After harsh criticism, Facebook quietly pulls services from developing countries

This is what I'm thinking, too. They've already gotten what they wanted - market penetration for little cost. They get a few million "low-hanging fruit" users hooked on their product, then shift their spending somewhere else when costs increase.

I think media pressure is part of it, but only because media pressure can lead the local government kicking them out of the market entirely, especially in countries with internet censorship.

It's not the widespread hatred of Muslims that's putting pressure on facebook. It's the widespread killing of muslims that's putting pressure on facebook. No one would mind if it was just a giant bunch of idiots hating each other. In fact, we have that in the US. The difference is that as soon as you start offing people the situation begins to be viewed in a significantly different fashion.

There was the very real possibility that the government was going to ask facebook to leave. (Truth be told, this move by facebook may prove to be unequal to the government's desires. So in the end facebook may still be shown the door.)

Funny, the same argument was used by colonists to justify their explorations.

Just because the problem existed before Facebook doesn't mean Facebook is completely free of responsibility. It amplifies existing prejudices in those echo-chambers we know so well from American politics; and it provides practical help to the organization of "grassroots" violence. From this New York Times article on the similar Sri Lankan situation:

> “We don’t completely blame Facebook,” said Harindra Dissanayake, a presidential adviser in Sri Lanka. “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind, you know?”

This is true, unfortanatly. I lived in the Ayeyarwady Delta from 2010 - 2014, and saw a level of hatred that was very hard for me to understand. Facebook didn't really start to take off (at least in the rural area I was in) until the end of that period.

I was at a community event were a DVD of mostly raw footage from the violence in Rakine, South Thailand, and I think a few other places, was shown. It was set to a pounding rock soundtrack, and intersperse with fiery Bhuddist monks preaching against Muslims. It had the most horrific shocking footage I'd ever seen or immagined and left me with nightmares for years afterwards. I'll spare you the details.

The room was full of regular village people, elders, and children, cheering it on as if it was a football match. They told me that while the army was still in power, they would have cracked down on these DVDs, but when I was there you could freely buy them on any street corner.

Anyway, my country (the US) and other places have been through this kind of hatred (more or less) in the past too, and we overcame it. I hope that the people of Myanmar can too.

The problem is not a technical one.

Let's not be confused by the word "agenda." What's being talked about is "a hidden goal pursued under the cover of a facade goal," not "a list of tasks."

Ethnic violence, hatred, military junta, none of it was brought about by Facebook.

They went into Myanmar to capture market share. That's paid for by their extraordinarily rich US ad market, as is the case in countless other commercially worthless markets (which may or may not one day be valuable). Every market they ignore, no matter how small or poor, produces a potential social competitor or hands the market to a competitor.

The notion they were chasing riches (in Myanmar!) is just a convenient emotional blanket that makes everyone feel better about the Facebook global social network agenda. The fact is, they never have to care about markets like Myanmar financially, it's entirely meaningless and probably always will be to their financials.

I personally feel like I'd be someone unfamiliar with a situation looking down and judging all peoples of a society as too irresponsible for Facebook, so I don't. If anything, I think Facebook would be wise to temper growth as it is guaranteed that no matter what happens, there is no outlet for it to be seen as a positive by anyone whether it is or not.

(not completely excusing FB here, just not sure they are more complicit than any other messenger...I see too few articles suggesting action taken against the message senders)

When rolling out their platform to other countries they obviously "learned" from yesteryears experience about dealing with disinformation and decided that doing nothing was better than doing something (no matter how perceivably flawed, or how substantially flawed it actually was, which is just foolish). Boy did they learn their lesson here, at the cost of other people's lives. Fortunately, such rhetoric rarely has jarring repercussions in the U.S. (for now).

Blame humanity. Some of the best engineers in the world tried to solve the problem but were only meant with whining about unfairness. No doubt had they employed enforceable, decent standards when moderating content on the implementation of their platform for other countries it would have just been dragged under the meaningless label of "censorship." So they didn't bother apparently. Foolish and privileged.

But at least we treated all sides equally. It only was paid in blood.

We opened our markets to many unfree countries on the idea that when they became richer, they would become democratic. We were wrong on that. Instead these countries sell to us to make themselves as dictators richer, and use our money to suppress their people, and in the name of free trade, we sell them the weapons and technology to do it. And when they become rich enough, they use their new found influence to attack democracy in other countries.

Free trade with the west should be the reward for being democratic, free, and a protector of human rights of your citizens.

Afterall it is our freedom that made us rich... we shouldn't allow dictators to benefit from it. Dictatorship is poverty. They are linked together. And without western money, they would be forced to live in the squalor they have created for themselves.

Sadly our addiction to fossil fuels is probably the biggest impediment to this. Until thats solved, we'll continue to fund some of the worst human rights abusers in exchange for oil.