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Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

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Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#61

Post by cyberphobe »

metamann wrote: post #18
barbazoo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Abrham Amare, a researcher and son of chemistry professor Meareg Amare, said that his father was targeted by a series of threatening posts because he was ethnically Tigrayan. He reported the posts, some of them shared over 50,000 times, to Facebook because they contained his father's address and called for his death. > Eight days after the elder Amare was murdered, Facebook finally removed the post, according to th…

Who determines sufficiency (well, a jury here…)? If an ethnic conflict occurs in a relatively obscure region are they going to spin up new moderators on the AWS spot market? These things aren’t perfect or fast.

The discussion wasn't about perfection, it was about whether this was a "frivolous lawsuit", which it obviously is not. You probably knew this, metamann, brand new account which has only commented in this thread about how Facebook's inaction lead to death.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#62

Post by Manuel_D »

joshuaissac wrote: post #57
subradios wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a US based company, operating under US law, is responsible to use its US based platform and employees to decide how users in a totally different country use the internet? If you're gonna support the British Empire, fine, be my guest, but be aware that this is pretty close to noblest oblige views of colonialim

> So a US based company, operating under US law When Facebook operates in Ethiopia, it is expected to follow Ethiopian law. > If you're gonna support the British Empire [...] this is pretty close to noblest oblige views of colonialim The British Empire has forced subjugated countries to recognise a concept of extraterritoriality for British merchants operating in those countries, where they would not be subjected to…

So Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries could make Facebook either withdraw from the region or ban all expressions of homosexuality worldwide?

Facebook can, and should, tell those countries to fuck off and build their own Great Firewall if they want to.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#63

Post by legutierr »

gretch wrote: post #25
hourago wrote: post #16

> Abrham Amare, a researcher and son of chemistry professor Meareg Amare, said that his father was targeted by a series of threatening posts because he was ethnically Tigrayan. He reported the posts, some of them shared over 50,000 times, to Facebook because they contained his father's address and called for his death. Eight days after the elder Amare was murdered, Facebook finally removed the post, according to the…

Did facebook _cause_ it? Or would it have happened anyway? Lynchings have happened frequently throughout human history, long before the invention of facebook. Racism and ethnic hatred have always been there. To me this is like saying 'well the guy who killed him was wearing nike shoes, nike caused his death'. It's pretty clear to me that if he didn't have nike shoes, he would have done the same things wearing any oth…

The Rawandan genocide was driven forward in large part by disk jockeys on broadcast radio who used their platform to direct the mob toward their targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...

Even lynchings in the Jim Crow South were often driven by the mass media of the time, newspapers.

https://www.nbcuacademy.com/catalog/newspaper-archives-print...

Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically without mass media of some kind inspiring it, contrary to what you have asserted.

Ethnic violence requires people to identify someone as "other" than themselves, and requires people to take the massive leap towards using that otherness to justify murder. These ideas need to be organized by a rational and malevolent mind, and they need to be widely disseminated before they encounter people who are motivated to act upon them. The people who come up with these ideas are usually not unhinged enough to carry out these atrocious acts, and the people who commit these murders are usually not able to come up with these ideas on their own. It's the mass media that links them together.

Violent ideas disseminated via Facebook can and do have the same effect that violent ideas disseminated via radio and newspapers have had in the past. And it should be assessed through the same lens.

Wouldn't you say that the radio station owners in Rawanda shared responsibility with the disk jockeys they put on the air? Wouldn't you say that the newspaper publishers in the Jim Crow South shared responsibility with the writers that they published? Of course you would.

Facebook was told that this call for violence before the man was murdered, and they did not act.

Yes, there is a clear difference between Facebook and these other examples in that Facebook does not share the politics of the murderers. But Facebook provided the platform, Facebook made money when the call for violence was disseminated, and the man died because Facebook failed to act in a timely manner to remove the information.

Different perhaps in intent, but not in effect, compared to these earlier examples. If they are not held financially liable for this, will they have sufficient incentive to act differently in the future?

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#64

Post by LatteLazy »

nier wrote: post #32
LatteLazy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being unfairly downvoted because it's perceived as trendy to hate facebook and pretend they can magically police all human activity. But you're quite right. The courts will find this too and have done in the past multiple times. This is just dumb clickbait and people are biting.

In this case they should have demonstrated better security around their place. A person was singled out and PII was published. It was reported and they took down the information only 8 days after the person’s death. They clearly need more moderators for what they do and the way they play with people’s attention.

These things always come down to people not being able to define "should".

Would it be a good thing if Facebook had more moderation? Probably.

Are they morally or legally liable because a bunch of third parties committed a crime off of the platform? No, not at all.

You might disagree, but then you have to explain why facebook in particular are liable. Why aren't the actual murderers? Or the people who posted the information? Why aren't the electricity suppliers who enabled people to get online? Why isn't the government and local police?

Would it be nice if facebook solved all social problems? Yes, it would be lovely. But it's not actually their job or problem and more than it is your job. Just because they're big and you're (understandably) angry doesn't make them guilty.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#65

Post by tsegratis »

Radio station broadcasting played a big part in initiating the Rwanda genocide

However innocuous 'algorithmically promoting popular posts' is, we should not be blind, legally or otherwise to the consequences

I suppose it is hard; letting a dance video go viral, is not dissimilar to enabling any other message go viral. We are eager for it; but uncheck virality typically kills the host

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#66

Post by Manuel_D »

aaomidi wrote: post #27
zug_zug wrote: post #26

I hate meta as much as the next person, but I find this whole line of reasoning farsical and a distraction from the many actually bad things to worry about. I think there's a huge difference between "inciting hatred" and "not deplatforming racist stuff quickly enough in one case." It's my understanding that meta actively tries to prevent hateful content in over 500 languages. It's a cool experiment to try to deplatfo…

For what it’s worth, if Facebook is unable to exist without potentially being a catalyst of hate and genocide then maybe it shouldn’t exist. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

You could say the same about SMS, or IRC. Or even traditional radio for that matter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_L...

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#67

Post by ickwabe »

knaik94 wrote: post #30

Unless there is news about Facebook employees intentionally changing their algorithm to promote violence directly, none of these arguments feel genuine. We're past the point where we can compare the world with and without Faceboook, when a social media site becomes unavailable to a certain group they will go to an alternative, as seen with Parler. Facebook mining and profiting from harvesting political user data show…

Facebook engineers don't need to explicitly change their algorithm to promote violence. They do it by negligence; by letting the algo maximize for engagememt regardless of the outcomes. Facebook spends most of it's moderation efforts in just a few countries and does relatively little for the rest.

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ranks-the-world-int...

It is not reasonable to moderate to a certain level in a few locations, thereby implicitly acknowledging such moderation is important, while then letting other "gardens" in other parts of the world run wild and untended.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Once the moderation has begun and leaders in the company have acknowledged that it is necessary for the good of the platform and the communities in which it operates, it ceases to become reasonable to say "oh well, what we meant was, moderation is needed where the profile is highest or will cause the most political/societal blow-back if we don't".

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#68

Post by rightbyte »

Manuel_D wrote: post #66
aaomidi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, if Facebook is unable to exist without potentially being a catalyst of hate and genocide then maybe it shouldn’t exist. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

You could say the same about SMS, or IRC. Or even traditional radio for that matter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_L...

Neither of those manipulate any "feed".

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#69

Post by gretch »

legutierr wrote: post #63
gretch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did facebook _cause_ it? Or would it have happened anyway? Lynchings have happened frequently throughout human history, long before the invention of facebook. Racism and ethnic hatred have always been there. To me this is like saying 'well the guy who killed him was wearing nike shoes, nike caused his death'. It's pretty clear to me that if he didn't have nike shoes, he would have done the same things wearing any oth…

The Rawandan genocide was driven forward in large part by disk jockeys on broadcast radio who used their platform to direct the mob toward their targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib... Even lynchings in the Jim Crow South were often driven by the mass media of the time, newspapers. https://www.nbcuacademy.com/catalog/newspaper-archives-print... Violence like that described in the arti…

> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically without mass media of some kind inspiring it, contrary to what you have asserted.

Dude what?

So what if we go back even further?

Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism?

What about the thousands of small and undocumented tribal wars fought before people even had written language?

It’s as if you are saying racism and tribalism aren’t in basic levels of the human psyche and that it’s really just 1 or 2 bad ppl with a megaphone. Dangerous stance imo

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#70

Post by darkwizard42 »

p0pcult wrote: post #36
noworriesnate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend and an ex-coworker who work at Meta. I've asked them about things like this in the past, their responses have boiled down to something like this: If Facebook's algorithms reduced millions of micro-aggressions but simultaneously enabled the death of one person, then they're probably still in the green. It's like public policy-making. There are tradeoffs everywhere, and somebody will always draw the sho…

I'll take the world of microaggressions, thanks. There's a reason they're called micro aggressions.

If we are just using words, then another saying "death by a thousand paper cuts" comes to mind.

I think the parent has a point. Not sure I agree, but there are many ways to argue for or against.

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