Papua New Guinea bans Facebook for a month to root out 'fake users' | Hacker News Reader

Papua New Guinea bans Facebook for a month to root out 'fake users'

theguardian.com

90 pointsdanso15 comments

I don't know anything about PNG but it seems to me that they are not studying anything.

>Analysts will explore how fake news and pornography spreads, and assess whether country needs its own version of the platform

They are banning facebook, because it probably became a nuisance for the government. PNG ranks in the 136th place out of 176 countries Corruption Perception Index. This wikipedia article sheds more light on the issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Papua_New_Guinea

Yes, PNG is corrupt, but it’s not like residents don’t know it. PNG is still somewhat tribal, and a platform like Facebook that makes it easy to demonize the other does not help anyone.

Source: Used to travel to PNG on business and still have former coworkers that still do. My favorite news story about PNG corruption was that a group of merchants were assaulted and robbed in the lobby(!) of a police station.

PNG has some form when it comes to closing down online speech. One blogger found himself under court injunction for referring to a government official named Mr. Gamato as Mr. Tomato:

>> The Electoral Commission obtained a court order restraining well-known blogger Martyn Namorong from tweeting or sharing allegedly defamatory statements about commissioner Patilias Gamato.

>> Mr Gamato said he was insulted when Mr Namorong began substituting the word tomato for his surname.

>> "He made some defamatory statements and also called my surname, which is Gamato as 'tomato'," he said.

>> "I don't look like a tomato, I'm a human being."

[0]: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-14/png-electoral-commissi...

Mr Tomato has apparently never heard of the Streisand Effect

And how are they planning to "study" the effect of not having FB? this looks dubious to me. Probably there is other political intention behind.

Can’t you draw some conclusions, anecdatally, about the impact of Facebook on societies since its creation? You could do the same in reverse.

PNG case aside, some serious people are arguing today that as our computers and phone become extensions of our mind, taking some person phone or Facebook away is a form of torture or human right violation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg00gK43Id4

Also adds an interesting spin to talk about restricting children access to social apps.

I don't follow how banning facebook is required to study its effect on the population.

Exactly!

Presumably some will retain access so that: “The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed,”

Unless the PNG government pulled a "Cambridge Analytica" on its citizens and squirreled away FB personal data.

Seems heavy handed and ineffectual as a means of hunting down fake users, with a high risk of cannibalizing the social media presence of legitimate (especially tourist catering) businesses.

I'm sure the The Not So Great Firewall of Papua New Guinea will be very transparent and will never be abused by government officials /s

It's internet spring cleaning! I wonder if they've acquired a Toshiba ML-2274 to find the fake users?

You sent me searching for what a Toshiba ML-2274. I was expecting it was some kind of deep packet inspecting firewall.

Still not disappointed by what I found, and since that joke is not common around where I live, I plan to use it next year.

1997's hoax is 2018's reality. This happened before with recordable CDs.

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