Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

edelson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 164 posts

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#131

Post by wonderwonder »

baybal2 wrote: post #124
wonderwonder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you are not paying attention to logistics. America has to get its military aircraft to China and then once there China has an overwhelming array of surface to air missiles it can deploy from its own territory. The fact that you had to say "China don't have enough nuclear weapons to destroy enough US military bases to prevent effective retaliation" proves the reason the US will not invade Myanmar. We are not go…

> China has an overwhelming array of surface to air missiles False, China has at most 10 long to medium range air defence regiments, most near its capital. For everything else, China's SAMs are outranged even by glide bombs. > China has an estimated 300+ nuclear warheads; potentially more That's obviously not enough to blunt even a quarter of US military potential, even if they have many times the number of missiles,…

Friend, lets assume everything you said is correct. Is your advice really that the US risk absorbing 300+ nuclear missiles to send a message on the treatment of people in Myanmar? It defies logic and is very much removed from both reality and the will of the US population.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#132

Post by nradov »

whoknowswhat11 wrote: post #78
bikeshaving wrote: post #14

Between the UN fact-finding mission saying Facebook played a “determining role” in the genocide, the Bosworth memo, and the shit ton of access we now have thanks to the whistleblower, how is this not a strong case?

Here is a bit more detail on this determined role they took to spread the speech from reuters. "To this day, the company continues to rely heavily on users reporting hate speech in part because its systems struggle to interpret Burmese text. Even now, Facebook doesn’t have a single employee in the country of some 50 million people. Instead, it monitors hate speech from abroad. This is mainly done through a secretive…

In fairness to Facebook you can hardly expect them to hire employees in Myanmar. It would be impossible to keep them safe.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#133

Post by nradov »

_blz2 wrote: post #76
1cvmask wrote: post #67

Obama graced Aung San Suu Kyi despite her well known track record. Obama also at similar times embraced Narendra Modi, despite his known track record. Obama even removed the Modi sanctions and visa block that George W Bush put on him after his alleged role in the Gujarat Muslim massacre/genocide. Newspapers gloated about Obama's bromance with Modi. Will they now sue Obama? https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-…

Interesting how you portrayed Obama in a way that he's a does-only-good person. He played a huge role in Arab springs which destroyed more lives than any of the other alleged bad deeds you refer. Some probably should sue him, not for indirect roles, but direct ones.

Presidents have complete legal immunity for all official acts. Cranks file lawsuits against Presidents all the time and judges immediately dismiss them.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#134

Post by nradov »

anm89 wrote: post #9
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #3

This seems kind of silly. Should radio equipment manufacturers be liable for the Rwandan genocide? I'm not fan of Facebook (I don't even have an account) but requiring them to fulfill a function that the Burmese government didn't do seems shortsighted.

Yeah but Facebook is eager to take on the moderator role. They would have been much smarter to, like a radio provider or telco say: "we are just the pipeline, we are happy to follow all court orders but we aren't moderating past that", but now that they have actively embraced these kind of moderator roles they've lost the ability to make that claim.

Facebook moderates content heavily because that's what advertisers want. The major ad buyers don't want their ads to show up next to anything highly offensive. So no, from a profit standpoint it wouldn't be smarter to stop moderating.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#135

Post by fallingknife »

tintor wrote: post #7
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #3

This seems kind of silly. Should radio equipment manufacturers be liable for the Rwandan genocide? I'm not fan of Facebook (I don't even have an account) but requiring them to fulfill a function that the Burmese government didn't do seems shortsighted.

Radio equipment manufacturers don't specifically amplify messages that incite outrage, and also don't perform mass psychological experiments on their users [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...

When other companies do it, it's an A/B test. When FB does it, it's a "mass psychological experiment." What a joke.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#136

Post by [deleted] »

shadowgovt wrote: post #130
bb88 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's an algorithm that determines your feed, and therefore the profit of Facebook itself. If FB were connecting people, making the world a better place, and making profit by doing that, I think I'd be fine with that. But it looks like FB can trade the general good wi…

Every forum has an algorithm (including this one, which sorts by upvotes and hides dead content unless the user asks for it).

[deleted]

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#137

Post by dundarious »

_blz2 wrote: post #76
1cvmask wrote: post #67

Obama graced Aung San Suu Kyi despite her well known track record. Obama also at similar times embraced Narendra Modi, despite his known track record. Obama even removed the Modi sanctions and visa block that George W Bush put on him after his alleged role in the Gujarat Muslim massacre/genocide. Newspapers gloated about Obama's bromance with Modi. Will they now sue Obama? https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-…

Interesting how you portrayed Obama in a way that he's a does-only-good person. He played a huge role in Arab springs which destroyed more lives than any of the other alleged bad deeds you refer. Some probably should sue him, not for indirect roles, but direct ones.

I think 1cvmask is actually being quite critical of Obama.

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#138

Post by [deleted] »

shadowgovt wrote: post #130
bb88 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's an algorithm that determines your feed, and therefore the profit of Facebook itself. If FB were connecting people, making the world a better place, and making profit by doing that, I think I'd be fine with that. But it looks like FB can trade the general good wi…

Every forum has an algorithm (including this one, which sorts by upvotes and hides dead content unless the user asks for it).

[deleted]

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#139

Post by [deleted] »

0des wrote: post #55
kbenson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gonna lie, I always thought slightly worse of Facebook just because of the name. Not on purpose, it just seemed a silly name for such a large company. It's like if Toys "R" Us somehow became a powerhouse of a company you heard about all the time. It probably says more about me and my perceptions of social networks than anything else, and my perceptions of Facebook from the early days persisting with the name. But…

It actually took me a while to realize this, but some areas use the term 'facebook' (before the website was around), as a term similar in meaning to what most of us call a "yearbook"

[deleted]

Re: Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]

#140

Post by anm89 »

nradov wrote: post #134
anm89 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but Facebook is eager to take on the moderator role. They would have been much smarter to, like a radio provider or telco say: "we are just the pipeline, we are happy to follow all court orders but we aren't moderating past that", but now that they have actively embraced these kind of moderator roles they've lost the ability to make that claim.

Facebook moderates content heavily because that's what advertisers want. The major ad buyers don't want their ads to show up next to anything highly offensive. So no, from a profit standpoint it wouldn't be smarter to stop moderating.

I agree however time will tell if caving was the best business move. They had a ton of leverage and they could have said no.

Now they have opened themselves to essentially unlimited legal liability.

Post reply on HN