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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

#91

Post by dilap »

notahacker wrote: post #84
dilap wrote: post #81

A side-effect of actions like this is it makes it much easier for governments themselves to justify censorship or internet restrictions. See, e.g., this interview by Der Spiegel w/ the president of Uganda: > DER SPIEGEL: Observers complain that they have been denied access to social media. > Museveni: If you're talking about the all-powerful rulers of Facebook, I can tell you it was the other way around. Facebook blo…

Governments have been justifying internet restrictions since before Facebook was an idea. If Facebook had a policy of absolute tolerance of political speech in Uganda it would have been just as easy a segue to "security reasons... misinformation". Even the developed and democratic world doesn't look to the US, still less US corporations, as an actual inspiration for its policies on speech.

Sure, there has always been & always will be a tug-of-war, but I think the dominant social media institutions quite blatently engaging in political censorship certainly has to be a help to those tugging for the censorship side.

It's true without FB's actions, Museveni could've immediately started with "security reasons & dsinformation", but that would've been a far weaker answer.

> Even the developed and democratic world doesn't look to the US, still less US corporations, as an actual inspiration for its policies on speech.

The trend everywhere, it seems to me, is to look to China for inspiration on speech policies.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#92

Post by geitir »

Andrex wrote: post #88
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.…

Something's going to change, soon. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...

Censoring an entire continent*

As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the article imo is now trash

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#93

Post by jryle70 »

sep_field wrote: post #79
bko wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race Billions of people find value in facebook and use it daily. Who are you to make that call?

They'll be able to find value in nonmonopolized and nonalgorithmic versions of the services that Facebook has gobbled up, just like they did before Facebook existed. I'm not making that call, I'm making a prediction and hoping it comes true, and contributing to a discussion that may possibly, in some small way, contribute to it coming true. If you look around this thread, you'll notice some other people that seem to…

Incredibly narrow minded. FB page is a godsend for a lot of small businesses, especially during the pandemic.

A friend of mine's 85 year old mom post her activities daily on FB. Great joy and peace of mind for my friend, as they live ocean apart. The old lady wouldn't gonna stop using FB, or wait for a different platform that suits your world view.

By all means, work on a better solution, don't just speak up if you feel strongly about it. My apologies if I don't take it very well idealistic view that disregards other people's way of life.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#94

Post by justinclift »

bko wrote: post #77
sep_field wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race Billions of people find value in facebook and use it daily. Who are you to make that call?

Just because other people don't agree with that call, doesn't mean he's not allowed to have an opinion.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#95

Post by newacct583 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #68
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...

I think you are misunderstand the point of Facebook's actions. The purpose is not to harm or pressure the Burmese military authorities - Its to virtue signal to left-leaning activists in the USA and other Western Countries. Technology companies have dug themselves into a hole of censorship and deplatforming, and they have no choice but to keep digging.

Only "left-leaning" people oppose the Myanmar coup?

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#96

Post by quietbritishjim »

sep_field wrote: post #42
quietbritishjim wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

Facebook runs a huge amount of different services. Some of them have value, but they are ones that people had and have other alternatives for. This doesn't mean that Facebook as a whole has value, as the whole is more evil than the sum of its parts. Anything of value will not be lost as we de-Facebook the planet. Also, the original use case of Facebook was for Mark and his buddies to rate the attractiveness of their…

Ah, I think I see... you're saying that Facebook is an overall net negative to society. Even you now acknowledge that it has some uses, but you consider them to be outweighted by its negatives.

Your original comment made out that Facebook has no uses at all. I think you were just trying to really emphasise your point that it's a net benefit overall, but you've ended up saying something totally different. I know that sounds pedantic but it undermines your point because most people will read its literal meaning (like I did) and then just think, oh, this comment is factually incorrect.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#97

Post by notahacker »

dilap wrote: post #91
notahacker wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments have been justifying internet restrictions since before Facebook was an idea. If Facebook had a policy of absolute tolerance of political speech in Uganda it would have been just as easy a segue to "security reasons... misinformation". Even the developed and democratic world doesn't look to the US, still less US corporations, as an actual inspiration for its policies on speech.

Sure, there has always been & always will be a tug-of-war, but I think the dominant social media institutions quite blatently engaging in political censorship certainly has to be a help to those tugging for the censorship side. It's true without FB's actions, Museveni could've immediately started with "security reasons & dsinformation", but that would've been a far weaker answer. > Even the developed and democratic w…

A dictatorial leader who has censored the press in his country since before the internet existed, like the dictators before him, does not need "help" in justifying censorship.

> The trend everywhere, it seems to me, is to look to China for inspiration on speech policies.

And yet there is more access to less censored media in most parts of the world than at any point in human history.

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#98

Post by sep_field »

justinclift wrote: post #94
bko wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race Billions of people find value in facebook and use it daily. Who are you to make that call?

Just because other people don't agree with that call, doesn't mean he's not allowed to have an opinion.

I appreciate your support in this discussion, but please don't assume my gender. My pronouns are they/them. Thank you!

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#99

Post by [deleted] »

jryle70 wrote: post #93
sep_field wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be able to find value in nonmonopolized and nonalgorithmic versions of the services that Facebook has gobbled up, just like they did before Facebook existed. I'm not making that call, I'm making a prediction and hoping it comes true, and contributing to a discussion that may possibly, in some small way, contribute to it coming true. If you look around this thread, you'll notice some other people that seem to…

Incredibly narrow minded. FB page is a godsend for a lot of small businesses, especially during the pandemic. A friend of mine's 85 year old mom post her activities daily on FB. Great joy and peace of mind for my friend, as they live ocean apart. The old lady wouldn't gonna stop using FB, or wait for a different platform that suits your world view. By all means, work on a better solution, don't just speak up if you f…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military

#100

Post by fallingfrog »

It really does seem that this time, it wasn’t the United States that was responsible for the coup. If we were responsible you would see a lot of high level politicians on both sides saying that they were pleased that the people of Myanmar had overthrown a terrible despot (we do this even when, and especially when, the previous “despot” was democratically elected). And then you would see previously unavailable resources being opened up to the west. But this is not what is happening here; it looks to be just a power play by Myanmar’s military leadership.

Interestingly, Costa Rica went as far as to disband their entire army because in a poor and unstable state, having any military can actually be a big liability in terms of having frequent coups.

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