Hacker News Reader

Facebook didn't remove posts promoting ethnic violence in a timeous manner. In fact, it did the opposite, its algorithms promoted these types of inflamed posts to increase user engagement. It's not hard to understand why Meta is responsible unless you're being disingenuous; you didn't touch on that aspect. Facebook is not some harmless message transceiver. And not to mention, Facebook didn't have sufficient native speakers to moderate the content. So at worst, they're negligent.

There are responsibilities to allowing people on your platform and having them speak to the internet; free speech is not absolute.

The article mentions a murderous Mynamarese monk [0]. I think he is responsible. And people like him.

There is a real question here about whether Facebook's algorithms created the zeitgeist or just reflected it. Since most countries have Facebook and most countries are avoiding Facebook-fueled mass murder sprees, I suspect it is more that their algorithms accurately reflected what a large number of people were thinking.

It is an interesting question, and maybe there will be compelling arguments made in Part II. But that hasn't happened in Part I.

[0] The gap that can emerge between the priests of a religion and the religious ideals would stun the naive. If this article is accurate then the man might be an anti-Buddha.

This is pretty damning:

> As the violence in Mandalay worsens, the head of Deloitte in Myanmar gets an urgent call. Zaw Htay, the official spokesman of Myanmar’s president, needs help reaching Meta. The Deloitte executive works into the night trying to get someone to respond, but never gets through. On the third day of rioting, the government gets tired of waiting and blocks access to Facebook in Mandalay. The block works — the riots died down. And the Deloitte guy’s inbox suddenly fills with emails from Meta staffers wanting to know why Facebook has been blocked

The article mentioned that the zeitgeist was that the communities lived in peaceful indifference, but political and religious leaders with hate, only through the mass communication ability of Facebook, were able to leverage their authority status to radicalize the common man to believe a funny hateful man on the Internet over their local customs and mores.

The ideas people are exposed to can shape their own ideas. That’s how ideas work.

what happens when the algorithms decide which ideas you see

genocide in this case

I think it's a fine line between "people shouldn't be exposed to bad ideas" and "people shouldn't be exposed to good ideas"

Leaders calling for racial genocide isn't really at that "fine end". Meta should be able to distinguish between that and "corporations should pay less taxes".

should your ISP be able to distinguish between these? Should WhatsApp or your encrypted messengers? Should your mobile phone providers?

My ISP should not be promoting posts advocating for genocide at me, absolutely yes!!

when the government blocked facebook, the riots stopped very quickly… it was fairly clear and this is just the first half

> There is a real question here about whether Facebook's algorithms created the zeitgeist or just reflected it.

That is a false dichotomy. It is possible for Facebook's role to have been to exacerbate existing religious tensions for profit. They are an actor in this story. Not either a "creator" of zeitgeist or an object with no agency.

Last paragraphs of the article:

>They’d been shown example after example of dehumanizing posts and comments calling for mass murder, even explicitly calling for genocide. And David Madden had told Meta staff to their faces that Facebook might well play the role in Myanmar that radio played in Rwanda. Nothing was subtle.

>After all that, Meta decided not to dramatically scale up moderation capacity, to permanently ban the known worst actors, or to make fundamental product-design changes to reliably deviralize posts inciting hatred and violence.

>Instead, in 2016, it was time to get way more people in Myanmar onto Facebook.

>That’s next, in Part II: The Crisis.

These would have been reasonable actions that Meta had a responsibility to take.

I have seen discussion of this problem by anti-tech writers become "Facebook caused these atrocities". I agree with you that it's overstating Facebook's role.

However, I don't think that places Facebook's conduct beyond criticism. I'm very interested to see part 2, as it sounds like there are more positive acts by Facebook at that time. Rather than just the passive inaction which characterises part 1.

But, "refusing to enforce your own policies" is action, and it sounds like Facebook is very guilty of this.

I stress that I'm waiting for Part II, because I don't think she's really gotten to the meat of it. But so far we've got

Case 1: Facebook doesn't enforce their policies. There is a genocide.

Plausible Case 2: Facebook enforces their policies. There is a genocide.

Plausible Case 3: Facebook enforces their policies, shapes the future of a country and learns they are bigger than the people. They start actively influencing elections worldwide to shape a pro-Facebook political consensus.

Case 2 is better than 1, but given 3 there is a strong argument that the conversation is being misframed focusing on Facebook's policies. The case where they act and succeed is just as worrying as when they do nothing. Possibly more so, given that there is no evidence at all that Facebook pushing political opinions will result in good outcomes. The mass media have traditionally been cheerleaders for any number of atrocities and help shield corrupt people.

Why even consider these counterfactuals? Is asking Facebook to not amplify bald-faced calls for ethnic cleansing too much here? Can we agree that Facebook should make a conscious effort to NOT do that, and failing that withdraw from the market?

> Is asking Facebook to not amplify bald-faced calls for ethnic cleansing too much here? Can we agree that Facebook should make a conscious effort to NOT do that, and failing that withdraw from the market?

Sounds good to me. If you meet anyone who disagrees with any of that, let me know. But I don't think Kissane is aiming for that with this article. We don't have the full story yet, but it looks like it might be an attack on Facebook, using the crimes of the Myanmarese as emotional fuel.

> If you meet anyone who disagrees with any of that, let me know

Facebook appears to have disagreed with that; they amplified calls for ethnic cleansing and did not respond to concerns about it, so they must have believed that asking them not to was too much. That's the point.

That point hasn't been made. That is why I'm putting some time into this comment chain - we've got the journalism thing happening where people did terrible things, and people used Facebook, and then the journalist is painting Facebook as guilty by association without saying much specific that provides a link. And then letting low-empathy readers join the dots without considering what the people involved were likely thinking.

Bad people use Facebook. We don't need evidence to know that. This article is strong evidence that very bad people use Facebook, but it isn't at all clear that Facebook should be considered morally involved based on what has been presented seen so far.

Maybe the killing blow is yet to come. But I'm pretty sure any objective standard that gets Facebook in trouble here will get them in just as much trouble for letting Victoria Newland or US 4 star generals post publicly. There are a lot if brutes in public office.

Furthermore getting involved in matters of war and peace is not a role that Facebook will get praise for, it'll do some really terrible things if it goes down that path. They should be biased towards inaction. Even and especially if they care.

Yes, this may have happened anyway. Yes, Facebook is not fully responsible. But I disagree with you. The lines are clear.

Facebook de facto became the internet in a country of ~50 million people through subsidising their platform through free data access.

Their platform was developed in order to further their own goals - through maximising engagement and monetisation.

The second order effects of their own personal ambition was enabling people like Wirathu to reach hundreds of thousands of people with hate speech and calls for genocide.

Facebook were informed of this multiple times and allegedly, did nothing about. During this time they had 1 Burmese speaking moderator.

Stating that they have no moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions is in my opinion horseshit. But it does align with certain aspects of the current American zeitgeist of entrepreneurship, free speech and platform "safe harbour" regulations.

This is not a view shared everywhere and should not be assumed when American tech companies scale out of the US. Thankfully this dogmatic approach is being regulated by the likes of the EU and other countries so these platforms are more aligned with their own moral frameworks.

Personally, I find Facebook absolutely morally responsible for parts of this. Just through the simple fact that provided a platform for tens of millions of people - with severely lacking moderation - all in the chase of growth and profits.

This isn't exporting "freedom and democracy" to the world like the good old days. This is abhorrent profit maximisation with no regards for the consequences of their actions, hidden behind a thin veneer of moral rationalization.

I upvoted several posts of yours in this thread but man, are you implying FB was not actively promoting one side? I don't even believe it was "the algorithm".

Stuff like this does not happen by accident, nor in a vacuum. The only reason we don't hear more about this is that important people don't want us to.

Don't play the naivety card in topics like this.

Edi: downvote all you want, you horrible apologists. FB is a weapon and you know it.

> what exactly is the standard Facebook is meant to enforce? Should it ban everyone who is responsible for pointless killing? That includes the US leadership apparatus - should it ban everyone who voted Aye for the Iraq war? Afghanistan? Wars like Vietnam? (yes, the people who voted for it knew better). They won't do that. We'll have a large, powerful company applying uneven and subjective standards.

I completely agree that Facebook isn't well placed to make these decisions, however the architects of the Iraq War faced almost no consequences. I wouldn't be upset if Facebook banned Bush. I agree with you in principle but the example you chose is exactly one that I would be comfortable with. Incidentally Facebook did ban a different former president, so I guess your point about Facebook's position of influence is true.

Basically Facebook were the equivalent of radio stations in Rwanda. The difference being if facebook had assigned adequate resources, they could have removed egregious content.

Would that have stopped the killings? It might have slowed down the spread of rage.

Or it could have furthered censorship and propaganda. It's easy to sit on your hands and think the status quo is fine in Rwanda if every bit of footage revealing how bad it was is suppressed.

You are missing the point.

Radio is a tool, used to terrible effectiveness by several groups to further their aims. Rwanda was and is _horrific_. > 3/4million people died. So was Bosnia, Timor, Lebanon.

You can't go from 0-100% genocide without a concerted effort.

Should facebook have done more? you fucking betcha. Are they guilty of fanning the flames? totally.

are they responsible for the genocide? no. That is very much down to the military junta, aided by Aung san suu kyi.

Several NGOs tried at the time to raise awareness that a possible genocide was coordinated on Facebook. Facebook did nothing to interfere with this, despite that their platform is not only a passive message board, but actively features posts with high "engagement" to as many users as possible.

We have to be able to value free speech and a free exchange of ideas, and accept that this means we will have shady web sites inciting war and violence, while at the same time holding mass media responsible for their actions.

Whoever runs Facebook should be just as responsible as said shady web site. We should be talking personal responsibility in a literal legal manner here, not having philosophical arguments.

Keep in mind that Facebook at the time still tried to win over web forums, had the Arab spring in their back and did not miss a chance to talk about how they could change the world and had the political clout to do it.

> there is evil afoot

> the will of the people is unusually evil

I'm intrigued by this language. What do you mean by it? Do you believe in evil, are you religious? Do you believe people can be evil, or are you talking more about evil acts? I'm just curious because it stood out for me.

It is fair to say I'm irreligious. And, arguably, that I do not believe in evil. But we have a word, 'evil', and I feel it is the most appropriate word to describe people who coordinate genocides and/or mass violence.