30 ms·
Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments
- inglor 9y agoFacebook is deleting accounts that violate its ToS, governments (not just the US and Israeli ones) report accounts that constitute a violation of their laws all the time and Facebook removes those. Common examples are pages promoting illegal activities in a country - like drug dealing, weapons trade etc.
- lostlogin 9y agoOr promoting Palestinian civil rights. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/facebook-targeting-palestinian-accounts-161019063930119.html http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/facebook-targeting-pal...
- danjoc 9y agoIt's Facebook's business. They can run it any way they want. You want to promote Palestinian civil rights? Start your own Facebook.
- Barrin92 9y agoyes, the average Palestinian without any capital or internet access will just go into his garage and start a new facebook. What a facetious and despicable comment. As the article points out that Facebook is one of the most important news sources for Palestinians. This is effectively shutting them out of the modern communication system and a civil rights catastrophy.
- danjoc 9y ago>yes, the average Palestinian without any capital or internet access will just go into his garage and start a new facebook. Freedom of the Press, to those who own the presses. It's always been that way. >What a facetious and despicable comment. If I was responding to a comment about promoting alt-right ideology, it would be +1000 internets for sure. Same response, Facebook's business. You want to promote alt-right, start your own.
- Barrin92 9y agoThis is simply not true. First off you're applying American sets of values to the entire world, a lot of countries take the access to information just as serious as the rights of distribution, and even within the US there has never been a situation in history where a single publisher controlled 96% of the news access to large parts of the population. This kind of monopolisation of information, in the US largely spread up between Facebook and Google, is entirely new, and it was once commonly accepted that situations like this have no place in a market economy or a civil society. Now apparently it seems legitimate that this monopoly position is used to leverage power against marginalised populations in foreign countries under the guise of 'they have the right to do whatever they want'. This is intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt.
- doggydogs94 9y agoIn that case, you can help them secure the capital.
- Barrin92 9y agoThe problem isn't just capital in the sense of fiat currency, the problem is that they have no state and no rule of law, no incorporation into the global economy either formally or factually. There is no real way to even operate a global or local industry without the basic requirements, they are excluded from the rest of the world. There isn't a single serious facebook competitor in the entire United States. Please don't pretend that this is somehow a serious suggestion for a region like Palestine. They are entirely dependent on the digital and analog infrastructure surrounding them due to the circumstances they find themselves in.
- wolco 9y agoThere are smaller players but the problem is most people have lost interest because of facebook so people are disconnecting rather than switching. Other countries like Russia has there own successful facebook.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- musage 9y agoOr anything else, except speaking up, as demonstrated here. I mean, someone made a comment implying FB only removes really nasty, criminal things, but they don't get told that "it's Facebook's business" (even though it would apply just as much, but never is applied, to supportive comments), instead the response that adds some grounding in reality does. This is a discussion site, and the correct response to GP is to respond to GP, not do something else elsewhere.
- gaius 9y agoThis was posted earlier https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/world/asia/myanmar-government-facebook-rohingya.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/world/asia/myanmar-govern... Facebook is chaotic neutral at best...
- shard972 9y agoDoesn't help either that zuckerberg is a jew.
- lostlogin 9y agoDoesn’t hinder either. It’s individuals doing harm, not Judaism.
- Udik 9y agoIt's not individuals doing harm, it's the Jewish state, as Israel defines itself. Of course from being Jewish doesn't follow a support for Israel (and there are many harsh critics of Israel who are indeed Jewish)- however let's not pretend there is no connection at all, as that is obviously not true. If Zuckerberg were of Arab Palestinian descent it wouldn't be hard to imagine a greater sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
- int_19h 9y agoThey can run it any way they want, yes. And we can expose their motives for doing it one way and not the other, and treat them accordingly.
- tzahola 9y ago>They can ruin it any way they want. Fixed that for you
- bluetwo 9y agoOn one hand your post looks like a classic example of people down-voting a comment they disagree with, rather than making a counter-argument. I hate when this happens. On the other hand, you could learn from the example and create your own Hacker News...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jstewartmobile 9y agoNot good, though compared to the mainstream media lockdown I grew up under with uncle Walt and its "we've always been at war with eastasia" coverage, we live in charmed times. I first saw this article on Facebook.
- saas_co_de 9y agoThere is no way Facebook can satisfy the competing demands of different political factions and their own users so the more they capitulate to political demands the more users they will drive away and the more radical the demands on them will become. Hopefully this intensifies their downward spiral into irrelevance.
- yakitori 9y ago> There is no way Facebook can satisfy the competing demands of different political factions and their own users so the more they capitulate to political demands the more users they will drive away and the more radical the demands on them will become. Yep. This is why FB, GOOGL, etc needed to be "neutral". The day they caved in is the day their "promise" ended. The demands of censorship will continue. FB is deluding themselves if they think this is a one time deal. And not only that, other countries will start barring FB/GOOGL/etc when it becomes apparent that they are essentially biased political tools.
- KaoruAoiShiho 9y agoWe're not yet in some cyberpunk world of sovereign corporations (not sure I'd prefer that anyway). Companies work within the political control of nation states. Dismantle state power if you want what you say to be possible, as it is it's just not.
- saas_co_de 9y agoIt seems that we are in the cyberpunk world of sovereign corporations when it comes to tax avoidance but not when it comes to free speech, so take from that what you will.
- superioritycplx 9y agoGOOGL caved in when Eric Schmidt joined Hillary's camp. http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric-schmidt-relationship-with-clintons-2016-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric-...
- 9y ago
- EGreg 9y agoThis is what happens when everyone relies on some centralized global social network for their communications, instead of something they run locally on their own mesh network. https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/12/power-to-the-people/ https://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2017/12/power-to-the-people/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY
- meshr 9y agoHere is funny story how it works in reality: 12/23/2017 Facebook banned the page of the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Kadyrov (he has more power than police in Russia). FB said “that the accounts appear to be maintained by or on behalf of parties who appear on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals List and thus, subject to U.S. trade sanctions." [1] 12/24/2017 Russian airline company registered FB page with the same name to get all traffic of the banned page.[2] 12/30/2017 Kadyrov makes this company to return this page back to him. The page is returned back to Chechen Republic[3]. Now FB is violating their TOS for transferring accounts and U.S. trade sanctions. [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/facebook-instagram-kadyrov-chechnya-blocked-us-sanctions/28944406.html https://www.rferl.org/a/facebook-instagram-kadyrov-chechnya-... [2] https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/12/28/an-airline-makes-the-most-of-ramzan-kadyrov-s-facebook-ban https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/12/28/an-airline-makes-the-mo... [3] https://fb.com/rkadyrov95 https://fb.com/rkadyrov95
- MollyR 9y agoNot surprising. What is surprising is why more world governments don't aggressively clamp down and fine facebook.
- caseysoftware 9y agoAccording to the article, 96% of Palestinian Facebook users primarily use it to get news. So why clamp down and fine if you can threaten to fine and help shape what is displayed to who? It seems like a much more effective approach since there are few other sites, sources, etc that everyone visits. At that point, it comes down to who has the biggest hammer or budget.
- prove_np 9y agoIt sad to see such an article in the top posts at HW... I wouldn't even bother to reply if not for good people getting the wrong picture on what's going on. Yes, Facebook does delete posts (Nothing new so far), though only ones which violate Facebook's rules. I live in Israel and not once I've been shown some horrible video of Palestinians attacking locals. I'm not here to blame, nor generalize. I'm saying that this case is nothing special, but rather any other case of posts violating Facebook's rules only in a larger scale and at a specific target, Israel. For what it's worth, the hatred being published about Israel does not go the other way around. I, and many others, do respect and have no hate for Palestinians. We do have some radicals though, but just like in any other society. The sad part of the story is we get casualties on a daily-basis. Almost every week you hear of a terror attack in any part of the country. Most of the attackers are of young age, some of them even take advantage of their youth for lighter punishments. Both sides are losing people, no doubt. But at the end of the day, what's happening is chaos in our streets being done by /any person/ from the other side who feels like it and go on a killing-spree and yet we get slandered over false accusations on the Internet which pictures a wrong description of the situation. I've yet to witness the same brutality being manifested against us the Israelis but to Palestinians on the streets. I wouldn't go talking about IDF besides saying you would laugh if you knew how many restrictions an IDF solider has in any situations /even if his life is in danger/. TLDR; Do not believe /everything/ you read on the internet. Regardless of the publisher's reputation.
- goatsi 9y ago>For what it's worth, the hatred being published about Israel does not go the other way around. I, and many others, do respect and have no hate for Palestinians. The article does disagree with that view. >As Al Jazeera reported last year, “Inflammatory speech posted in the Hebrew language . . . has attracted much less attention from the Israeli authorities and Facebook. One study found that ‘122,000 users directly called for violence with words like ‘murder’, ‘kill’, or ‘burn.’ Arabs were the No 1 recipients of hateful comments. Yet there appears to be little effort by Facebook to censor any of that.” Have you noticed comments like this? Have you ever seen them deleted or Israeli accounts suspended for hateful language?
- Animats 9y agoSo Jewish control of the Internet has become a real thing?
- yakitori 9y agoNo kidding. And the media is attacking social media at the behest of both governments.
- Animats 9y agoCensorship has become far too easy, with a few key players in a position to muzzle vast numbers of others. The Internet wasn't supposed to work this way.
- wavefunction 9y agoCensorship can only be committed by the government. The fact that facebook is complying with requests from governments is both the right and responsibility of facebook.
- Animats 9y agoFacebook is bigger than some governments. It deals with governments almost as a peer. No newspaper baron of the 20th century ever had such power. Not Murdoch. Not Hearst.
- wavefunction 9y agoLet me know when facebook gets us into a war with another world power.
- dang 9y agoYou've been using HN primarily for ideological and political battle. That's an abuse of the site, and we ban accounts that do it, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended?
- wavefunction 9y agoActually I use it primarily to read technical articles posted here and I reply to comments on here whatever the subject. Nothing I said was untrue and I was quite fair in fact to either of the two sides described in my post. I will refrain from causing any future concern from you or anyone else, since I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings.
- Protostome 9y agoWhere is the proof that the Israeli officials are directly involved in closing these accounts? Couldn't find any in the article.
- forapurpose 9y agoI don't know what you mean by proof, but it's filled with information that supports the claim. For example, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to the social media giant over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed “incitement.” She said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests.
- this2shallPass 9y agoThis information does support the claim that the Israeli government submitted requests to Facebook. I wonder if Facebook publishes information on how many requests each government makes. Aside: It's funny the article says Tel Aviv submitted the requests, when the office is in Jerusalem http://www.justice.gov.il/ContactUs/Pages/default.aspx http://www.justice.gov.il/ContactUs/Pages/default.aspx. Subtle.
- gridaphobe 9y agoIt’s standard to use the capital city to refer to the actions of a state. Tel Aviv is the internationally accepted capital of Israel, not Jerusalem.
- golemiprague 9y agoTel Aviv is not accepted as capital city because nobody declared it as capital city. All government offices are in the west part of Jerusalem which is within the recognised borders of Israel. If anyone wanted to "recognise" a capital they could just call it west Jerusalem or something like that. Tel Aviv is one hour away. So it is a subtle political statement rather than factual news.
- 9y ago
- dogma1138 9y agoAnd German, French, British and list goes on and on.
- linkmotif 9y ago> “Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.” Maybe because they are incitement? This kind of thing isn’t incitement? https://goo.gl/images/oknvLC https://goo.gl/images/oknvLC many other examples catalogued here: http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Social-media-playing-central-role-in-Palestinian-incitement-during-terror-wave-426090 http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Social-media-playin... the incitement to violence is real. Love how Greenwald glosses over this as insignificant. In his world view, Israelis should just accept social media posts that incite murdering them, because Israelis are big bad guys.
- saagarjha 9y agoI believe the article was trying to show how these rules were being applied unevenly, rather than trying to legitimize incitement.
- linkmotif 9y agoMaybe, except this is what Glen Greenwald writes instead: > Last March, Facebook briefly shut down the Facebook page of the political party, Fatah, followed by millions, “because of an old photo posted of former leader Yasser Arafat holding a rifle.” which is on the soft side of what Israel contests is incitement (see my post above, or Google for more examples, there are many).
- ffgg 9y agoA dead dude with a rifle is incitement? That’s a laugh. In the US you can go to a rifle range and buy targets with the president’s face on it. Then you upload that to YouTube and get hundreds of likes. FB is not offended by a dead Arab with a gun. It’s scared of other things, but you’ll have to re-read the article to find out
- linkmotif 9y ago> A dead dude with a rifle Yeah, like Jefferson Davis, or any other dead dude with a rifle used to incite violence. Nothing new here. Nothing to take lightly. > dead Arab with a gun Why are you trivializing Arabs? Much less dead Arabs? I don’t think Arabs would appreciate being taken so lightly. I don’t take them lightly. They’re serious people. > That’s a laugh This is exactly what I’m talking about. Glossing over and making trivial things like this. It’s not funny. It’s real and it’s serious. I’m certain you wouldn’t be laughing if it was your killing being incited.
- jotadambalakiri 9y ago>What makes this censorship particularly consequential is that “96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news.” That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians. I think the second sentence doesn't follow so clearly from the first one to warrant a "that means".
- mannyk7 9y agoIt almost makes sense for all civilized societies to threat those who incite violence as a threat to the stability of the society. But we can look deeper. Violence is usually a symptom of a disease and not necessarily a contagious disease itself that need to be purged. It's a test of will for a nation state to properly handle dissenting voices.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoSo I was initially bearish on it, but I tried out Diaspora today. It's actually quite nice! I have started the laborous process of getting my family on it. I'm pitching it to them as Facebook like it was in the mid/late-2000's, but has no ads, isn't run for profit, no creepy big brother vibes, and there are only people on it (no stupid pages, brands, etc).
- mr_spothawk 9y agoif you're into this sort of thing, check out Scuttlebutt::SSB/Patchwork
- toAnswerIt 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUZaR3op1qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUZaR3op1qw the amount of revisionism that Israel and USA engaged in is absurd. they even hire students to brigade social media https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/14/israel-students-social-media/2651715/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/14/israel-...
- 0xBA5ED 9y ago>96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news This is astounding to me given the likelihood of Facebook's unspoken allegiances and their history with respect to censorship.
- beagle3 9y agoWhile I agree, i’m Not familiar with even remotely neutral sources in Arabic; on one side you have a Hamas/Fatah “Iraqi information minister”’style reporting, and on the other side you have the Israeli reporting in Arabic. Facebook, despite being more closely aligned with Israel, and having the history of a Skinner box operator, is still more likely to bring news vetted by their friends with some commentary. Very sadly, it might actually be their best source of news.
- lithos 9y ago"History"? it should be something closer to "reality of being a Skinner box operator".
- LorenPechtel 9y agoBut how much of that "news" is propaganda/incitement to violence?
- horsecaptin 9y agoHah, jokes on you Facebook. I deleted my own account!