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

121–130 of 164 posts

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#121

Post by wutbrodo »

dagorenouf wrote: post #61

Facebook should really come down from their high horses and let legal entities decide of stuff like this. They're a utility. (not saying that in a bad way, becoming a utility is the ultimate startup achievement)

>Facebook should really come down from their high horses and let legal entities decide of stuff like this

If you've followed this conversation at all for the last 5-10 years, there's no way it makes sense to think that these decisions are somehow driven by Facebook'(or any tech company's) desires. Leaving aside the intense liberal values personally held by Zuckerbeg, Page, Brin, Dorsey, et al, the responsibility for speech policing is a can of worms that the tech platforms have been consistently and loudly opposed to. It's the baying of illiberal lunatics (primarily on the left, in recent years) and the associated PR and regulatory threats that have forced them into this position.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#122

Post by dilap »

notahacker wrote: post #114
dilap wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 actuall…

Absent the ability to the split the universe and do a proper experiment, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about likely wider impacts of places like FB engaging in political censorship.

If you read carefully, you'll notice I'm not making claims one way or the other about the goodness of the censorship. I think a rising demand for censorship is a predictable reaction to technology enhancing the power of speech.

I would not say trend of speech restriction is limited to social media giants. E.g., the US is attempting to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, which, if successful, will, in the words of the NY Times, "open the door to criminalizing activities that are crucial to American investigative journalists who write about national security matters".

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#123

Post by nodesocket »

sep_field wrote: post #59
reimertz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would yoy be interested in doing an AMA? Seems like you have a lot to say and I'd be down to listen.

I'm not really wanting to accumulate a fanbase that's interested in my opinions just because I have them, and I doubt I have anything worthwhile to say about just any random question. I add my contributions where I think I have something worthwhile to say -- if others appreciate my contribution as well that's a win-win. Thanks for your interest, its flattering, but I don't see an AMA working out.

In this post, you also commented (but deleted now):

> Fuck small businesses. Fuck big businesses too. Death to capitalism.

Perhaps you’d enjoy Venezuela. As a small business owner myself I don’t take too kindly to this comment, but would like to offer some advice.

Maybe go out and start a business or cause your passionate about and that interests you. This anti-capitalism / business attitude negativity is toxic for you. I’ve traveled pretty decently all over the world and yet to find a country that provides the opportunity of the US. You can literally do most anything you want, and it sounds like you being a previous FB employee you are super smart and probably not desperate for income in the short term.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#124

Post by phabora »

nix23 wrote: post #46

It's interesting, Aung San Suu Kyi (with a freedom nobel-price) is/was responsible for the expulsion, killing and raping of rohingya's. But when the military takes over that's a big nono. BTW: Hitler was also democratically elected, wouldn't have been the worst thing if the Wehrmacht made a coup then, like for example "operation valkyrie".

Is it interesting? You leave out any argument for the implied statement that the democratically illegitimate government will be better for the Rohingya people. Presumably any coup is better than no coup.

I think that is interesting.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#125

Post by phabora »

nix23 wrote: post #66
freeburma wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t feel like arguing with people who don’t really know anything about Burma or her situation. She had no involvement in the military’s decisions in Rakhine state. Yes, she defended the perpetrators at ICJ, either as part of a political strategy of reconciliation with military, or because she just felt like defending them because she secretly likes what happened. You guess which explanation is more likely.

>I don’t feel like arguing with people who don’t really know anything about Burma or her situation. And i don't feel like arguing with someone who defends a genocide denier, and explains it with "who don’t really know anything about Burma or her situation". >either as part of a political strategy of reconciliation with military, or because she just felt like defending them because she secretly likes what happened. Yo…

This is pure hysterics. You have to back up what you say with arguments.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#126

Post by SonicScrub »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #15

The outrage people have about censorship wouldn't be that big if those companies simply stated "we censor opinions we don't like, and we censor for political reasons" in their terms of service. Instead they create the outrage by having vague rules about what is allowed and not allowed on the platform and then, on top of that, start enforcing those rules selectively.

They won't because the Social Media platforms prerogative for bans isn't ideological, or to be consistent. Their sole purpose to do what's best for themselves. Therefore they benefit from having vague, ill-defined rules that allow for selective enforcement.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#127

Post by Larrikin »

hntcz wrote: post #34
sep_field wrote: post #26

I'm in favor of Facebook taking down absolutely any page, whether it agrees with my political views or not. Why? Because Facebook's power comes from network effects. The more people, across the political spectrum, find their interests to be blocked on Facebook, the less people will find value in Facebook in general. Over time, this means Facebook is committing suicide. This is the best possible outcome for humanity.…

I get what you are saying but don't you think that Facebook selectively taking down some pages based on political considerations actually increases their power and not decreases it?

Like when Infowars, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the Parler community as a whole, became more popular and enjoyed popularity for years on end after they got banned?

Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about a month.

Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets presented. People wise up and peel off.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#128

Post by jtdev »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #39
sep_field wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex and Bing, two other competitors to Google. Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race. Same with Twitter. We don't need them, and we don't need competition for them. They should go away with no replacement. Source: was Facebook engineer. Listened to Fuckerberg make one too many all-hands speeches about engagement. Resigned several year…

The practical reality is that sharing photos of some group event with the other people at that event is easy in Facebook, and hard to imagine how to do that without some analogous service. I'm aware that many people use Facebook for other odd things but this was Facebook's original use case, and the literal source of its name, and it is still useful for that. Even if you could come up with some alternative or even de…

Why not just use iOS Messages or whatever Android app Google has anointed for the next 15 minutes for messaging?

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#129

Post by ergocoder »

dagorenouf wrote: post #61

Facebook should really come down from their high horses and let legal entities decide of stuff like this. They're a utility. (not saying that in a bad way, becoming a utility is the ultimate startup achievement)

If you follow this topic, it has been clear that FB and Twitter do not want to be the decider of truth.

They want to be a utility for communication. They would much prefer government decide it.

But many people are like "government being the decider of truth" is bad.

So this is where we are at; the private companies can ban whomever it wants and play the decider of truth.

Post reply on HN