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Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
231–240 of 512 posts
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have the burden of proof This isn’t how the algorithm works. It costs less than $10k to get some conspiratorial nonsense circulating nowadays, and less than $1mm to flood the zone.
Sorry, I think this got confused because you can only reply so deep. I meant conspiracy theory folks should have the burden of proof. If you're saying that's completely naive in the current climate, I agree. I am only arguing that's how we should treat commenters who seem more than 7 bubbles off plumb: ignore entirely unless they provide reason not to.
> ignore entirely unless they provide reason not to
The reason not to is they start trending and then infecting the political system. By the time anyone brings evidence to the table, the status quo has been shifted.
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#233Social 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…
The problem with this summation is the government is complicit in their actions. Thus it undermines this simple private gain, public pain argument. A lot of the times when Meta does something like this the fact the governments in question essentially demand that action seems to be ignored. Would you have a better view of corporate power if corporations could unilaterally ignore the laws of sovereign countries in whic…
> Wouldn't it normatively be more in keeping with a proper distinction between public and private to say lobby your congressman to stop the ceaseless funding and weapon deployments to countries in the ME that don't share our values?
If an individual lobbying the government wouldn't be overpowered by monied corporate interest in the government, maybe. Sadly that's not the case, at least in the US.
> The NSA has all your data anyway.
Yes, and this is incredibly unpopular and if we had a real representative democracy we'd be able to do something about it.
> In some jurisdictions you can even claim a right to be forgotten.
This too is popular and would be codified more broadly if, again, it wasn't for corporate lobbyists.
> Do you really think such public entities are more trustworthy than their private bedfellows merely because they fall on opposite lines of the public/private divide?
To beat a dead horse...
> the fact that a majority of your fellow citizens (in the USA at least) don't actually care about their (and by extension - your) privacy or human rights in the Middle East
Factually untrue.
The Iran war is incredibly unpopular, beating Iraq and Vietnam in unpopularity this quickly into the operation [1]
Most Americans want us to stop funding Israel [2]
Most Americans are against spying on fellow Americans (esp democrats/the left; tho republicans love a good ole police state)[3].
I'd argue strongly the reason these numbers aren't more in favor of anti-intervention and privacy is decades and decades of propaganda and fear mongering (about socialism/communism during the Cold War and before, about the Middle East/muslims since the oil crisis and before) because of, you guessed it, corporations lobbying for military engagement, oil contracts etc.
There is a thoroughly documented history of American corporations lobbying the government to, here is a brief list:
- Hawaiian overthrow (1893): sugar (dole, spreckles) - Spanish-American war (Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico) (1898): sugar, tobacco, shipping - Columbia/Panama (1903): canal rights - Nicaragua (1909-1933): United Fruit, banking - Honduras (1903, 1907, 1911, 1924): United Fruit and others - Dominican Republic (1916–1924, 1965): sugar again - Iran (1953): oil - Guatemala (1954): United Fruit! - Congo (1960-61): copper/cobalt - Brazil (1964): mining - Indonesia (1965–66): mining, oil - Chile (1970-73): copper - Iraq (2003): oil, war contractors - Iran (2025-26): oil, war contractors
There are many more - some more contested than others - but the above list have clear historical documentation linking them to corporate interests.
Socialism, communism, "terrorism", the war on drugs, "democracy", and Iran getting nukes have all been helpful tools for US corporations to curry influence with bought politicians to have the US colonize or dismantle other countries for their benefit.
Your analysis puts all the blame directly on citizens vs looking at root causes and the obvious successes of corporate and government propaganda on the opinions of Americans.
Let's instead look at who benefits most from these wars and try and dismantle their ability to influence opinion and government and work towards a more representational and fair government we have a say in.
[1]: https://www.natesilver.net/p/iran-war-polls-popularity-appro... [2]: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260519-poll-shows-majori... [3]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52425-what-americans-think...
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem during the pandemic was, even health professionals' personal accounts got censored. It was hectic.
Yup. My experience was this. Many professionals I knew were censored, one of the biggest was an old family friends' mentor who ultimately lost his job in Virginia. He became a big name and ultimately, sued the FDA and won money though the court sealed it I believe or there was some outcome where things couldn't be disclosed. I think those are common with big govt cases.
Source?
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral. The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral. The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral.
But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?
But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?
But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#236The 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 ?
People say "States" or even US all the time, usually forgetting the other country that has "United States" in their name.
the term "Americans" always bothered me, though it's commonly used to refer to US
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you serious? He didn't answer my question, he jumped all over me judging my choices and insinuated that I don't get enough real life human interaction.. so yes that's my response.
Yes, OP did - the alternative to social media is not more social media, which is a view shared by many. OP didn't judge you, they stated their opinion and asked you to soul search. If you truly feel that judged and offended, and I say this with kindness, perhaps you would do well to ask yourself why.
Wow okay, whatever you say man..
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m taking it as a given that any sufficiently large social network is a gigantic propaganda machine of interest to domestic and foreign nation-state actors. Entertaining the thought experiment where all the normies join the fediverse: now you’ve got a big juicy target maintained by hobbyists. When it’s Lazarus Group vs Randall, the over-worked sys admin who stood up a node in his spare time, who do you think wins? S…
> Social networks are cancer. Just ban the lot of them and move on I've been pushing for the under-14 ban, which is popular in almost every country with polling, and holy shit is it a pigpen to wade through.
Just find a good technical solution that doesn't require handing over your id, yeah?
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#239Remember when they told us that social media would "spread democracy" ?
I’ve never heard a single time social media companies say that social media would spread democracy. Sounds like a straw man to me
It was a fairly common narrative during the Arab Spring, when the technology was still relatively novel.
Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems difficult to stomp out effectively So just give up because something is hard? Sounds like the tech industry and its never-ending quest for low-hanging fruit. "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas."
I'm sorry if my comment came off dismissive, I was just remarking the idea of banning social media seems like we're going down the wrong alley. I like other commenter's ideas of outlawing the underlying tech. I'm more-so just asking how to make a distinction between a post on Reddit (commonly called social media) and a post on Stack-Overflow (not commonly referred to as social media). Discord vs Teams...etc. I think…
It still reads like a bunch of deflection, which is the usual response from industries from big oil to fast food to tobacco to pharmaceuticals.
Delay delay delay and continue reap the profits in the meantime by making people talk in circles instead of addressing the problem. Let Q4 figure it out, just keep the Q2 gravy train rolling.
Also, nobody is trying to outlaw math. That's just a silly hyperbolic talking point.