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Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

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Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#351

Post by slg »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #334
arandomhuman wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do they have a choice? Yes, they absolutely have a choice. People can choose to not assist with transgressions against human rights in the year 2026 :)

[flagged]

>Meta is not people, it's a publicly traded company that's practically legally required to make money and grow infinitely.

Has a company ever faced any sort of legal repercussions for sacrificing profit for moral reasons? That isn't rhetorical. I'm not aware of this ever happening, so I'm dubious of your claim.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#352

Post by alistairSH »

EA-3167 wrote: post #339
slg wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point societies are going to have to reckon with the fact that democracy, free speech, and unrestricted capitalism simply aren't a sustainable mix. A system that allows people to amass incredible fortunes and use those fortunes to influence other people's beliefs and votes is simply a system that will eventually fall under the control of those ultrawealthy people.

What’s your more effective, less flawed alternative with a proven track record?

It's not an either/or situation... we can improve on the capitalist system we have today (in the US) through government policy (taxes, whatever). I fear we're actually too late, and ceded too ,much influence to the billionaire class, but that's not totally proven out yet.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#353

Post by shimman »

dotcoma wrote: post #148
fnordpiglet wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don’t. I remember when the internet would (it did!) and Usenet would (it did!) and irc and open source and the web (they did!) but social media was always about entertainment and (one way or another) monetization of those technologies. It’s the cancer of our collective mind and achievements.

Here you go. https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/08/the-twitter-devolution/ See also... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evalu... And these lies, of course, were spread by the social media platforms themselves and their PR departments.

Yes, this is known as manufacturing consent.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#355

Post by Razengan »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #224
yojo wrote: post #102

Earlier 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.

Why don't you be a better parent or just repress your own child instead of oppressing everyone else's children whether they want to or not?

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#356

Post by michaelmrose »

EA-3167 wrote: post #339
slg wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point societies are going to have to reckon with the fact that democracy, free speech, and unrestricted capitalism simply aren't a sustainable mix. A system that allows people to amass incredible fortunes and use those fortunes to influence other people's beliefs and votes is simply a system that will eventually fall under the control of those ultrawealthy people.

What’s your more effective, less flawed alternative with a proven track record?

Marginal tax rates on income and wealth that make being a billionaire impossible? The US was prosperous with much higher marginal tax rates for instance.

We should treat existing fortunes as bugs and correct them.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#357

Post by macintux »

krapp wrote: post #132
dotcoma wrote: post #118

Remember when they told us that social media would "spread democracy" ?

It can and does. The power of social media to spread ideas and accelerate political action is why fascists took it over and co-opted it. That's why we're fed the narrative that social media is evil and needs to be regulated or banned at all costs.

> That's why we're fed the narrative that social media is evil and needs to be regulated or banned at all costs.

Social media prioritizing algorithms that feed off division and anger is evil.

If Facebook & Twitter were still ways to simply keep in touch with friends, family, and interest groups, I don't think anyone would care (other than the ads).

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#358

Post by 8eye »

eloisius wrote: post #227
8eye wrote: post #210

Put social media onto torrent. Make reshares a seed, have it where users can use their device or a remote device to hold the seed.

This is sort of what Scuttlebutt did. You receive and distribute posts by anyone you follow, creating a decentralized network, not just a federated one. I enjoyed checking it out briefly a few years ago, but there really wasn’t that much to see, and it would randomly cause your computer to run hot and eat up gigs of storage. I also worry about inadvertently storing copies of illegal images on this kind of network.

That’s the beauty of this design, you only seed what you share. If something is not worth seeding, you don’t share it. You are only responsible for the seed you selected to reseed. That also acts as a verifier in case someone edits the comment later on. You put an id based on the timestamp and every user uses a signature that allows others to verify original source. The client could theoretically auto trust certain signatures if it is proven to be from a trusted user.

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#359

Post by looneysquash »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #334
arandomhuman wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do they have a choice? Yes, they absolutely have a choice. People can choose to not assist with transgressions against human rights in the year 2026 :)

[flagged]

And companies are legal fiction. Meta doesn't remove a post, a person does. Or maybe some software built by a person.

A person from a government told a person at Meta to block it, and that person did (probably by telling yet more people to do it).

Re: Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE

#360

Post by Georgelemental »

somenameforme wrote: post #338
nailer wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi could - I think people accept Saudi is a religious oligarchy - but the UAE is a playground of international people avoiding tax and ostensibly a first world country, Facebook being banned would highlight how ridiculous the government that did that is.

It's an authoritarian autocracy. I'm not using that as a slur against them as it seems like quite a nice place to stay for a while, but it's simply what it is. An American spent the better part of a year in a max security prison there for the high crime of making a video mocking youth culture. [1] I'm rather surprised to find out that Facebook isn't already banned! In looking it up turns out you can get into legal tr…

Even disregarding the ability to criticize the government, Western expats seeking 0% tax want to be able to talk with their family, friends, and business partners elsewhere in the world. UAE banning Meta platforms reduces the country's appeal for foreigners
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