[HN Gopher] Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar military
Author : PEOPLEgetoff
Score : 135 points
Date : 2021-02-21 08:16 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| fallingfrog wrote:
| 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.
| sep_field wrote:
| 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.
|
| Die Facebook, die.
| [deleted]
| hg35h4 wrote:
| Doesn't work since big tech all works together to crush dissent
| and anything that goes against their business model.
|
| Look at how attacked any right wing site is - they go after
| their ISPs, their CDNs, their DNS registrars, their hosting
| companies.
|
| The Internet has got to the point that you cannot even operate
| a business if it goes against the "values" of big tech, or they
| chop all your arms off.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| 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.
| ginko wrote:
| > 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.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| 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.you
| tube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the
| sense that power structures exist independently of whether
| we like them or not.
| tester756 wrote:
| I completely disagree.
|
| People who manage to monetize $platform are probably
| tiny, tiny %.
|
| Also there are negative consequences of using social
| medias.
| hshshs2 wrote:
| I've seen nearly equivalent hires decided on "they have a
| large social media following" - not a critical factor,
| but a bonus that makes a difference. I almost lost my job
| protesting it.
| grumple wrote:
| More powerful in some ways. When I deleted my Facebook
| account, I certainly lost a platform for communication
| with a few thousand friends. But I gained so much time. I
| regained mental energy and focus. I basically immediately
| gained time to study and doubled my income (which is a
| more useful form of power in my opinion).
|
| From another perspective, I also think the benefits of
| Facebook are ephemeral. Yes, many people use these
| platforms right now for turning themselves into
| commodities; but other platforms and methods certainly
| exist, are longer lasting, and you don't have to worry
| about a sudden ban.
| nipponese wrote:
| You can still create an account and use Parler.
| sep_field wrote:
| ...and be on an FBI watch list.
| sep_field wrote:
| 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.
| harryf wrote:
| > Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex
| and Bing, two other competitors to Google.
|
| Interesting. Can you elaborate? Like is DuckDuckGo using
| some of Yandex's open source? Or the Bing search API?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| This is their writeup on it, I think they get some kind
| of permission based on serving their ads but I'm not
| positive.
|
| https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources
| Kuinox wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Overview
| bko wrote:
| > 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?
| justinclift wrote:
| Just because other people don't agree with that call,
| doesn't mean he's not allowed to have an opinion.
| sep_field wrote:
| I appreciate your support in this discussion, but please
| don't assume my gender. My pronouns are they/them. Thank
| you!
| sep_field wrote:
| 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 be aligned to this.
| I'm not the first to point these things out, and I won't
| be the last. As a former Facebook employee, I have a
| responsibility to speak up.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Doesn't this get boring at some point? By now everyone
| should be aware of the implications of using
| Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp and they still use it. Must
| it be the pure evilness of Facebook which manipulates the
| whole world or might it be possible that they are
| actually providing value to people?
| jryle70 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| nitrogen wrote:
| People did all of the things they now do on Facebook
| before, using email, phone calls, SMS, Flickr, slide
| film, photo albums, phone books...
|
| Facebook can't claim credit for natural human activity
| just because Facebook's network effects give most people
| no choice in what digital city to live.
| bko wrote:
| When you use the word valid, you're making a judgement
| call. You have no right to decide what's valid or not.
|
| On the broader point, you're making a strong assertion.
| Facebook is probably the most popular consumer product in
| the history of the world (apart from maybe Coke). You
| brush off what they do as just providing services that
| others had provided before Facebook "gobbled" them up, or
| providing some services that no one really needs or can
| be trivially replicated.
|
| It's a big claim and there's a huge payoff if you're
| right. There are thousands of companies trying to pick
| away at facebooks services, but despite that Facebook
| usage and engagement grows every quarter.
|
| You can speak up and make your prediction and hope it
| comes true. But it looks like wishful thinking at this
| point and it's underlying premise is wrong IMO. Trying to
| challenge Facebook or encourage others to do so with that
| framework won't work.
| [deleted]
| legostormtroopr wrote:
| > despite that Facebook usage and engagement grows every
| quarter
|
| How much of that growth is through aquisition though?
| Facebook was losing photo sharing, so they bought
| instagram, they were losing messaging, so they bought
| WhatsApp.
|
| Its all well and good to say Facebook has value, and
| thats because they are using a behemoth (almost, but not
| quite monopolistic) position to squeeze competitors.
|
| Take Facebook Marketplace, it has a huge number of posts
| that probably equals Craiglists - and they did that
| because they already captured peoples attentions. And
| they'll do it with their next product - hell they are
| still pushing their Portal picture frame on people.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| 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.
| jtdev wrote:
| Why not just use iOS Messages or whatever Android app
| Google has anointed for the next 15 minutes for
| messaging?
| hrbf wrote:
| What I've always wondered is what the issue is with using
| essentially any gallery service (or even a cloud drive
| with semi-public links for this) and just send that link
| to those people via their email address. Why would I need
| to use a service like Facebook for that?
|
| Additionally, I've never grasped what those Facebook
| features supposedly used for private communication
| elevate them over simple email use in general. I've found
| them more cumbersome to deal with than email, to be
| honest.
| sep_field wrote:
| 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 female
| classmates and share inside information on them.
| Despicable.
| reimertz wrote:
| Would yoy be interested in doing an AMA? Seems like you
| have a lot to say and I'd be down to listen.
| sep_field wrote:
| I'm not really wanting to accumulate a fanbase that's
| interested in my opinions just because I have them, and I
| doubt I have anything worthwhile to say about just any
| random question. I add my contributions where I think I
| have something worthwhile to say -- if others appreciate
| my contribution as well that's a win-win. Thanks for your
| interest, its flattering, but I don't see an AMA working
| out.
| nodesocket wrote:
| In this post, you also commented (but deleted now):
|
| > Fuck small businesses. Fuck big businesses too. Death
| to capitalism.
|
| Perhaps you'd enjoy Venezuela. As a small business owner
| myself I don't take too kindly to this comment, but would
| like to offer some advice.
|
| Maybe go out and start a business or cause your
| passionate about and that interests you. This anti-
| capitalism / business attitude negativity is toxic for
| you. I've traveled pretty decently all over the world and
| yet to find a country that provides the opportunity of
| the US. You can literally do most anything you want, and
| it sounds like you being a previous FB employee you are
| super smart and probably not desperate for income in the
| short term.
| sep_field wrote:
| I deleted it because it was overly emotive and didn't
| constructively add to the conversation. It being deleted,
| you were welcome to have ignored it.
|
| Since you didn't, however, you should know that your
| advice is pointless. Everything you've achieved will be
| lost. All your loved ones will die, along with your
| enemies. All the same is true for me.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Hardline stances like this just lose people. C'mon, _no_
| benefit whatsoever?
|
| I quit fb around 2015 or so and it bit me when dealing
| with groups/events and social exchanges. Meetup wasn't as
| big and it's still not as good as fb since less people
| use it.
|
| Fb marketplace is more useful for me than craiglist
| usually, but both are good to check.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| I don't _need_ Facebook but it sure is the best way to
| share my underwater photographs with friends. Nothing else
| provides the same usability, reach, or ability to engage
| with other users.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Well, there is Instagram... also owned by Facebook :-)
|
| I do agree that there isn't a alternative for fb groups.
| And marketplace is better than Craigslist in my area.
| playingchanges wrote:
| What if, just hear me out, we collectively decide we don't
| really like the fb style social media and there actually
| isn't a replacement. What if we just moved on?
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| The Facebook competitor is "not using Facebook".
|
| I haven't used it for ten years, can't say I miss it.
| wand3r wrote:
| The thing that brought me back is marketplace. Its super
| difficult to sell on craigslist you get so much spam and
| super long feedback loops. As a side hobby I buy, trade and
| sell Danish and Mid Century Modern furniture and finding a
| market is hard. So begrudgingly I use facebook and chat. It
| actually is a terrible product but there is nowhere else to
| tap into such a big market without paying a premium in
| purchase percentage.
| Hydraulix989 wrote:
| What is particularly bad about it? Did you try Let Go?
| hntcz wrote:
| 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?
| eternalban wrote:
| 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.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Like when Infowars, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the Parler
| community as a whole, became more popular and enjoyed
| popularity for years on end after they got banned?
|
| Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and
| lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The
| Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't
| appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about
| a month.
|
| Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was
| deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant
| influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by
| believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is
| real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your
| problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets
| presented. People wise up and peel off.
| Andrex wrote:
| Something's going to change, soon.
|
| https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...
| geitir wrote:
| Censoring an entire continent*
|
| As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the
| article imo is now trash
| sep_field wrote:
| It's the kind of typo a spellcheker would overlook. Maybe
| the article could have used more proofreading but so what?
| Somtimes content is more important than presentation.
| mrmonkeyman wrote:
| With text, the presentation _is_ the content though..
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| I for one welcome our Silicon Valley elite overlords who will
| protect me from dangerous speech.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| williesleg wrote:
| What's facebook? Oh right, the pot stirrers.
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| The argument regarding private platform freedom of
| speech/censorship isn't relevant for Facebook, where documented
| examples of the state/governments working with Facebook to censor
| opinions and restrict speech exist. The line between
| state/private is blurred at best, and disappearing.
| federona wrote:
| Funny arguments go both ways depending on whether people like
| the censoring or don't. It's either it's a private company so
| it's their right or that it's the defacto platform therefore
| getting in the way of freedom of speech. In any case modern
| politics is a shit show and all parties are corrupt as hell
| each having there own methods and rhetoric that their public
| buys. In the end the West and its imperialism is as corrupt and
| full of shit as the east and its mostly local corruption
| because they don't have the power to exploit globally. West,
| lofty ideals backed up with little substance, East no ideals
| and hence no flowery rhetoric to cover up their misdeeds.
| aminozuur wrote:
| 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...
| asxd wrote:
| The difference is the Myanmar military was killing their own
| citizens.
|
| A country's military firing live rounds on their own citizens
| with seemingly no remorse is different than a country's
| military committing violence in foreign countries.
|
| I'm certainly not condoning either example of military force
| presented here, but the duty of the military should ultimately
| be to preserve their citizens. Killing its _own citizens_ and
| then using social media to lie about it is something I don 't
| think the US military has done.
| angio wrote:
| Should Facebook then close Police departments pages? They're
| killing fellow citizens and they're doing that more than any
| other Police force in the west.
| asxd wrote:
| That's a decent point. To my argument though, the duty of
| the police sometimes does acceptably involve violence
| against citizens when necessary (although at present they
| are far too frequently forgetting the "when necessary"
| part).
|
| Also, police departments are far more localized and I think
| hold much less clout than a national organization.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Well, I'm sure at least someone thought about doing that
| over the summer.
| [deleted]
| nix23 wrote:
| Aung San Suu Kyi Defends Myanmar Against Rohingya Genocide
| Accusations:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/asia/aung-san-
| suu-k...
| intricatedetail wrote:
| The US is inprisoning drug users en masse and forces them to
| provide labour. That does not directly kill people but
| prevents them from living it the way they want which is
| somewhat similar in effect, not to mention all the suicides
| or related gang violence. Not much different to be honest.
| Army let politicians get boatloads of cash from prison and
| pharma industry to keep up the war on citizens. Wake up.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| 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.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I am always impressed at how effectively Facebook has
| convinced nearly everyone on both sides of the US partisan
| divide that Facebook is using censorship to attempt to crush
| their own side.
| newacct583 wrote:
| Only "left-leaning" people oppose the Myanmar coup?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| The details of the coup aren't understood or cared about
| that deeply by American discourse. But the idea that it's
| trivial and salutary to identify and ban "bad" or
| "dangerous" speech is decisively left-coded right now, in
| exactly the way similar impulses were right-coded during
| periods of rightwing political dominance (immediately
| post-9/11, parts of the Cold War, etc)
| barbacoa wrote:
| All these recent events involving censorship and left
| aligned tech companies eerily reminds me a passage the
| Unabomber wrote in his manifesto back in the 1990s.
|
| " Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they
| will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the
| technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If
| leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the
| technological system becomes a tool in the hands of
| leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote
| its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a
| pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the
| past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they
| vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they
| advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and
| so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves,
| they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more
| ruthless secret police than any that had existed under
| the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least
| as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a
| couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in
| our universities, leftist professors were vigorous
| proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those of
| our universities where leftists have become dominant,
| they have shown themselves ready to take away from
| everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political
| correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and
| technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if
| they ever get it under their own control. "
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Exactly. I don't share the Unabomber's directional
| disdain for leftists, but most people are simply too dim
| to understand the concept that liberalism/illiberalism
| exists on an axis independent of leftism/rightism. If
| you're planning to burn down liberal norms for short-term
| partisan gains, you better understand the long view, but
| that's simply beyond the capacity of the majority of
| people.
|
| To be clear, there are leftists and rightists that
| explicitly own the rejection of liberal values
| (Communists/tankies, racial essentialists like the "woke"
| and neo-Nazis, neoreactionaries). But the majority of
| these dynamics are driven by useful idiots who can't even
| grasp what's happening.
| covidthrow wrote:
| Not entirely sure why you're being downvoted--maybe some
| are reading your list of groups, seeing their own, and
| saying, "well they were right up until that part," and
| got offended--but you are correct that illiberalism
| exists on all sides of the political spectrum.
|
| And of course when it does, the now-illiberal faction
| rationalizes it with some manner of, "liberalism, _except
| when..._ "
|
| The problem with liberalism is that--while it is the most
| sane mode of structural organization--it is extremely
| brittle in the face of illiberalism.
|
| Liberalism--and its ancestors/influences--never ate
| itself, unlike illiberalism. But it _does always_ fall to
| barbarism. It 's like having an argument with an insane
| person: you may be right, but you'll never win that
| fight.
|
| That is a seriously concerning weakness, because when
| liberalism is threatened, the default modes of self
| preservation are either: roll over and get beaten (as a
| matter of principal) or reject some (or all) liberalism
| in order to fight back. In either case, liberalism goes
| away.
|
| I'm not sure that anyone has ever come up with a
| reasonable defense. (And maybe there is none.) Humanity
| seems to prefer pendula. The grass is always greener...
| [deleted]
| wil421 wrote:
| Why even bring this up? Whataboutism is a very shallow
| argument.
| vermilingua wrote:
| Because it may be shallow, but when discussing the criteria
| by which they decide what is worth taking down, it is also a
| very valid argument.
| qart wrote:
| 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.
| vmception wrote:
| Given that "Whataboutism" really means "hypocrisy in a
| geopolitical context" I think the entire definition should be
| updated to reflect it as a very valid observation, instead of
| the assumption that it is a weak argument because in my
| experience it usually isnt, even during the height of the
| cold war the Soviet Union's observations about the US were
| accurate.
| ascold wrote:
| There is a slight difference though. Myanmar military took over
| the government. The US military is led by the president of the
| United States and only the Congress has the power to declare
| war.
| f6v wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| eplanit wrote:
| Its removal should be actively encouraged amongst the SJWs. FB
| backing itself, and being backed into, corner after corner
| helps reveal the hypocrisy more quickly.
| op03 wrote:
| So what happens if you are an FB grunt sitting in Myanmar?
|
| Do they have people there?
|
| Does that local manager have experience dealing with tanks
| driving into the parking lot?
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| Facebook takes down main page of Myanmar Military. Myanmar
| Military takes down main service of Facebook (eventually, if they
| didn't already do.)
|
| The question here is: would (some) misinformation be worth it to
| avoid total blackout. And I mean this places other than North
| America and Western Europe.
|
| In huge swathes of the world, internet and facebook are
| interchangeable. And where democratic values are strong enough,
| any government can take down the main channel of (free, non-
| governmental sanctioned) information for a whole country.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| The outrage people have about censorship wouldn't be that big if
| those companies simply stated "we censor opinions we don't like,
| and we censor for political reasons" in their terms of service.
| Instead they create the outrage by having vague rules about what
| is allowed and not allowed on the platform and then, on top of
| that, start enforcing those rules selectively.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| They won't do that, because "we want to hide this" is a lot
| less persuasive than "this is false, fringe, propaganda, etc."
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Ah, managing expectations seems to be a dying art.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| They won't because the Social Media platforms prerogative for
| bans isn't ideological, or to be consistent. Their sole purpose
| to do what's best for themselves. Therefore they benefit from
| having vague, ill-defined rules that allow for selective
| enforcement.
| georgebarnett wrote:
| I remain convinced that Facebook is incrementally scrubbing news
| and politics from their platform.
| freeburma wrote:
| Ah yes, the travesty of murderous thugs shooting their own
| citizens having their Facebook page taken down. What ever has
| the world come to.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I love this comment. It captures the current political moment
| like lightning in a bottle, dominated by simpletons who think
| every action exists in its own sandboxed parallel universe
| and can be judged without reference to weakening norms or
| downstream effects in a dynamic system. Truly a work of art.
| hshshs2 wrote:
| they'll continue incremental changes until the heat is off and
| then go back to not caring
| jtdev wrote:
| More like _selectively_ scrubbing news and politics, this case
| in point being one more example to add to this troubling trend.
| aerodog wrote:
| Aung San Suu Kyi oversaw a genocide against the Rohingya. Didn't
| see FB take down her page then
| kasperni wrote:
| I'm not sure she has much of choice. Had she gone up against
| the the military (who were behind the genocide). They would
| most likely have deposed of her earlier rather than waiting
| until now. At least in power she might have been able to
| "soften the blow" somewhat.
| mantap wrote:
| She did that before the capitol riots, which seems to be the
| inflexion point at which Facebook threw out their old dogma of
| political neutrality.
| fareesh wrote:
| The hallowed halls of insider trading were breached by a man
| in a Viking hat, surrounded by press photographers as he did
| so, while his minions rushed in to claim control of the
| country as they walked in an orderly line through the velvet
| rope turnstiles. Any fair minded person would see this as an
| legitimate attempt to overthrow the government, necessitating
| extraordinary intervention by a website.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| And yet here we are :-/
| exacube wrote:
| Well, here goes another thread about free speech vs. ethical
| discourse, where atleast one side uncompromisingly refuses to put
| themselves in the shoes of the other.
|
| Just to fast-forward this thread a bit for everyone:
|
| - Free speech doesn't exist on some for-profit company's
| platform. Communities should be moderated on some ethical
| standard for the benefit of peace
|
| - Free speech trumps ethics and peace -- without free speech, we
| have neither
| supergirl wrote:
| indeed. and it's pointless anyway to discuss this from an
| ideological perspective. FB is only looking out for their
| financial interests. they just make a bet with the best
| expected return. in this case it's pretty safe to bet on the
| side of the US, EU governments who oppose the coup. and they do
| something rather than nothing maybe to regain some favors with
| western countries or they feel they need to do it to claim
| consistency with past actions.
| ben_w wrote:
| I have an also-unpopular third option:
|
| The graph of freedom of speech versus personal liberty looks
| like the Laffer curve for government income vs tax rate.
|
| One end is zero for obvious reasons; the other end is also zero
| because it is a power vacuum, one which e.g. charismatic
| narcissistic Machiavellian sociopaths exploit it to rise to
| power and they kick away the free speech ladder after they get
| it.
| fallingknife wrote:
| So are you saying that the current people in charge are the
| "charismatic narcissistic Machiavellian sociopaths" who
| exploited the power vacuum that existed with the creation of
| the internet and are now kicking away the "free speech
| ladder?"
| ben_w wrote:
| Nope. The internet isn't the origin of the idea of total
| freedom of speech without any constraints, and such
| personalities have been whipping nations to commit
| genocides since before my now-deceased parents were born.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Free speech trumps ethics and peace -- without free speech, we
| have neither
|
| I really don't understand the purpose of these fortune cookie
| slogans. First off, how does 'ethics' vanish if we curb free
| speech? Like is there a date where we solved ethics and now
| every moral framework that does not value freedom of speech
| highly is just invalid, like some sort of math problem?
|
| Regarding peace it's just flat out wrong. Of course you can
| have peace without free speech, probably much more of it. Of
| course it's worthy asking if sacrificing speech for more peace
| is justified or not.
|
| But in all seriousness can we stop being dogmatic and
| unthinking about free-speech, which is in itself kind of
| ironic? You can debate everything, just not whether free speech
| is debatable apparently.
| slibhb wrote:
| > I really don't understand the purpose of these fortune
| cookie slogans. First off, how does 'ethics' vanish if we
| curb free speech?
|
| Ethics are normative. They shift over time and everyone
| contributes, partly through speech. Restricting speech
| cripples this long-running, civilization ethical discussion.
|
| You are engaged in sawing off the branch we're all standing
| on.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You can make the claim that ethics are a way people agree on
| what is acceptable or not and for this agreement to happen
| you need to have freedom of expression in the first place.
| Otherwise its just the whims of the ruler instead of a system
| of values.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| turn the tables to consider actual reality: if a country like the
| US would be at the receiving end of meddling and influence by a
| Myanmar social media business at the scale of facebook, then any
| key-employee of the company would have been declared a terrorist,
| taken to black sites or murdered by drones. That's about the
| level of hypocrisy that we deal with when discussing Facebook's
| actions in Myanmar over the past years.
|
| It's horrible injustice Americans not only get away with war
| crimes and aren't held accountable by the IIC, but also
| technocrats and buerocrats working for these public companies are
| able to do so with impunity.
| notahacker wrote:
| Facebook's "interference" in Myanmar consists of hosting
| comments supportive of the government whilst it was committing
| genocide and being criticised internationally for _not_
| intervening, and choosing to take down a single government
| propaganda outlet after a military coup.
|
| Facebook has "interfered" more against the interests of sitting
| US presidents without a single black ops operation against its
| staff.
| 5tefan wrote:
| I try to understand how this decision came to be and I have no
| idea? A standardised set of rules would surely lead to many many
| more pages being taking down. And why now and not last week?
| freeburma wrote:
| Because Myanmar people lobbied for it.
|
| The military is shooting its own people, kidnapping them in the
| middle of the night, and torturing them.
|
| Over 10 protestors dead and 50+ injured, as they are using live
| rounds on protestors. Over 500+ disappeared or kidnapped.
| Protestors killed include two teenagers shot in the head, one
| of them a medic. They also shot at ambulance. They've
| threatened to kill doctors. Stole the covid vaccination after
| beating doctors trying to stop them.
|
| Last night they shot a neighborhood watchman in my
| neighborhood.
| 5tefan wrote:
| Be assured I condemn violence of all sorts. My question still
| stands how such decisions are made?
| jtdev wrote:
| References please.
| dilap wrote:
| 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
| blocked my party's accounts. Is that freedom of expression? If
| the people at Facebook think they're silencing me, they're wrong.
|
| > DER SPIEGEL: It wasn't just about Facebook. The entire internet
| was blocked in Uganda for days.
|
| > Museveni: That was done for security reasons. The internet was
| misused to stir up trouble. The opposition spread misinformation
| about the election results. The block has long since been lifted.
|
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-ug...
| notahacker wrote:
| 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.
| dilap wrote:
| 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.
| notahacker wrote:
| 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.
| dilap wrote:
| The question is, if the giant US internet companies acted
| more in alignment w/ the speech values the US professes
| to believe in (at least when convenient), would that
| contribute to those values being more widely adopted?
|
| You're taking the position that no, it wouldn't make any
| difference, other entities will just do what they were
| going to do anyway.
|
| But I don't think the US example is entirely without
| influence. Eventually policies reflect beliefs which
| reflect narratives; the narrative of the internet as a
| non-partisan enhancer of freedom becomes much harder to
| sustain when its major sites are clearly picking sides.
|
| > And yet there is more access to less censored media in
| most parts of the world than at any point in human
| history.
|
| Because of the internet, of course.
|
| Now, in reaction, we are seeing rising censorship (since
| the internet suddenly made speech much more available and
| powerful). Whether we'll end up having more or less
| uncensored access to information ultimately is still
| unknown, I think.
| notahacker wrote:
| > The question is, if the giant US internet companies
| acted more in alignment w/ the speech values the US
| professes to believe in (at least when convenient), would
| that contribute to those values being more widely
| adopted?
|
| No. Why would people and parties who have journalists
| arrested and tortured become true believers in freedom of
| political speech because a foreign website allows it? Big
| Tech's social media actually _has_ skewed quite close to
| US censorship norms (i.e. you can censor anything you
| like but be _very_ careful if it claims to be political)
| for most of its existence and the results are not
| something most liberal democracies see as admirable,
| never mind paternalistic ultraconservative countries or
| outright dictatorships.
|
| > Now, in reaction, we are seeing rising censorship
| (since the internet suddenly made speech much more
| available and powerful)
|
| It's not "rising censorship" because a couple of
| companies decided EULA policies they'd enforced with
| varying degrees of consistency against everyone else
| since the beginning also applied to mouthpieces of the
| POTUS or the Burmese military. Censorship has been around
| everywhere forever, and claims a website which has long
| censored people for not using their real name or showing
| a nipple has stepped into unacceptable censorship when
| reasons for bans were political violence is a very
| narrow, US-centric concept of "rising censorship" that
| apart from anything else is highly unlikely to convince
| most cultures that "rising censorship" would be a bad
| thing.
| dilap wrote:
| Absent the ability to the split the universe and do a
| proper experiment, I guess we'll just have to agree to
| disagree about likely wider impacts of places like FB
| engaging in political censorship.
|
| If you read carefully, you'll notice I'm not making
| claims one way or the other about the goodness of the
| censorship. I think a rising demand for censorship is a
| predictable reaction to technology enhancing the power of
| speech.
|
| I would not say trend of speech restriction is limited to
| social media giants. E.g., the US is attempting to
| extradite and prosecute Julian Assange under the
| Espionage Act, which, if successful, will, in the words
| of the NY Times, "open the door to criminalizing
| activities that are crucial to American investigative
| journalists who write about national security matters".
| dagorenouf wrote:
| Facebook should really come down from their high horses and let
| legal entities decide of stuff like this. They're a utility. (not
| saying that in a bad way, becoming a utility is the ultimate
| startup achievement)
| AwaAwa wrote:
| Being a utility comes with (some) regulation. I think it is far
| past time that this occurred.
| ergocoder wrote:
| If you follow this topic, it has been clear that FB and Twitter
| do not want to be the decider of truth.
|
| They want to be a utility for communication. They would much
| prefer government decide it.
|
| But many people are like "government being the decider of
| truth" is bad.
|
| So this is where we are at; the private companies can ban
| whomever it wants and play the decider of truth.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| >Facebook should really come down from their high horses and
| let legal entities decide of stuff like this
|
| If you've followed this conversation at all for the last 5-10
| years, there's no way it makes sense to think that these
| decisions are somehow driven by Facebook'(or any tech
| company's) desires. Leaving aside the intense liberal values
| personally held by Zuckerbeg, Page, Brin, Dorsey, et al, the
| responsibility for speech policing is a can of worms that the
| tech platforms have been consistently and loudly opposed to.
| It's the baying of illiberal lunatics (primarily on the left,
| in recent years) and the associated PR and regulatory threats
| that have forced them into this position.
| freeburma wrote:
| For all the people oblivious to why Facebook did this:
|
| Because Myanmar people lobbied for it, and because the Myanmar
| military is terrorizing its own people, then lying about it.
|
| The military is shooting its own people, kidnapping them in the
| middle of the night, and torturing them.
|
| Over 10 protestors dead and 50+ injured, as they are using live
| rounds on protestors. Over 500+ disappeared or kidnapped.
| Protestors killed include two teenagers shot in the head, one of
| them a medic. They also shot at ambulance. They've threatened to
| kill doctors, and kidnapped many of them. Stole the covid
| vaccination after beating doctors trying to stop them.
|
| Last night they shot a neighborhood watchman in my neighborhood
| (we have neighborhood watch to try and prevent late night
| kidnapping/disappearing by military).
|
| We lobbied hard to get Facebook to take down this page and others
| where the Tatmadaw are attempting to cover up the truth.
| [deleted]
| johnsmittyson wrote:
| Well, brother, I hope you don't log into the wrong account
| while posting "free" stuff about hk, belarus, myanmar and so
| on.
|
| I guess all is good as long as they don't touch the baby
| incubators, right?
| baybal2 wrote:
| I doubt this exonerates Mark Zuckerberg.
|
| It's a man who proposed Xi Jinping to name his firstborn.
|
| Him attacking some minor military junta is barely symbolic.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| alright well, I guess I have to say well done Facebook in this
| case.
| the-dude wrote:
| As long as it aligns with your views it is not slippery slope?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Do you have somewhere in my comments I've argued about
| slippery sloping in regards to Facebook?
| nix23 wrote:
| It's interesting, Aung San Suu Kyi (with a freedom nobel-price)
| is/was responsible for the expulsion, killing and raping of
| rohingya's. But when the military takes over that's a big nono.
|
| BTW: Hitler was also democratically elected, wouldn't have been
| the worst thing if the Wehrmacht made a coup then, like for
| example "operation valkyrie".
| freeburma wrote:
| She was not. AASK never had any authority over the military. At
| all. Military was legally above elected government before the
| coup, controls all the courts, legally guaranteed 25% of the
| legislature, wrote the constitution, and the comander-in-chief
| was never appointed by elected government. Military never
| answered to AASK or took orders from her or the president.
|
| At best, you could call AASK an apologist for military. But
| that ignores that she was really their prisoner even while
| "free", and the delicate negotiation she engaged in an attempt
| to build a civilian government, as flawed as it was.
| nix23 wrote:
| >At best, you could call AASK an apologist for military.
|
| Ah yes, then shes definitely not responsible...irony off.
|
| >>she took the podium on Wednesday at the United Nations'
| highest court to defend her homeland against accusations of
| genocide, arguing that there had been no orchestrated
| campaign of persecution.
|
| >>Instead, she insisted that what foreign observers have
| called an organized, years-long campaign of atrocities
| against the Rohingya has been exaggerated and misconstrued.
|
| 2019/12/11
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/asia/aung-san-
| suu-k...
|
| 2018/07/07
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/world/asia/myanmar-
| rohing...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
| freeburma wrote:
| I don't feel like arguing with people who don't really know
| anything about Burma or her situation.
|
| _She had no involvement in the military's decisions in
| Rakhine state._ Yes, she defended the perpetrators at ICJ,
| either as part of a political strategy of reconciliation
| with military, or because she just felt like defending them
| because she secretly likes what happened. You guess which
| explanation is more likely.
| nix23 wrote:
| >I don't feel like arguing with people who don't really
| know anything about Burma or her situation.
|
| And i don't feel like arguing with someone who defends a
| genocide denier, and explains it with "who don't really
| know anything about Burma or her situation".
|
| >either as part of a political strategy of reconciliation
| with military, or because she just felt like defending
| them because she secretly likes what happened. You guess
| which explanation is more likely.
|
| Sound like the later one, defending a genocide for
| "reconciliation with military" is pure evil, and is never
| a sound strategy.
| phabora wrote:
| This is pure hysterics. You have to back up what you say
| with arguments.
| nix23 wrote:
| I wrote that already, and no i don't back it up with
| arguments but with facts...what do you have?
|
| >>she took the podium on Wednesday at the United Nations'
| highest court to defend her homeland against accusations
| of genocide, arguing that there had been no orchestrated
| campaign of persecution.
|
| >>Instead, she insisted that what foreign observers have
| called an organized, years-long campaign of atrocities
| against the Rohingya has been exaggerated and
| misconstrued.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/asia/aung-san-
| suu-k...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/world/asia/myanmar-
| rohing...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
| DanBC wrote:
| The civilian government is also under investigation. http
| s://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/anaylsis/2019/11/21/Myanm.
| ..
| freeburma wrote:
| Again, the elected civilian government has zero control
| or decisions or power over the military and border
| affairs (border affairs, home affairs ministry controlled
| by military). So when ARSA or AA attack military outposts
| and police stations, and the Myanmar military chooses to
| shell villages, kill civilians, and commit war crimes,
| causing a refugee crisis (or "genocide" as westerners
| like to throw around) at no point do civilians or the
| elected government have anything to do with it.
| DanBC wrote:
| Can you link me to any statements she's made where she
| condemns the genocidal actions of the military?
| freeburma wrote:
| Read her statement she made at ICJ. I think you'll find
| the situation is more complex than the simple narrative
| the international media presents.
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/12/transcript-
| aung-sa...
| nix23 wrote:
| Again why then are they investigated, your story sound
| too easy and one-sided, if you dont have an argument, you
| just say "we can just speculate."
|
| Fact is:
|
| -Aung San Suu Kyi defended actively a genocide for not
| being one, while speaking in The Hague.
|
| -The civilian government was informed and partially
| included in the genocide.
|
| Both points are fact, and NOT speculations.
| freeburma wrote:
| What, exactly, do you mean by the "civilian government
| was partially included in the genocide?"
|
| The military does not take orders from civilian
| government, it's the other way around. Civilian gov has
| no legal or de facto control over Tatmadaw, or border
| control, or home affairs (police, courts). There is no
| civilian legislative control over Rakhine operations.
| Tatmadaw just does whatever they wants.
|
| And anyone who speaks against their actions is
| imprisoned. If AASK spoke against them they would have
| imprisoned her again, like they just did. The politics
| AASK is dealing with are complex.
| nix23 wrote:
| >>A day earlier, in yet another legal challenge, a
| Rohingya rights group launched a case calling on courts
| in Argentina to prosecute military and civilian officials
| - including Aung San Suu Kyi - under the concept of
| universal jurisdiction, which pushes for domestic courts
| to investigate international crimes.
|
| https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/anaylsis/2019/11/21/My
| anm...
|
| https://burmacampaign.org.uk/argentinean-courts-urged-to-
| pro...
|
| >If AASK spoke against them they would have imprisoned
| her again
|
| She could just stay at the Haag and tell the truth...how
| about that?
| zyl1n wrote:
| If military never answered to her or took orders, control all
| the courts like you said, what is the point of the coup?
| ergocoder wrote:
| Because she was gaining more support/momentum, and she is
| going toward the direction the military doesn't like.
|
| The coup proves that she never really had any authority to
| begin with.
| nix23 wrote:
| >that she never really had any authority to begin with.
|
| Why then the lies about the genocide?
| freeburma wrote:
| We can only speculate.
|
| There are different factions in the military, one of which
| was the architect of Burma's democratic transition, the
| other which opposes the transition (who current
| dictator/CIC is part of).
|
| The military miscalculated, as they didn't intend for ASSK
| or NLD to outsmart them in constitution of their own
| design. Military had expected to win enough seats with
| their proxy party + military appointed seats to prevent NLD
| choosing a president. But NLD won enough seats to choose
| president, and their chosen president gets to appoint
| commander-in -chief (military must confirm). Never before
| had a president appointed the CIC. The military saw this
| has a threat to their power. They do not want to be under
| any civilian control. And Min Aung Hlaing (current
| dictator) is also probably afraid of genocide charges if he
| is no longer in power.
| phabora wrote:
| Is it interesting? You leave out any argument for the implied
| statement that the democratically illegitimate government will
| be better for the Rohingya people. Presumably _any_ coup is
| better than no coup.
|
| I think that is interesting.
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