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Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

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Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#41

Post by larodi »

0x5FC3 wrote: post #18

Social media companies post record earnings year after year from their ads business while increasingly proving to be harmful to society. They do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots while priming the algorithms to maximize revenue. The good ol' privatized profits, socialized harm model. In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? M…

Sadly I dare not say anything rude against Facebook and its policies, as it gets immediately devoted for presumably harsh language or incitement of hatred. Well I really hate everything there is about FB in 2026 and have avoided it by all means possible ever since 2017. My actual FB is now called HN, but... I guess 1) HN has its own limits; 2) everything is fine, look the other way and it will go.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#42

Post by saghm »

input_sh wrote: post #24
graemep wrote: post #3

The title should read "Saudi Arabia". Cutting a country name in half (unless its an accepted way of abbreviating it) is not a good say of modifying a headline. What is next? Zealand ?

The title as it is right now is 79 characters long, the limit is 80.

What about "Meta blocks human rights accounts for audiences in Saudi Arabia and UAE"? I don't think "reaching" adds much to the headline

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#43

Post by latexr »

ktm5j wrote: post #12

Do folks have a suggestion for a Facebook alternative? I'm about fed up with the state of things, but still want to feel connected to social circles (even if they're online only) and politics (ideally without the hate spam bots).

Social is where the people are. If you’re using Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family, the only viable alternative is wherever your friends and family are. Chances are it’s going to be impossible to switch everyone (or even most people) over, so you’re stuck if you care about those connections.

Or you can do what I did and simply say “fuck it”. Get rid of your account anyway and deal with the consequences. I don’t even have WhatsApp (because, you know, Facebook) but don’t feel like that’s been a detriment to my social life. The people I care about understand and I see most of them on the regular. SMS and phone calls still work. I do know some people who live abroad that fortunately I can communicate via iMessage, but if that weren’t an option then email would have to do. I've been doing this for over a decade and while there was some friction at first, it’s been long since it has been an issue. It probably helps that these days most people understand that avoiding Meta is a good thing.

If you don’t care about people you personally know in your social media, then pick whatever you want depending on features. I recommend Mastodon. It has quirks (what doesn’t) but it’s fine. Chronological (not algorithmic) time-line, open-source, you can even subscribe to people with RSS feeds. If there’s someone you’d like to follow from e.g. Bluesky, there’s often a Mastodon bot for their posts. Or you can subscribe via RSS there as well.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#44

Post by genghisjahn »

microtonal wrote: post #20
p-e-w wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, there’s a third option: Stop operating in those countries. Which used to be a common choice for tech companies, until it somehow became unthinkable for some reason.

Meta has also been regularly nuking/blocking rights-related accounts in countries that do support human rights. E.g. in The Netherlands. First they did a mass block last December, then again in April: https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/237924/meta-verwijdert-instagra... Some were reinstated again, but not all and not after they have been offline for to long.

I don't know if everything in the book "Careless People" is accurate, but there's a lot of quoted emails saying that this is all part of Meta's playbook.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#45

Post by nixon_why69 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #36

Maybe I'm fatigued by a decade straight of people co-opting the language of human rights and progressivism in order to push the most insane agendas possible, or maybe I'm just the particular brand of contrarian that is common to HN, but I find it hard to take either the title or the article at face value. Who writes a carefully worded statement like this, in multiple languages, but then "accidentally" forgets to incl…

They did say who was blocked, they list 2 NGOs and 2 individuals by name, while also saying "100 others" in the second paragraph. They link to Meta's transparency report for the "100 others".

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#46

Post by mannanj »

0x5FC3 wrote: post #18

Social media companies post record earnings year after year from their ads business while increasingly proving to be harmful to society. They do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots while priming the algorithms to maximize revenue. The good ol' privatized profits, socialized harm model. In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? M…

Is this not a Straw Man, as I'm hearing you say "they do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots" whereas if as the title of the article claims, meta is instead "blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences" then the problem is that the content moderation itself is the problem, not "not doing enough" in content moderation.

It's their content moderation and perhaps bot policies causing damage.

I have first hand experience with how harmful their policies were during the SARS-COV-2 era, where I and peers who shared about health practices we were following with decades of experience to help improve our health were moderated and censored due to Facebook policies.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#48

Post by philipallstar »

0x5FC3 wrote: post #18

Social media companies post record earnings year after year from their ads business while increasingly proving to be harmful to society. They do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots while priming the algorithms to maximize revenue. The good ol' privatized profits, socialized harm model. In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? M…

This is the exact opposite of what you think. The problem is the governments in those places, and not the private company. The private company would gladly connect everyone.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#49

Post by xinu2020 »

haritha-j wrote: post #34
graemep wrote: post #3

The title should read "Saudi Arabia". Cutting a country name in half (unless its an accepted way of abbreviating it) is not a good say of modifying a headline. What is next? Zealand ?

Some people I know from Saudi Arabia refer to it as Saudi, so maybe thats the better word? I've never heard anyone call it Arabia.

KSA works too and matches UAE pattern.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#50

Post by ReptileMan »

p-e-w wrote: post #9
skeledrew wrote: post #2

Well, it's that or the accounts get removed completely. Sometimes you have to pick your fight, and this doesn't look like one that's worth it.

Not true, there’s a third option: Stop operating in those countries. Which used to be a common choice for tech companies, until it somehow became unthinkable for some reason.

It's called shareholders. When you need a single person with a single share to be able to sue the company for not doing its fiduciary duty that is the result.
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