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Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#31

Post by qart »

wil421 wrote: post #27
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...

Why even bring this up? Whataboutism is a very shallow argument.

Well, aminozuur is pointing out hypocrisy. Facebook is not applying the same rules to everyone. That is bad. That aside, my own views are similar to sep_field's... with the exception that I would silently prefer Facebook to go away, without explaining why I'd like that.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#32

Post by f6v »

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...

An American company will always be a mouthpiece for American propaganda. Not saying whether it’s right or wrong, it’s just the way it is.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#33

Post by sillysaurusx »

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'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.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#34

Post by hntcz »

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?

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#35

Post by ginko »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #33
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'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.

> This supposes there will be a facebook competitor

Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#36

Post by eternalban »

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?

Only if they are permitted to maintain a pseudo-monopolistic position in their market. So their own self destructive behavior, coupled with legal and societal push for options in the social network market.

The legal aspect may include legislation to forbid governmental organs and/or employees (of note) to use platforms such as FB and Twitter to disseminate and or engage the "public". If they engage the "public" then the platform must be open to "public" without restriction.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#37

Post by sillysaurusx »

ginko wrote: post #35
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.

> This supposes there will be a facebook competitor Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.

Those on social media are more powerful than those off it. The most obvious example is that large Twitter audiences can be monetized, whether by selling a book or asking for Patreon subscribers. That seems to imply social media is here to stay, in one form or another.

It's a bit of a "rules for rulers" paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the sense that power structures exist independently of whether we like them or not.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#38

Post by sep_field »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #33
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'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.

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 years ago.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#39

Post by quietbritishjim »

sep_field wrote: post #38
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.

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 decentralised way of doing that, this doesn't change the fact that you're addressing the purpose of Facebook, rather than proving your claim that "it serves no purpose". At university (pre-Facebook) I had a friend who ran a Facebook-like server for sharing photos amongst our group of friends. That need was already there and strong enough he wrote code for it.

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