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

Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 97 posts

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#71

Post by nier »

lostmsu wrote: post #37
nier wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain it to me as if I was a 5 year old. I do not understand the similarities between a communication platform and an ad-supported social network that uses software to maximize user engagement. From my naive standpoint I feel like when you manipulate people’s attention you should be somewhat liable for what happens as a result of that.

> communication platform and an ad-supported social network Every social network is a communication platform.

That’s too simplistic in my opinion. Social networks have publishing aspects and Facebook is responsible for what appears and gets amplified on their properties.

What happens in real life when a city gets plastered with posters containing calls for violence?

I think the more you give people reach the higher is your responsibility to moderate the content.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#72

Post by Manuel_D »

rightbyte wrote: post #68
Manuel_D wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yes, they can. Ordering by time is still a "feed" - a simple one, but it's a feed nonetheless. Many modern phones surface messages from frequent contacts up to the top, above more recent messages from low-frequency contacts. That's also a "feed". Furthermore, most of the calls to violence were made over Facebook messenger which is arguably a lot more like SMS and IRC.

I find the argument that Facebook's feed was significant to hold little water. People will coordinate with whatever communication mechanisms they have access to. In the past this was SMS, and even further into the past this was radio. Do we forget the Balkans, Rwanda, and plenty of other atrocities that predate widespread adoption of social media.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#73

Post by subradios »

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…

Ethiopia is currently involved in a civil war between two ethnic groups, with all of the base brutality that entails.

You're not addressing the point, which is what right do American Executives from California have to decide on the rights of Ethiopians to speak.

Additionally, even if such postings were illegal, this assumes that the government was not currently on one side of a civil war.

You're expecting a level of nuance and decision making about events that are so far out of a social media company's understanding and frankly, ability that I'm pretty sure you're just excited someone is suing Facebook. From FBs perspective, there aren't a lot of principled stances and even if they do take one, there will still be a million hackernews comments about how FB is responsible for bad thing.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#74

Post by p0pcult »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #70
p0pcult wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Try recovering from death vs. try recovering from a microagression.

One is impossible; the other should have bounced off immediately.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#75

Post by joshuaissac »

Manuel_D wrote: post #62
joshuaissac wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Facebook is being sued for allowing its platform to be used to incite and facilitate murders in Ethiopia. If they want to do the same in another country where it is legal, Ethiopian law does not forbid them.

Similarly, EU laws that restrict the sale of firearms do not apply to Facebook Marketplace in the US, only to the EU. If they allow firearms to be sold on Facebook Marketplace in the EU, they will face prosecution, even though they are based in the US.

Facebook can decide to ignore local laws, in the Middle East or anywhere else, whether they apply locally or globally, but if they ignore laws in a jurisdiction where they have assets or revenue, then legal judgements against them can be enforced. That is what is happening here.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#76

Post by Zak »

interactivecode wrote: post #19
missedthecue wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article expressly states that violent content is not allowed and was actively policed. Facebook moderators are not fully omniscient and omnipresent. That is not grounds for a $2 billion lawsuit. That fact that people died is sad, but ultimately immaterial to the arguments here considered.

If they can't guarantee the safety of the people using their software. Facebook shouldn't be allowed to operate. The same is true for venues, sports, shops, workplaces, etc... why not software companies?

The analogy is pretty weak here.

People commit crimes inside businesses all the time, and under most circumstances the owner of a business is not liable for damages resulting from a third-party committing a crime on their property. People also use various communication tools to advocate and plan crimes, and the operators of those tools are almost never liable.

What's different here is that Facebook makes decisions about what content to show to people. It uses an algorithm to do so, and it is aware that the algorithm has a tendency to promote violent content. While I'm broadly for platform immunity, that seems like a good situation to add an exception.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#77

Post by yummypaint »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #59
Zak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A machine designed to self-optimize to manufacture as many paperclips as possible with no regard to any other parameters is not capable of morality. A person who creates one without taking steps to ensure it does not eat the world to turn the raw materials into paperclips is capable of morality and is morally responsible for that outcome. Facebook has created a machine to capture attention and increase engagement wit…

Yes. And this is an unprecedented industrial process, not least because attention is the input, and behavioral changes (well-tracked viewing and purchasing) are the output.

I like this take on social media as the industrialization of behavior modification. Framing it that way effectively communicates the hazards to the layperson who thinks its purpose is to help people stay in touch.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#78

Post by legutierr »

gretch wrote: post #69
legutierr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically

> So what if we go back even further?

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

I did not say that mass media is always is the only driver of violence. What's important is that in the modern era, mass media has often driven violence, as it did in this case.

Your original comment made the assertion that Facebook did not cause this outcome, because the murder would have happened anyway, whether or not Facebook was involved.

My point was that there are many examples where mass media has inspired ethnic violence that wouldn't have happened anyway without the mass media's involvement—so it shouldn't be surprising that in this case these Facebook posts inspired violence that wouldn't have happened anyway.

Are you really asserting that the plaintiff's father would have been killed even if the Facebook post in question hadn't been made? Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man?

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#79

Post by gretch »

legutierr wrote: post #78
gretch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> Violence like that described in the article often does not happen organically > So what if we go back even further? > Spanish Inquisition? Crusades? Genghis khan slaying anyone in his path? Colonialism? I did not say that mass media is always is the only driver of violence. What's important is that in the modern era, mass media has often driven violence, as it did in this case . Your original comment made the asse…

>Or if Facebook hadn't existed, somehow the same people would have been inspired to kill the same man?

Yes absolutely I am directly saying this and imo your points support my argument. When there is no Facebook, ppl use the radio to incite violence. When there is no radio, ppl use newspapers to incite and organize violence. And when there is no newspapers, ppl find a way to get their hate killing done anyway. There’s thousands of years of examples.

I don’t know what definition you are using for the word “often” but it seems like it’s not the usual definition of being frequency based. This is because, again, thousands of years of human ethnic violence happened where humans didn’t not have the capability of broadcast media. If we just count up the number of data points, it doesn’t make sense to apply the word “often” here at all.

Re: Facebook owner Meta sued for inciting hatred in Ethiopia

#80

Post by lostmsu »

nier wrote: post #71
lostmsu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> communication platform and an ad-supported social network Every social network is a communication platform.

That’s too simplistic in my opinion. Social networks have publishing aspects and Facebook is responsible for what appears and gets amplified on their properties. What happens in real life when a city gets plastered with posters containing calls for violence? I think the more you give people reach the higher is your responsibility to moderate the content.

> That’s too simplistic in my opinion.

You got an adult explanation above. You asked for ELI5.

Post reply on HN