than the insurrectionists are responsible for everything thats happened thus far. The insurrectionists/terrorist according to her are composed of muslim Rohingya that are financed by foreign "Muslim" powers.

The matter of the fact is that most power is held by the military, NOT Aung Sung Suu Kyi. Thus, Aung Sung Suu Kyi stance on this issue is probably a result of the military's position. At any moment, the army can choose to remove her from power. Her position is that fragile.

Post by mratzloff » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #250

garden_hermit wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, the definition of hate will result from a complex negotiation between stakeholders in society, just as we draw a line on who counts as an "adult", what counts as "self defense", and what counts as "libel". The definition will be less than ideal, open to abuse, and problematic, but having it is better than not, just as having a definition of "adult", "self defense", and "libel" are better than not having them…

Why do we even need to define this at all???? We're never going to. Again, the US functioned just fine allowing "hate speech" to be legal. Would there be consequences to such speech? Sure, and deservedly. But the government couldn't do anything to you, that's the point. And I would strongly argue that Facebook, Twitter, et al have de facto replaced the government - they are a new governance for society whether we lik…

Unnecessary? I think non-whites would take issue with that. Race hatred and violence certainly resulted in "extraordinarily dangerous" outcomes for them over the last 250 years.

In any event, the Internet changed things. Before, it was very difficult to light the entire country on fire.

With the Internet, and social networks in particular, that has changed. The reach is unprecedented; it is a difference of kind, not just magnitude. Anyone can reach very specific groups of people and incite hatred and violence through targeted propaganda campaigns. There's more than one reason rhetoric and mass violence has increased since the late '90s (on a national scale), but I believe this is one of the biggest contributors.

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

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