Hacker News Reader

Comment by duskwuff | Hacker News Reader

At this point, what's clear to me is that it is criminally irresponsible for Facebook to continue operating in countries where they have no local presence, no active communications with local authorities, and no ability to effectively moderate content. Their passivity is literally killing people.

View on HN

The difficulty is that in many cases it's the local authorities who are the ones spreading the inflammatory content and their requests for moderation are actually requests for censorship.

And if that's the case, the most responsible thing Facebook can do is to get out.

By that logic, shouldn’t any company whose services could be politically consequential get out? Then doesn’t that deny the population the tools they could use to influence their country?

They should stay in the market only if they're willing to put in the effort to make sure their political effects are neutral or positive. Facebook clearly isn't willing to do that.

First, do no harm.

But is it only facebook the ? should twitter, linkedin, google plus etc all pull ou since they can be used for the same purpose?

They can be, but in practice Facebook's UX, market position, and algorithms make its political effects much stronger.

That may be the case for Burma, but in this case the government was trying to halt said inflammatory content.

Facebook policy, however, doesn't care about the differences; it just wants to do whatever requires the least effort while maintaining high market share.

But internet should be free for all, how you use it it is up to you.

Shutting down communication channels will not stop violence.

That first sentence is an absolute moral position without any real justification, and the second is factually questionable.

Shutting down certain communications channels, or removing specific messages from them, can absolutely change behavior. Just like social media can drive a revolution, it can drive any collective action, including negative ones.

True, so do we start regulating 4chan, tor and other means of certain communications that can leas to negative effects? Twich cos you could get swatted? I mean, all channels will usually have positives and negatives and it always comes down to who will be the arbiter of what is positive or negative. I am afraid of those people cos i used to live in communism and they are the weak link in resisting censorship...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com