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Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

This pressure should be applied to the very top - eliminating trade with countries where these behaviors are common.

And US companies should choose to not, and perhaps should be banned from, operating in countries where their services are used for human trafficing. FB and Google shareholders should demand this from their companies. Of course it will mean some reduced revenue, but I think most Americans regardless of political affiliation would agree that human trafficing is just unacceptable.

Additionally, Facebook and Google are very smart. They can connect dots (accounts). They know who is selling humans, and they could perma-ban these people. Essentially it should be possible to prevent these people from ever using any account on any of the major tech services.

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An alternative perspective…should FB and Google continue to offer their services so that they can inform and assist international authorities with stopping it?

It just seems like platform bans do very little other than move the activity into more shadowy places.

I'm not convinced the authorities in those countries really object to the practices.

Normally I would agree about bans pushing the activity into shadowy places, but at least in this case it would probably limit the exposure to just the countries with the bad practices. Basically it would hopefully limit more international trade of people.

From the opposite perspective, since Facebook unfortunately seems to be a common place for businesses to promote themselves, cutting off a country (with clear explanation why) would perhaps make some of its businesses put pressure on the government to enact some changes. Basically it would limit economic activities, and most individuals/businesses/governments don't want that.

There's a balance here but it really is important to consider how much less effective those shadowy places would be without free use of tools built by billions of dollars of developer and SRE time. Facebook and Google give them platforms they could never afford on their own and there's a big question of access when it comes to things like recruiting being more effective when it can happen on a legitimate mainstream platform.

Now, there is some question about the value of cooperation with international authorities but that is undercut by the long history of not working with those organizations and concealing problems rather than reporting them. I'm not sure that can happen without something like a regulatory requirement with personal liability for senior management in the event of non-compliance — they need to fear this at least as much as, say, a financial firm fears lying to the SEC.

Even if Facebook and…Google (I assume you mean AdWord or YouTube accounts?) could reliably identify these people as you claim, is just perma banning them the right solution? It seems like it would be better to get the police involved and actually help whoever is being abused as well as arrest these people. Perma bans just pushes the problem elsewhere.

>is just perma banning them the right solution? It seems like it would be better to get the police involved and actually help whoever is being abused as well as arrest these people

Yeah but you don't get credit in the media for working on the problem silently. You need to slam the banhammer so the censored speak out & everyone knows you're "doing the right thing".

So you're saying tech companies want to ban human traffickers so that the human traffickers speak out publicly about being censored, giving said tech companies credit for acting?

Um, I think this falls apart where human traffickers are supposed to speak out ...

These people often reside in places where the police is comlocit with the trafficking.

A lot of the countries where this stuff happens don't have strong enough governments to stop it. It's easy to become accustomed to powerful western governments if you've grown up in one, but not good to expect the same level of law enforcement in the global south. That's even when those governments care about stopping the problem - it's not something you can just will away. Eliminating trade in these countries just makes life worse for the rest of the citizens there and doesn't make the human trafficking problem go away.

Beyond that... human trafficking happens in USA. A lot around super bowl time.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait don't have strong enough governments?

> And US companies should choose to not, and perhaps should be banned from, operating in countries where their services are used for human trafficing.

That's an insane ask. You'd be pulling Apple out of markets they have no intention of leaving, and you'd be forcing the entirety of FAANG to double down on their domestic authority if they want to survive (see: collude harder with the NSA). I'm all for striking when the iron's hot, but it would be awfully easy to dent our nation while we're this malleable.

Not to mention there are plenty of alternatives coming from different countries. Having Google and Facebook pull out of say Laos just means Wechat and baidu would move in.

Why just perma ban people who Google and Facebook and Apple know to be in the slave trade? Why not publish everything about their identities to allow them to be hunted down?

I thought about suggsting this, but that's too risky. False positives are unacceptable here because of the potential repercussions.

Now, reporting those people to the authorities for investigation might be ok, but that assumes the authorites object to the behaviors.

Sounds like a good policy for report enemies, teachers and quasi-celebrities who you may more info on.

Banning is fine but doxxing can destroy an innocent person’s reputation, which can lead to physical harm in their personal lives. We have law enforcement and court systems for that. I don’t believe tech companies should pass these kind of punishments.

That seems like a nice way to avoid liability, but I don't see how that stops the modern slave trade in the middle east.

Today human traffic tomorrow posts critical of these top tech companies.

Let's Perma-ban as many people as possible so these sites look like a disney movie.

Let's perma-ban political figures I don't support.

Let's perma-ban all.. and move to free platforms.

"First they came for the human traffickers, but I said nothing because I wasn't a human trafficker." Somehow I don't think this is particularly convincing.

Let me guess you heard it before and have decided these companies will never use their power against you? You are safe.. until it's too late.

Are you still using Apple after finding out about them scanning your local photos? I guess that wasn't particulary convincing?

Get outta here with that slippery slope silliness

Check back in a few years. You could be the next one sliding.

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