Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
qz.com
qz.com
All Fox News article are propaganda, all CNN articles are propaganda, but yet they are accepted? Clearly a distinction is made between 'acceptable propaganda' and 'unacceptable propaganda', and this distinction is made by Facebook, an American company.
How acceptable is that?
I think the answer hinges on where the speech is considered to be, and whether the speaker is an American.
An Iranian national handing out leaflets in Washington, D.C. is protected speech by virtue of it occurring in the United States.
An American national posting on the internet is protected from United States government orders to censor their speech, regardless of where they post it, by virtue of their nationality.
Where it gets murky is: "Is an Iranian national posting on Facebook 'in America'? Does it depend on whether they make a comment in Iran or in the United States?"
That's the sort of hypothetical that a court might be keen to sidestep entirely and instead ask, "Is it constitutional for the US to order a US company (Facebook) to engage in non-viewpoint neutral censorship?"
Bias, narrative creating ... it's propaganda-like, but it's not the right word.
Interestingly - almost all US outlets have a pretty strong 'nationalist bias'. We don't think of CNN or MSBC like that, but if you watch the press from outside the US (especially during a war) it becomes quite evident.
When push comes to shove, the mainstream press in the US do work with government on some narrative issues of national security, which I think falls into the category of propaganda.
Zuck has painted himself into an impossible corner.
US will label as propaganda any article coming from RT - for Russia, or that Iranian journal - for Iran, and now FB starts simply censoring those contents.
At the same time in Russia or Iran, news coming from US are labelled as propaganda as well.
Depending on where you live, you get fed either one of these "propaganda" and you feel you are on the "good" side and that others are on the "bad" side.
My point is the world is not divided between "good" and "bad", everything is not black or white, and the fact that a website with billions of users has the power to decide what is good or bad (or has the obligation to follow directives from a government) is a very bad idea imho.
This is not a situation of moral relativity.
CNN, even Fox, are actually very independent news outlets. Their news is news. (Especially the non-editorial stuff, is usually above bar)
On some, mainly political issues, they are biased.
On some national issues, they 'close ranks'.
But they are not propaganda outlets.
RT is absolutely propaganda outlet. RT is an organ of the Russian state, created specifically to promote Russian interest abroad, and to serve as a mouthpiece for the government, specifically Putin.
Trump has friends in Fox News, but quite a number of haters; many popular folks there disagree with him quite loudly, a lot. Trump has no friends in most of the rest of the press, and there's no opportunity for him to set the agenda directly for example.
RT was designed so that Putin could create the narrative he chooses, and to oppress any opposition to his regime, or the state.
Even the BBC/CBC etc. have quite a degree of independence from state organs. They have obvious political leanings in many situations, and surely will work with the state on some issues, but they are in many ways 'more independant' because they don't have to survive on click-bait.
I'm going off the definition of propaganda being information of a biased/misleading/untrue nature, spread to further a political agenda/view.
It's intentionally misleading, and incorrect, in order to lead people down a particular political path.
In my view, this is still different to papers that present a cleaner view of the evidence/facts/situation.
Of course you can always omit/include details to present a story in a different light, but the degree of which makes a big difference. In the case of FOX, it is clearly so over the line that it becomes propaganda (in my view).
Can't comment on CNN though, never watched it.
Fox, The Sun, and other Murdoch media has so definite an agenda, that it can't be distinguished from propaganda. I don't know how else to describe it. Have seen so little output from CNN that I can't comment.
Murdoch's cosying up to those in power - of both sides of politics - is so blatant and outrageous, in several of the countries he's operated in it's a wonder it's not firmly illegal. It has been his intent to turn many an election.
The amount of spin on his network is not one bit different from, I would say MSNBC for example. Perhaps a little more than CNN, but not by much.
Ted Turner (founder of CNN), and other such media moguls follow exactly the same pattern of creating 'news as a product' and occasionally using it to create/defend narrative either personal or political.
That's how the news business mostly has always worked.
'Murdoch hate' largely exists because he normally spouts opinions that a some groups really disagree with, and so they want to consider him propaganda.
The heads of NBC/CBC are under fire for their own extremely indefensible manipulations, such as 'killing' the Ronan Farrow story a few times before it went public. Great article here: [1].
Literally covering up a mass rapist for 'favours' or because they're buddies with Weinstein. And these people still have jobs?
'News' is rife with this kind of stuff, and I believe Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are 'the same man'.
I don't believe CNN or Fox are propaganda outlets, rather, they serve mostly their business interest which is to cater to a 'certain audience', they will bend here and there given their execs/owners wishes, and during times of 'national concern' they'll close ranks a little bit.
Rupert Murdoch is actually much closer to 'normative media mogul' than he is unique. Even the families that own major media outlets in us (i.e. NY Times) and Sweden etc. have their agendas
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-nbc-killed-ronan-farrows-w...
It's a very slippery slope. Cannot wait for the next elections where any candidates with politically "wrong" ideas will see their pages silently being discarded or randomly hidden from timelines without warnings.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/may...
Various pages belonging to the main Libertarian party ("Liberal Democratic Party") started getting shutdown[0] about a month before elections.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/davidlimbrickldp/posts/209817440381...
If Facebook has issues with commenters, then those commenters should be punished.
I'm not sympathetic at all to FB overall, but I am sympathetic here.
Zuck would definitely prefer to not be in the business of moderating content.
They've created a kind of 'internet platform' and by virtue of their situation, they're kind of forced to do this.
And there is - no - solution.
Every nation has different laws, different thresholds for various kinds of activity, and I suggest most of what FB 'takes down' is probably technically legal, but just beyond what they would like to do.
They are also under considerable pressure from many countries to act explicitly in some cases. I'm not familiar with this Indian/Iranian situation, but it very well could be that Indian government officials leaned on them to do it. The less transparency there is, the more there is political interference in business, the more they have no choice: "We don't like Iran, so stop all this pro-Iran stuff in our country or we shut you down" type threats.
And no doubt the US gov. has their interests as well, both on the 'local petty stuff' (i.e. law enforcement) to 'strategic stuff' (i.e. we don't like Iran either, stop their propaganda).
I do however think that FB will actually try to do the right thing, I think it's just beyond their capability.
I don't think Zuck is trying to promote his view of the world in the filtering. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is 'an information architectural nightmare' - not really a political thing.
This could be an existential crisis for FB, as this happens more and more, they'll be expected to moderate 'everything' and then the business becomes infeasible.
when your private internet provider starts to shut you down for your stupid ideas, or your private bank denies you service lets see how you feel then. and to act like the government does not already regulate the hell out of private business is just a foolish position.
I dislike Facebook but for a lot of people it became part of their life and some information is now only available on Facebook.
As a public utility they should be regulated on what they are allow to restrict from their users.
So what? World of Warcraft became a part of a lot of people's lives, does that mean WoW should be a utility?
https://m.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/
The "about" section presents it as:
"Sugar, spice, and everything nice.Changing the world, one mug at a time. We're your daily girl power pick-me-up.
Cup of Jane is a community launched by TIP’s Future Media Project in DC. We love our communities!"
The discreet acronym TIP stands for "The Israel Project":
https://www.theisraelproject.org/
The page mixes feminist and feel-good messages with subtle propaganda for Israel. When is Facebook going to take it down?
Everything written is propaganda depending on what side of the opinion you were on.
Although I don’t like it, what is happening today is incredibly fascinating, watching it unfold since I have been using computers since 1990.
Mirthful because except for the polonium and nerve gas[2] everyone else has been playing the same games forever.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke-filled_room [2] Boorish to use your own people to kill someone instead of hiring it out like civilized men.
People with opposing political opinions might accuse each other of parroting their side's propaganda, but that's just a way to try to discredit what the person is saying. Like advertising, the only constant with propaganda is that it's bullshit: it might be true, it might not be. The person telling it to you might believe it, or they might not. They may not even know whether or not it's true, and they may not care. The purpose of propaganda, like advertising, is not to convey facts to people, but to convey emotions disguised as facts, and they know ahead of time how they want you to feel about what they're saying. It's not an honest effort to communicate facts, it's often meant to discredit the very notion of facts, so they can conveniently dismiss opposing views as just someone else's opinion.
We are being lied to on a regular basis, this has been going on for decades and the rise of right-wing and extreme right-wing parties reflects this.
They won't do it in the West as it would be picked up on the news, but bad actors in places like India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (those are the ones I know of) would pay to have that "feature".
Facebook is a perfect example of how a monopoly will treat people