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Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

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Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#61

Post by traverseda »

KaiserPro wrote: post #52
traverseda wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be protected by safe harbour provisions, or you can editorialise your content. I don't think you should have both. Free speech does not cover scams and fraud, something that happens on their platform. Society doesn't take any action against them for publishing illegal content, scams, libel, fraud, because they aren't a newspaper. They're more like a newspaper printing house. In my opinion they should probably…

> You can be protected by safe harbour provisions, or you can editorialise your content. Aha, now this is an interesting distinction. I'm not an expert in this, as you might imagine, but what counts as editorialising? To my naive eyes, having an algorithm that re-arranges posts, or injects new subjects seems like editorialising to me.

I'm also not a lawyer, I was making that as a more vague moral distinction on the topic of free speech and accountability.

For practical reasons I think those algorithms are absolutely necessary. We need spam filters. A good line to draw would be "bring your own algorithm". A technical challenge to be sure, bit breaking up social media backend providers and content filtering seems like one of the only safe ways to allow these massive platforms to exist.

The algorithm can be just "Dan filters out spam".

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#62

Post by warumdarum »

Tyrubias wrote: post #13

In a sane world, the US as a supposed bastion of free speech and personal liberties would enact legislation that requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts due to rules violations and offer everyone the chance to appeal. That would serve as a counterbalance to more authoritarian regimes insisting companies like Meta censor people, even if the US can’t guarantee it for people…

[dead]

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#64

Post by NetOpWibby »

benoau wrote: post #37
Tyrubias wrote: post #13

In a sane world, the US as a supposed bastion of free speech and personal liberties would enact legislation that requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts due to rules violations and offer everyone the chance to appeal. That would serve as a counterbalance to more authoritarian regimes insisting companies like Meta censor people, even if the US can’t guarantee it for people…

Unfortunately we live in a world where any attempt to regulate "big tech" is met by massive campaigns to prevent it.

Just realizing that being a lobbyist is job security these days

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#65

Post by regularization »

spwa4 wrote: post #53
737min wrote: post #11

Context: the popular account is a promoter of Muslim Brotherhood, banned by US and many Mideast countries.

It goes quite a bit further: the Muslim Brotherhood are fascists (as in actual fascists) and (religous) racists, of the supremacist kind. They are in control of the most famous university in islamic countries: Al-Azhar. Long ago they were a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and today are known for being the parent organization of Hamas and they are supporting the genocide in Sudan (meaning they are sponsoring Arabs committi…

[flagged]

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#67

Post by TulliusCicero »

traverseda wrote: post #30
KaiserPro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts wouldn't that violate free speech though? forcing a company to keep something up/take something down is entirely up to them no?

You can be protected by safe harbour provisions, or you can editorialise your content. I don't think you should have both. Free speech does not cover scams and fraud, something that happens on their platform. Society doesn't take any action against them for publishing illegal content, scams, libel, fraud, because they aren't a newspaper. They're more like a newspaper printing house. In my opinion they should probably…

> You can be protected by safe harbour provisions, or you can editorialise your content. I don't think you should have both.

That's hilariously impractical. Just because you want to and can moderate some things doesn't mean you can guarantee rapid moderation of illegal stuff. When your platform is nominally open to everyone, and has millions of users, that just doesn't work out well.

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#68

Post by TulliusCicero »

ptdcc wrote: post #25
Tyrubias wrote: post #13

In a sane world, the US as a supposed bastion of free speech and personal liberties would enact legislation that requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts due to rules violations and offer everyone the chance to appeal. That would serve as a counterbalance to more authoritarian regimes insisting companies like Meta censor people, even if the US can’t guarantee it for people…

[flagged]

Free speech is fundamentally about the government restricting your speech, not private platforms. There is no constitutional right to post on Facebook.

Amazing how certain people do their best to ignore this, every single time.

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#69

Post by rock_artist »

I see a lot of discourse but without much context. With HN, I'd expect people to have more context than bashing what feels more politics than reviewing a banned or censored (still need more context).

All I can find which isn't enough (at least for me), to have an educated conclusion is the following:

Tweet re-tweeting Ahmed Shihab-Eldin:

"After weeks of trying to regain access to my @instagram account, which was temporarily suspended by @accessnow while I was wrongfully detained, I FINALLY got a backup code which allowed me to login only to receive this prompt that my account has been permanently disabled"

Access Now - that I can understand works for human rights. https://www.accessnow.org/about-us/

English Wikipedia:

"On March 3, 2026, Shihab-Eldin was detained by Kuwaiti authorities for resharing news articles about the Iran war;[13][17] the previous day, he had posted images of a U.S. fighter jet crashing over the country.[18] The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that he had not been seen publicly in Kuwait, where he was visiting family, since March 2, and that he was under arrest over accusations of "spreading false information," "harming national security" and "misusing his mobile phone;"[13][19] the incident occurred as part of a wider wave of crackdowns targeting journalists across different Gulf states amid the war."

Then mentioning his Kuwaiti citizenship was revoked on 29th of April 2026 and earlier some implicit hint? he was released. (though he's American born so I can assume he also has a US Citizenship unless he gave it away at some point)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Shihab-Eldin

https://www.ahmedshihabeldin.com/

I see he has been a journalist and activist over the years within context of the Middle East.

But if someone have more details about why he was blocked it would be much more helpful to understand this story.

Re: Meta deletes popular 1M follower account after Kuwaiti request

#70

Post by michaelmrose »

KaiserPro wrote: post #21
Tyrubias wrote: post #13

In a sane world, the US as a supposed bastion of free speech and personal liberties would enact legislation that requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts due to rules violations and offer everyone the chance to appeal. That would serve as a counterbalance to more authoritarian regimes insisting companies like Meta censor people, even if the US can’t guarantee it for people…

> requires companies to provide a specific, articulable reason for suspending accounts wouldn't that violate free speech though? forcing a company to keep something up/take something down is entirely up to them no?

No. We compel and restrict commercial speech all the time.
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