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

Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 164 posts

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#111

Post by intricatedetail »

asxd wrote: post #48
aminozuur wrote: post #20

What about the US military's FB page? Didn't they cause thousands of innocent deaths in Iraq? I'm sure some Americans can somehow justify it, but I doubt the grieving Iraqi's will accept it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massa...

The difference is the Myanmar military was killing their own citizens. A country's military firing live rounds on their own citizens with seemingly no remorse is different than a country's military committing violence in foreign countries. I'm certainly not condoning either example of military force presented here, but the duty of the military should ultimately be to preserve their citizens. Killing its own citizens…

The US is inprisoning drug users en masse and forces them to provide labour. That does not directly kill people but prevents them from living it the way they want which is somewhat similar in effect, not to mention all the suicides or related gang violence. Not much different to be honest. Army let politicians get boatloads of cash from prison and pharma industry to keep up the war on citizens. Wake up.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#112

Post by sep_field »

rib3ye wrote: post #105
sillysaurusx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is a realistic worldview though. This supposes there will be a facebook competitor. As the decades march on, perhaps there will be, but it might not be till we're long gone. There still isn't a competitor to Google, for example. Parler was a competitor to Twitter, and you saw how that played out. The next competitor is going to have to deal with that quandary.

You can still create an account and use Parler.

...and be on an FBI watch list.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#113

Post by freeburma »

DanBC wrote: post #108
freeburma wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the elected civilian government has zero control or decisions or power over the military and border affairs (border affairs, home affairs ministry controlled by military). So when ARSA or AA attack military outposts and police stations, and the Myanmar military chooses to shell villages, kill civilians, and commit war crimes, causing a refugee crisis (or “genocide” as westerners like to throw around) at no poi…

Can you link me to any statements she's made where she condemns the genocidal actions of the military?

Read her statement she made at ICJ. I think you’ll find the situation is more complex than the simple narrative the international media presents.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/12/transcript-aung-sa...

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#114

Post by notahacker »

dilap wrote: post #103
notahacker wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dictatorial leader who has censored the press in his country since before the internet existed, like the dictators before him, does not need "help" in justifying censorship. > The trend everywhere, it seems to me, is to look to China for inspiration on speech policies. And yet there is more access to less censored media in most parts of the world than at any point in human history.

The question is, if the giant US internet companies acted more in alignment w/ the speech values the US professes to believe in (at least when convenient), would that contribute to those values being more widely adopted? You're taking the position that no, it wouldn't make any difference, other entities will just do what they were going to do anyway. But I don't think the US example is entirely without influence. Eve…

> The question is, if the giant US internet companies acted more in alignment w/ the speech values the US professes to believe in (at least when convenient), would that contribute to those values being more widely adopted?

No. Why would people and parties who have journalists arrested and tortured become true believers in freedom of political speech because a foreign website allows it? Big Tech's social media actually has skewed quite close to US censorship norms (i.e. you can censor anything you like but be very careful if it claims to be political) for most of its existence and the results are not something most liberal democracies see as admirable, never mind paternalistic ultraconservative countries or outright dictatorships.

> Now, in reaction, we are seeing rising censorship (since the internet suddenly made speech much more available and powerful)

It's not "rising censorship" because a couple of companies decided EULA policies they'd enforced with varying degrees of consistency against everyone else since the beginning also applied to mouthpieces of the POTUS or the Burmese military. Censorship has been around everywhere forever, and claims a website which has long censored people for not using their real name or showing a nipple has stepped into unacceptable censorship when reasons for bans were political violence is a very narrow, US-centric concept of "rising censorship" that apart from anything else is highly unlikely to convince most cultures that "rising censorship" would be a bad thing.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#116

Post by [deleted] »

angio wrote: post #51
asxd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the Myanmar military was killing their own citizens. A country's military firing live rounds on their own citizens with seemingly no remorse is different than a country's military committing violence in foreign countries. I'm certainly not condoning either example of military force presented here, but the duty of the military should ultimately be to preserve their citizens. Killing its own citizens…

Should Facebook then close Police departments pages? They're killing fellow citizens and they're doing that more than any other Police force in the west.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#117

Post by wutbrodo »

newacct583 wrote: post #95
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misunderstand the point of Facebook's actions. The purpose is not to harm or pressure the Burmese military authorities - Its to virtue signal to left-leaning activists in the USA and other Western Countries. Technology companies have dug themselves into a hole of censorship and deplatforming, and they have no choice but to keep digging.

Only "left-leaning" people oppose the Myanmar coup?

The details of the coup aren't understood or cared about that deeply by American discourse. But the idea that it's trivial and salutary to identify and ban "bad" or "dangerous" speech is decisively left-coded right now, in exactly the way similar impulses were right-coded during periods of rightwing political dominance (immediately post-9/11, parts of the Cold War, etc)

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#118

Post by wutbrodo »

freeburma wrote: post #47
georgebarnett wrote: post #16

I remain convinced that Facebook is incrementally scrubbing news and politics from their platform.

Ah yes, the travesty of murderous thugs shooting their own citizens having their Facebook page taken down. What ever has the world come to.

I love this comment. It captures the current political moment like lightning in a bottle, dominated by simpletons who think every action exists in its own sandboxed parallel universe and can be judged without reference to weakening norms or downstream effects in a dynamic system. Truly a work of art.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#119

Post by [deleted] »

newacct583 wrote: post #95
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misunderstand the point of Facebook's actions. The purpose is not to harm or pressure the Burmese military authorities - Its to virtue signal to left-leaning activists in the USA and other Western Countries. Technology companies have dug themselves into a hole of censorship and deplatforming, and they have no choice but to keep digging.

Only "left-leaning" people oppose the Myanmar coup?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#120

Post by nix23 »

freeburma wrote: post #109
nix23 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again why then are they investigated, your story sound too easy and one-sided, if you dont have an argument, you just say "we can just speculate." Fact is: -Aung San Suu Kyi defended actively a genocide for not being one, while speaking in The Hague. -The civilian government was informed and partially included in the genocide. Both points are fact, and NOT speculations.

What, exactly, do you mean by the “civilian government was partially included in the genocide?” The military does not take orders from civilian government, it’s the other way around. Civilian gov has no legal or de facto control over Tatmadaw, or border control, or home affairs (police, courts). There is no civilian legislative control over Rakhine operations. Tatmadaw just does whatever they wants. And anyone who sp…

>>A day earlier, in yet another legal challenge, a Rohingya rights group launched a case calling on courts in Argentina to prosecute military and civilian officials – including Aung San Suu Kyi – under the concept of universal jurisdiction, which pushes for domestic courts to investigate international crimes.

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/anaylsis/2019/11/21/Myanm...

https://burmacampaign.org.uk/argentinean-courts-urged-to-pro...

>If AASK spoke against them they would have imprisoned her again

She could just stay at the Haag and tell the truth...how about that?

Post reply on HN