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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

#61
post #18

Social 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…

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 private company would gladly connect everyone.

they do plenty of completely arbitrary censorship voluntarily. no government had mandated the frenzied erasure of certain viewpoints during certain events of 2020-2023, for example.

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

#64

Earlier 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 problem is the governments in those places, and not the private company. Do you think Meta will comply if North Korea or Iran requests same censorship? If your answer is "No, they will not comply", then problem is the company

Does Meta do business in either of those jurisdictions?

If the answer is “No”, then it makes sense they would not follow laws they do not have to.

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

#65

Earlier 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 private company would gladly connect everyone. they do plenty of completely arbitrary censorship voluntarily. no government had mandated the frenzied erasure of certain viewpoints during certain events of 2020-2023, for example.

Which viewpoints?

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

#66
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not a Straw Man, as I'm hearing you say "they do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots" whereas if as the title of the article claims, meta is instead "blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences" then the problem is that the content moderation itself is the problem, not "not doing enough" in content moderation. It's their content moderation and perhaps bot policies causing damage.…

Buddy... Are you a doctor? Are you a scientist? Why do you think that you have an inalienable right to proselytize your "health practices" on a public forum? My experience was that there wasn't nearly enough moderation on social media about Covid. The absurd amount of misinformation was the final straw that finally got me to leave Facebook and Instagram.

How about we first ask what the practices are before we judge the practices?

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

#67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not a Straw Man, as I'm hearing you say "they do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots" whereas if as the title of the article claims, meta is instead "blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences" then the problem is that the content moderation itself is the problem, not "not doing enough" in content moderation. It's their content moderation and perhaps bot policies causing damage.…

Buddy... Are you a doctor? Are you a scientist? Why do you think that you have an inalienable right to proselytize your "health practices" on a public forum? My experience was that there wasn't nearly enough moderation on social media about Covid. The absurd amount of misinformation was the final straw that finally got me to leave Facebook and Instagram.

The problem during the pandemic was, even health professionals' personal accounts got censored. It was hectic.

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

#68
post #18

Social 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…

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.

Public companies want only one thing, and it’s disgusting.

But seriously, they would gladly connect three people and leave everyone else out if it were most profitable. The fact freedom, such as it still is, is unevenly distributed is no excuse and we are not obligated to shrug and go, “Eh, what do you want this super valuable corporation to do?” We make it valuable as human beings. It should have a responsibility toward us. The fact it does not is a flaw in the system, not a fact of life.

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

#69

Well, it's that or the accounts get removed completely. Sometimes you have to pick your fight, and this doesn't look like one that's worth it.

The third option is to ignore them and let them block you. In a democracy this causes lots of public outrage and might be reversed. Not sure how it goes in authoritarian monarchies.

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

#70

Earlier 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 problem is the governments in those places, and not the private company. Do you think Meta will comply if North Korea or Iran requests same censorship? If your answer is "No, they will not comply", then problem is the company

It's more complicated than that. The US government is currently at war with Iran, alongside UAE and the Saudis as allies. Meta is a US company.

I'd say the US government is more important to Meta than either the UAE or Saudi government. What do you think US government people are saying to Meta about this?

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