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Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

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Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#31

Post by efdee »

nils-m-holm wrote: post #8

Communicate. Really, "terrorists" usually have the same goals as "we" do: peace, respect, safety, prosperity. If we stopped pretending that "we" are right and "they" are wrong, the problem might go away in the long run. Note that I do not approve of the terrorist approach to communication but, maybe, they just have no other way of making themselves heard, so if we listened, they might start talking instead of bombing…

This might be valid for a very limited subset of terrorists, but the kinds we are seeing today (IS, Boko Haram, ...) do not have these goals. Their main goals are the eradication of dissenters and the collecting of power over others.

If you blow up people waiting in line in an airport, going to a concert, or visiting a nightclub, you are dead wrong. There is not much wiggle room here.

If everyone who feels they are don't have a way of making themselves heard (whether or not that thought is valid) just starts harming unrelated people, we can just do away with society completely.

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#33

Post by JohnStrangeII »

avaer wrote: post #7

This post makes it seem like Facebook subscribes to the theory that hiding unpleasant content prevents terrorism, and that there is universal global agreement on what counts as terrorism. Is there any scientific literature that supports this? The post seems to treat it as a foregone conclusion and declares war on that basis, but I would love to see the research before deciding whether I agree with what they're doing.

I agree that unfortunately the official definitions of terrorism are whacky and often colored by political or geostrategical evaluations, but there is one that works: Terrorists are persons who directly and intentionally target noncombatant civilians as a means to achieve political goals. IMHO, this is the best definition and captures what we ordinarily mean by 'terrorist'. It does make certain acts that are classified as terrorist non-terrorist, e.g. Taleban attacking a military base are not terrorists by that definition, and it also classifies other acts as terrorist that have previously not been regarded as such, e.g. maybe drone strikes with consistently more civilian deaths than enemy combatants are acts of state-terrorism according to that definition. (The latter depends on ones interpretation of the so-called 'doctrine of double effect' and definition of intentional actions.)

So there is a good definition FB could use. That being said, I can't figure out why companies ought to fulfill the role of judges, especially not proactively. It's not their business and they have no expertise in it, and there are conflicts of interests. If some content or website is illegal, then it should be investigated by the police and closed down under judicial oversight. If it's not illegal, then it should be left alone.

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#35

Post by vikascoder »

TokenDiversity wrote: post #9
im3w1l wrote: post #4

Terrorism is better than a police state. That said, hopefully "extreme vetting" will make the choice unnecessary.

Not an American (I'm a भारतीय) but as "anti-India" as Trump may be, I actually like this platform of Trump's (extreme vetting that is). I wish to return to the time when flight check-in was much faster. If 9/11 hadn't happened, we'll have more concordes and economy would be at a different place today (I know this wasn't the only reason for their demise but surely it helped) I wish our country could do something simil…

What does flight check-in times has to do with extreme vetting? US visas are already granted after extreme vetting and pre 9/11 ease of moving around is not coming back anytime soon. Concordes are not flying purely for safety and business reasons and not terrorism and sot com bubble and the 2008 market crash happened because of corporate greed which is what affects many more lives than fear and paranoia.

Our country already extremely vets, tracks the movement and stay of Pakistani nationals inside our borders. I know of a few people who have married Pakistani nationals and stay in Mumbai. They undergo the most inhumane scrutiny. You want an ankle bracelet on you when you live in the US? Terrorist attacks in India have seldom been committed by visa travellers. It has either been disgruntled natives like Tiger memon colluding with corrupt Indian officials or poor security infrastructure which leads to ttacks over water. I am sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#36

Post by badosu »

avaer wrote: post #7

This post makes it seem like Facebook subscribes to the theory that hiding unpleasant content prevents terrorism, and that there is universal global agreement on what counts as terrorism. Is there any scientific literature that supports this? The post seems to treat it as a foregone conclusion and declares war on that basis, but I would love to see the research before deciding whether I agree with what they're doing.

> This post makes it seem like Facebook subscribes to the theory that hiding unpleasant content prevents terrorism, and that there is universal global agreement on what counts as terrorism.

Terrorism is a label that is applied to any violent attack performed by (most of the time) non-state agents these days, where it should instead be used on situations where the perpetrator's intent is to instill fear on the population and get recognition on the media for their political agenda.

With this in mind and taking aside the ethics of it, not showing or at least not exaggerating news about terrorist attacks could be a good mitigation strategy (the general media would certainly do the opposite though).

Personally, my take on this post is just PR for Facebook.

[0] - http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/430497-terrorism-isn-t-a-cri... (Schneier on terrorism)

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Gq-5zISAk (Relevant Carlin)

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#37

Post by aaron-lebo »

al_chemist wrote: post #24

Harder question: Why should Facebook counter terrorism? Easy answer: Because terrorist may use it. Yes, but terrorists may use roads, buses, local grocery shops, cinemas. Should all of those places counter terrorism?

Radicalization is a very real problem. It's hard to imagine a good reason Facebook should allow ISIS propaganda videos with beheadings and torture killings on their network.

If someone was walking around a grocery store with posters of corpses and passing out literature that advocates violence, they sure as hell would and should get kicked out.

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#38

Post by JohnStrangeII »

curiousgal wrote: post #29
al_chemist wrote: post #24

Harder question: Why should Facebook counter terrorism? Easy answer: Because terrorist may use it. Yes, but terrorists may use roads, buses, local grocery shops, cinemas. Should all of those places counter terrorism?

I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less they are out there killing people.

Killing people does not take much time, terrorists are not out there killing people 24/7. It's more like once in a lifetime until they get shot by police.

Re: Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

#39

Post by hiq »

jannes wrote: post #28

[...] we have begun work on systems to enable us to take action against terrorist accounts across all our platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram. Given the limited data some of our apps collect as part of their service, the ability to share data across the whole family is indispensable to our efforts to keep all our platforms safe. Looks like they are indeed linking WhatsApp and Facebook accounts internally. Wer…

They were fined for failing to disclose that they could do this automatically and easily, not for doing it per se.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-eur...

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