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Comment by alismayilov | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is very valuable in countries where press freedom is not good (if facebook is not blocked yet). My country (Azerbaijan) is one of the worst countries in terms of press freedom. The only “free press” we have is a facebook. There are many goverment’s trolls, but everybody understands when trolls write something (trolls get average salary). On the other hand, goverment follows oppositions’ discussions on facebook and responds accordingly. That is the only platform we have now goverment and oppositions speak with each other.

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Well at least your trolls are paid. A lot of our trolls seem to be volunteers.

Probably the volunteer ones are the most realistic and dangerous.

Yup, I'm fairly sure the online Trump hype train was 10% trolls and 90% people tagging along for the ride.

Then again it died reeeally fast right after the election, so now I'm not sure anymore.

Or more abstractly: influencers and followers. What makes them trolls, exactly?

Also, no surprise things die down after an election, since it’s not the hot topic anymore.

How certain are you that they're actually volunteers?

Astroturf seems to be a lot more lifelike these days.

Take a browse through any EU geographical subreddit. The paid and unpaid trolls are easy to spot.

Facebook is about looking at hot girls from your college, well, that's how it started out. It's a social network where you and your data are the product. It's not about free press.

To prove the point, in Myanmar the social network facebook has helped to spread hat speech that led to riots and violence between Buddhist and Moslims. https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-...

If you want free press, change the government, whether it's Azerbaijan or Malta, a better government is necessary.

If we act based on this logic, then we should not use internet today, because it started as a military project. Well the telephone was created as a tool to talk each other not to browse on the internet. We can add many examples that initial usage changed significantly.

first class trolling.

Just because it played a part in those events doesn't mean that it's not a tool for free press. One could argue that the fact that that speech wasn't able to be passed through traditional media is a point in favor of free speech, even if it resulted in violence.

I'm sorry, but hate speech has be banned and prosecuted. A tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance. My freedom ends where your's start.

The definition of hate speech depends on what each society defines it as.

suggestion: post under a new username....they can make your life miserable.

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