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Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#51

Post by thunderbong »

r_singh wrote: post #31
throwaway_s1234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said that we have created 32 lakh WhatsApp groups (not people). Don't lie man. Not cool at all! He said "Woh isliye hopaya ki hum battis lakh WhatsApp ka EK group banakar khade the". Which translates to "it happened because we created a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in it". You accuse a political party of spreading misinformation and you do that yourself! Did you seriously think you are the only one who kno…

Thanks for correcting me. It was a genuine error and I’m sorry.

Thank you. Politeness is an underrated quality online.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#52

Post by reducesuffering »

baybal2 wrote: post #8
chalst wrote: post #2

I posted the original Guardian story yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26825990 but perhaps because of my lousy copyediting of the title it only attracted five upvotes. This follow-up story seems pretty good and the title was not difficult to squeeze under 80 chars. The story of Facebook treating India's ruling BJP has attracted a fair bit of coverage - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix…

> but the story suggests FB values good connections with the quasi-fascist ruling party over the risk of yet more damage to its reputation. Do people need a better example? He literally orders Facebook employees to read communist propaganda. https://amp.smh.com.au/technology/mark-zuckerberg-snapped-wi...

> “literally orders”

From the article:

‘"I bought this book [Governance of China, by Xi] for my colleagues as well," Mr Zuckerberg was quoted as telling Mr Lu.’

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#54

Post by buran77 »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #38
qart wrote: post #35

I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter. In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a differ…

They made this pretty explicit for the former president of the US: anybody "newsworthy" (ie. has enough power to hurt the platform) has near free play around the rules. In contrast my personal opinion is that we should hold people in power to a higher standard.

It goes beyond newsworthy accounts and into what's in the best interest of the company. When I posted this [0] a couple of months ago if sounded far fetched for many. Facebook (and Twitter) will selectively apply any measure depending on whether it's in their best interest or not. Everything else is usually a rationalization of that outcome.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26195047

> They are removing some fake accounts and not others.

> Some departments are routinely instructed to turn a blind eye to the actions of some but not others

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#55

Post by dartharva »

setum wrote: post #12
r_singh wrote: post #10

The Indian leading party has over 3.2 million WhatsApp accounts. These groups are used during Election Day in many states to spread misinformation amongst gullible citizens and change the outcome on the last moment....

source, if any?

Here, a Harvard study: https://store.hbr.org/product/marketing-transformation-using...

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#56

Post by selimthegrim »

thoweruo2434 wrote: post #43
qart wrote: post #35

I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter. In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a differ…

Context: https://twitter.com/DrJK_Murali/status/1381567386587852800?r... https://www.opindia.com/2021/04/aap-mla-amanatullah-khan-cal... I'd like to say this is related to "one" wing or the other, but it's not. International liberal media like the Guardian have consistently biased reporting where they report hate speech from the Indian pagans, while completely muting out similar messages from adherents of Islam and C…

This just isn’t true - Akbaruddin and Asaduddin Owaisi’s speeches against Hindus, Ahmedis and Taslima Nasrin have been covered extensively for example.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#57

Post by baybal2 »

throwaway_s1234 wrote: post #37
krisgenre wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

32 lakh people in a WhatsApp group? or is this supposed to mean that they created various groups and the total count of all the members is 32 lakh?

> or is this supposed to mean that they created various groups and the total count of all the members is 32 lakh? I am sure he meant this. But I am more interested in translating what he said verbatim than add/remove meaning from it. What you interpret it as is up to you. But a translator should be true to what the source said and not add/remove from that. But to actually give more context to the video itself: Amit S…

I believe Whatsapp simply croaks on 3000+ people groups

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#58

Post by icegreentea2 »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #38
qart wrote: post #35

I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter. In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a differ…

They made this pretty explicit for the former president of the US: anybody "newsworthy" (ie. has enough power to hurt the platform) has near free play around the rules. In contrast my personal opinion is that we should hold people in power to a higher standard.

In the US, political speech (of all types) is usually held to a looser standard (in the sense that it's harder to restrict) - which I think makes sense.

We should hold our elected officials to a higher standard, but we probably do so through the mechanisms built into our laws.

That being said... not all speech by political figures is political speech.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#59

Post by meragrin_ »

reducesuffering wrote: post #52
baybal2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the story suggests FB values good connections with the quasi-fascist ruling party over the risk of yet more damage to its reputation. Do people need a better example? He literally orders Facebook employees to read communist propaganda. https://amp.smh.com.au/technology/mark-zuckerberg-snapped-wi...

> “literally orders” From the article: ‘"I bought this book [Governance of China, by Xi] for my colleagues as well," Mr Zuckerberg was quoted as telling Mr Lu.’

"I want them to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics."

"I want" to an employee of Facebook from Zuckerberg might as well be an order. Whether that was said to the colleagues is another matter. Zuckerberg may well have been just sucking up to the Chinese.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#60

Post by snarf21 »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #38
qart wrote: post #35

I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter. In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a differ…

They made this pretty explicit for the former president of the US: anybody "newsworthy" (ie. has enough power to hurt the platform) has near free play around the rules. In contrast my personal opinion is that we should hold people in power to a higher standard.

I agree but they are never going to hold those with the ability to cut off the money to a higher standard. Money talks.
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