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UN blames Facebook for spreading hatred of Rohingya

39 points by IBM 9y ago

gressquel 9y ago
It happened last week in Sri Lanka too. Although the government was quick to block FB i think 3 muslims died.
- EdwardDiego 9y ago
  Militant Buddhism must be really blocking some chakras in the West.
- nonamechicken 9y ago
  It happens in India too. Whenever there is a mass movement, government tries to stop social media. And everyone starts blaming government for curtailing free speech. But I think there is a really good reason to do it considering the lack of resources to effectively police the population. One bad example I came across recently was this news: fake whatsapp/facebook messages led to the killing of 7 men https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/a-whatsapp-message-claimed-nine-lives-in-jharkhand-in-a-week/story-xZsIlwFawf82o5WTs8nhVL.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/a-whatsapp-message...
  - philliphaydon 9y ago
    I heard a story in Singapore. I don’t know how much truth there is to it but basically: there was conflict going on in China, and every time the news told the story the issue grew worst. China asked singapore for advice and LKY said to stop posting it the news and no one will know about it, and it won’t grow and it will die down. So China forced the media to stop talking abou it and the conflict died down in a few days.
singularity2001 9y ago
yesterday I came across a YouTube video with 1M views where the expulsion of white farmers from South Africa was demanded. while they might have a point, the language in the comment section was so harsh that it cried for some form of moderation.
- mvdwoord 9y ago
  Change white to black, or jews, or... and see if they "might still have a point".
  - EdwardDiego 9y ago
    That ignores the entire history of South Africa but go nuts.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    Context matters. South Africa has the largest inequality in the world. Colonialism created a society where the descendenantd of armed invaders control 80% of th farmland. Whites generally live a comfortable middle class life, while the native population often lives in abject poverty. South Africa is also a glorious example of reconciliation, overcoming a history of injustice without violence. But the farming community simply has not used the chance they had in the last 20 years to become part of this historic process: while universities and many other groups and institutions have de-segregated, that conservative community has dug in and defended their privileges at all costs. They invited the government to eventually force their hand. Expulsion is obviously a bridge to far. And Zimbabwe stands as the obvious example of what not to do. But some sort of legislative land reform is now inevitable.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      > overcoming a history of injustice without violence I'm not sure the truth and reconciliation commission would entirely agree with that.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
AllegedAlec 9y ago
Why is Facebook to blame here exactly? I'm not a fan of the company at all, but, as I've said in earlier topics on more of less the same thing, I don't think it's fair to hold them responsible for what people post on there more than it is to hold internet providers responsible for people using their connections for the same thing.
- tonypace 9y ago
  Because Facebook already controls what people say and see on their platform. But they choose to use that power to censor boobs and show you whatever will provide the strongest response.
  - AllegedAlec 9y ago
    > they choose to use that power to censor boobs Do they, or are they forced to do so? And as I said: I don't like Facebook. I think they're shifty and probably do have an agenda. However, it's untenable to attempt to force them to censor anything that a government doesn't approve of, or hell, society doesn't approve of. Facebook has 2.2 billion active users which make post 510,000 comments, update 293,000 statuses, and upload 136,000 photos per minute. It is impossible for a company to go through all of them in order to censor those which break whatever law of the country it was posted in.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Do you really believe it’s illegal to show breasts on the internet?
      - AllegedAlec 9y ago
        On the internet? Difficult question. In certain countries, to people below a certain age? Certainly.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      On the one hand you're saying that facebook are effectivly "forced" to censor nudity (which may actually be legal in some jurisdictions), and then you immediately say it's "untenable"?
emiliobumachar 9y ago
I'll say this again: We, as a society, across multiple governments and now the UN, with ample public support, are dragging Google and Facebook into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. They may well eventually settle into that role, and come to like it. I understand that the volume of information grew much faster than the traditional legal avenues for taking down illegal speech. And we're scrambling for a quick fix. But this fix may prove worse in the long run than the problem it fixes. These organizations may be relatively enlightened today, but there's no guarantee they'll continue to be 30 years from now.
- thisisit 9y ago
  > are dragging Google and Facebook into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. I couldn't have said any better. Later people might have an issue on why a "public" company is now moderating free speech.
  - ChrisSD 9y ago
    Eh? "Public" companies have always moderated speech. I can't think of a time when they haven't. Even if you restrict that to internet companies then even Facebook already does moderation (although it seems wildly inconsistent). Heck 4chan has some moderation albeit of a very limited kind.
  - ehnto 9y ago
    Any successfully productive and civil online community has in my experience been community moderated. If you want to participate then you follow some simple guidlines and contribute in a positive way, which can include differences of opinion. All of the platforms failing to provide productive and civil discourse are those that have no community moderation, or worse, are just personal soapboxes with an effortless virtue signal button. I think the platforms are broken by design, and humanity figured out a long time ago that there are limits to uncivil discourse and you need to recognise them. The great thing about the internet is if you feel passionate enough about your idea, you have probably thought hard about it and you can go make your own community. The issue with effortless virtue signalling and the no-consequences soapbox is that you don't have to think that hard about something so long as it sounds like it's up your alley, and you can be led very far astray before realising you're in a toxic conversation, potentially one with a subtext you didn't recognise.
laurent123456 9y ago
There were massacres before Facebook, and there will still be after it. As much as I dislike Facebook, they are just a platform and if they weren't here, another one will take their place so it's a bit weird the UN investigator would blame them directly. Ultimately people, not FB, are responsible for what they do, and for being too easily manipulated by online propaganda.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > if they weren't here, another one will take their place This is a cop-out. Hateful false information, with violent consequences, is being spread by a company profiting from its distribution. We don’t say, in the event of food poisoning, “we can’t blame the restaurant because if they weren’t here someone else would be poisoning people.” We fine the business and send a message to the industry that said behaviour is unacceptable. Facebook is contributing to and profiting from atrocities. That rightfully merits scrutiny, of Facebook and ad-driven social media companies generally.
  - zingmars 9y ago
    That's a terrible analogy. Unless there's a cabal of restaurants with a plan to poison people, it's probably an accident. Spreading hate like this however, is deliberate, and if there wasn't facebook, people doing this would most certainly find a different venue.
  - laurent123456 9y ago
    They simply provide a way to communicate between people. When a newspaper incites hatred, we might blame the editor, the writers, or the readers, but we don't blame the paper company. What I mean is that the service provided by Facebook is somewhat trivial - it can easily be replaced by emails, chats, or any of the countless ways to communicate via the internet. Shutting down Facebook will not solve the problems in Myanmar.
  - yur83838 9y ago
    This isn't a cop out. Anything different and Facebook would be blamed for censorship. This is a difficult problem to solve. It's practically human nature to form a mob and group think. It's one of the first things that kids do in pre-school. I think the only solution to this problem is education.
jlebrech 9y ago
UN is to blame for keeping religion alive.
thisisit 9y ago
As much as I am concerned about Facebook's reach this story presents a rather narrow vision of the problem. The region has earlier seen people spreading hatred and misinformation through plain old SMS and MMS too. The only way governments tend to control this is by blocking mobile/sms services. In this case unfortunately the only way around is to block Facebook or internet services until things calm down.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
“A couple of hours outside Yangon, the country’s largest city, U Aye Swe, an administrator for Sin Ma Kaw village, said he was proud to oversee one of Myanmar’s ‘Muslim-free’ villages, which bar Muslims from spending the night, among other restrictions. ‘Kalar are not welcome here because they are violent and they multiply like crazy, with so many wives and children,’ he said. Mr. Aye Swe admitted he had never met a Muslim before, adding, ‘I have to thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar.‘“ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-roh...
- foepys 9y ago
  It's so sad to see that some people are actually proud of being brainwashed by propaganda via social media.
- pjc50 9y ago
  It's amazing and horrifying how easily people can be convinced to murder someone they've never met based on lies presented as truth. One of the lessons of the Holocaust that has to be continually re-learned.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
redcodenl 9y ago
Facebook doesn't spread hatred, people spread hatred. Sure, Facebook could crack down on the way people are using their service/their tool, but I don't think they are responsible for the actions of users. What about: - Broadband internet is spreading hatred - Chrome Browser is spreading hatred - ISPs are spreading hatred (etc) Don't blame a company, or the service they provide. A crackdown on Facebook will force the hating people to another tool or communication method. They'll probably move to a more encrypted method of communication, which will make finding the wrong-doings and the people much harder. The only thing they could do is ask Facebook to cooperate and provide details to find the haters.
- lou1306 9y ago
  > which will make finding the wrong-doings and the people much harder This is exactly the point: to push hate-mongering back into the fringe it belongs to. Law enforcement will still be able to crack down on them, have no fear.
- foepys 9y ago
  > Don't blame a company, or the service they provide Facebook is making billions by exploiting exactly that kind of behavior. The more one-sided and scandalous a headline is, the more clicks it gets. This leads to being seen by more poeple. Also, showing people only what they want to see leads to echo chambers and is ditremental to society as those groups tend to develop into extremes that refuse to accept anything outside of their bubble.
  - redcodenl 9y ago
    > Also, showing people only what they want to see leads to echo chambers Not sure I agree with this. The internet made it possbile for the whole world to see information coming from all kinds of sources. Before, in history, you had to rely on local news/newspapers, or even less information. Much more bubbly than this modern age. Again: I think the reason those bubbles appear have to do with society and the urge to belong to a group, Facebook is not to blame here. Facebook reflects people and society, not the other way around.
tzahola 9y ago
Too bad the Rwanda genocide happened in the 90s. If Facebook was around back then, we could have washed hands and blame them for that too.
- pjc50 9y ago
  As it happened, the "social media" of its day was a pro-genocide radio station. They were not only blamed (correctly) for it, but the directors were arrested, charged with crimes against humanity, and sentenced to over 30 years in prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...
- matt4077 9y ago
  By that logic, Nazis weren’t responsible for WW2 because they weren’t around in the time of the 60 years’ war.
zelos 9y ago
>Facebook was a huge part of public, civil and private life, and the government used it to disseminate information to the public. Seriously? I know they probably have bigger things to worry about in Myanmar, but that's pretty crazy.
- salvar 9y ago
  Which part? That the government uses the most effective communication channel to disseminate information?
joshuajeeson 9y ago
Amplification of a message is the problem and not being a medium of exchange of messages. Facebook can/should only be held responsible for amplifying a message and should not be accountable for being a medium. The information on 'Who' paid 'When' and 'How much' to amplify 'What' message/post to 'Whom' should be publicly accountable. This model should apply to any AD agency.
reustle 9y ago
I went to Myanmar at the beginning of 2015 for a few weeks, and was blown away at how many people had cell phones. It was only a few years before that phones were unobtainable due to extremely high sim card prices (only one provider). Once they allowed in competition (2 other networks), the price flew down to sub $1 per sim card, and in a flash everyone was online. What really stood out was how much of the country ran on facebook. Groups for everything, pages for businesses, messenger for communication, etc. It resembled being in china and having everything run through wechat. I guess this is one of those consequences.

39 points by IBM 9y ago

gressquel 9y ago

It happened last week in Sri Lanka too. Although the government was quick to block FB i think 3 muslims died.

EdwardDiego 9y ago
Militant Buddhism must be really blocking some chakras in the West.
nonamechicken 9y ago
It happens in India too. Whenever there is a mass movement, government tries to stop social media. And everyone starts blaming government for curtailing free speech. But I think there is a really good reason to do it considering the lack of resources to effectively police the population. One bad example I came across recently was this news: fake whatsapp/facebook messages led to the killing of 7 men https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/a-whatsapp-message-claimed-nine-lives-in-jharkhand-in-a-week/story-xZsIlwFawf82o5WTs8nhVL.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/a-whatsapp-message...
- philliphaydon 9y ago
  I heard a story in Singapore. I don’t know how much truth there is to it but basically: there was conflict going on in China, and every time the news told the story the issue grew worst. China asked singapore for advice and LKY said to stop posting it the news and no one will know about it, and it won’t grow and it will die down. So China forced the media to stop talking abou it and the conflict died down in a few days.

singularity2001 9y ago

yesterday I came across a YouTube video with 1M views where the expulsion of white farmers from South Africa was demanded. while they might have a point, the language in the comment section was so harsh that it cried for some form of moderation.

mvdwoord 9y ago
Change white to black, or jews, or... and see if they "might still have a point".
- EdwardDiego 9y ago
  That ignores the entire history of South Africa but go nuts.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  Context matters. South Africa has the largest inequality in the world. Colonialism created a society where the descendenantd of armed invaders control 80% of th farmland. Whites generally live a comfortable middle class life, while the native population often lives in abject poverty. South Africa is also a glorious example of reconciliation, overcoming a history of injustice without violence. But the farming community simply has not used the chance they had in the last 20 years to become part of this historic process: while universities and many other groups and institutions have de-segregated, that conservative community has dug in and defended their privileges at all costs. They invited the government to eventually force their hand. Expulsion is obviously a bridge to far. And Zimbabwe stands as the obvious example of what not to do. But some sort of legislative land reform is now inevitable.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > overcoming a history of injustice without violence I'm not sure the truth and reconciliation commission would entirely agree with that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

AllegedAlec 9y ago

Why is Facebook to blame here exactly? I'm not a fan of the company at all, but, as I've said in earlier topics on more of less the same thing, I don't think it's fair to hold them responsible for what people post on there more than it is to hold internet providers responsible for people using their connections for the same thing.

tonypace 9y ago
Because Facebook already controls what people say and see on their platform. But they choose to use that power to censor boobs and show you whatever will provide the strongest response.
- AllegedAlec 9y ago
  > they choose to use that power to censor boobs Do they, or are they forced to do so? And as I said: I don't like Facebook. I think they're shifty and probably do have an agenda. However, it's untenable to attempt to force them to censor anything that a government doesn't approve of, or hell, society doesn't approve of. Facebook has 2.2 billion active users which make post 510,000 comments, update 293,000 statuses, and upload 136,000 photos per minute. It is impossible for a company to go through all of them in order to censor those which break whatever law of the country it was posted in.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Do you really believe it’s illegal to show breasts on the internet?
    - AllegedAlec 9y ago
      On the internet? Difficult question. In certain countries, to people below a certain age? Certainly.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    On the one hand you're saying that facebook are effectivly "forced" to censor nudity (which may actually be legal in some jurisdictions), and then you immediately say it's "untenable"?

emiliobumachar 9y ago

I'll say this again: We, as a society, across multiple governments and now the UN, with ample public support, are dragging Google and Facebook into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. They may well eventually settle into that role, and come to like it. I understand that the volume of information grew much faster than the traditional legal avenues for taking down illegal speech. And we're scrambling for a quick fix. But this fix may prove worse in the long run than the problem it fixes. These organizations may be relatively enlightened today, but there's no guarantee they'll continue to be 30 years from now.

thisisit 9y ago
> are dragging Google and Facebook into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. I couldn't have said any better. Later people might have an issue on why a "public" company is now moderating free speech.
- ChrisSD 9y ago
  Eh? "Public" companies have always moderated speech. I can't think of a time when they haven't. Even if you restrict that to internet companies then even Facebook already does moderation (although it seems wildly inconsistent). Heck 4chan has some moderation albeit of a very limited kind.
- ehnto 9y ago
  Any successfully productive and civil online community has in my experience been community moderated. If you want to participate then you follow some simple guidlines and contribute in a positive way, which can include differences of opinion. All of the platforms failing to provide productive and civil discourse are those that have no community moderation, or worse, are just personal soapboxes with an effortless virtue signal button. I think the platforms are broken by design, and humanity figured out a long time ago that there are limits to uncivil discourse and you need to recognise them. The great thing about the internet is if you feel passionate enough about your idea, you have probably thought hard about it and you can go make your own community. The issue with effortless virtue signalling and the no-consequences soapbox is that you don't have to think that hard about something so long as it sounds like it's up your alley, and you can be led very far astray before realising you're in a toxic conversation, potentially one with a subtext you didn't recognise.

laurent123456 9y ago

There were massacres before Facebook, and there will still be after it. As much as I dislike Facebook, they are just a platform and if they weren't here, another one will take their place so it's a bit weird the UN investigator would blame them directly. Ultimately people, not FB, are responsible for what they do, and for being too easily manipulated by online propaganda.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> if they weren't here, another one will take their place This is a cop-out. Hateful false information, with violent consequences, is being spread by a company profiting from its distribution. We don’t say, in the event of food poisoning, “we can’t blame the restaurant because if they weren’t here someone else would be poisoning people.” We fine the business and send a message to the industry that said behaviour is unacceptable. Facebook is contributing to and profiting from atrocities. That rightfully merits scrutiny, of Facebook and ad-driven social media companies generally.
- zingmars 9y ago
  That's a terrible analogy. Unless there's a cabal of restaurants with a plan to poison people, it's probably an accident. Spreading hate like this however, is deliberate, and if there wasn't facebook, people doing this would most certainly find a different venue.
- laurent123456 9y ago
  They simply provide a way to communicate between people. When a newspaper incites hatred, we might blame the editor, the writers, or the readers, but we don't blame the paper company. What I mean is that the service provided by Facebook is somewhat trivial - it can easily be replaced by emails, chats, or any of the countless ways to communicate via the internet. Shutting down Facebook will not solve the problems in Myanmar.
- yur83838 9y ago
  This isn't a cop out. Anything different and Facebook would be blamed for censorship. This is a difficult problem to solve. It's practically human nature to form a mob and group think. It's one of the first things that kids do in pre-school. I think the only solution to this problem is education.

jlebrech 9y ago

UN is to blame for keeping religion alive.

thisisit 9y ago

As much as I am concerned about Facebook's reach this story presents a rather narrow vision of the problem. The region has earlier seen people spreading hatred and misinformation through plain old SMS and MMS too. The only way governments tend to control this is by blocking mobile/sms services. In this case unfortunately the only way around is to block Facebook or internet services until things calm down.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

“A couple of hours outside Yangon, the country’s largest city, U Aye Swe, an administrator for Sin Ma Kaw village, said he was proud to oversee one of Myanmar’s ‘Muslim-free’ villages, which bar Muslims from spending the night, among other restrictions. ‘Kalar are not welcome here because they are violent and they multiply like crazy, with so many wives and children,’ he said. Mr. Aye Swe admitted he had never met a Muslim before, adding, ‘I have to thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar.‘“ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-roh...

foepys 9y ago
It's so sad to see that some people are actually proud of being brainwashed by propaganda via social media.
pjc50 9y ago
It's amazing and horrifying how easily people can be convinced to murder someone they've never met based on lies presented as truth. One of the lessons of the Holocaust that has to be continually re-learned.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

redcodenl 9y ago

Facebook doesn't spread hatred, people spread hatred. Sure, Facebook could crack down on the way people are using their service/their tool, but I don't think they are responsible for the actions of users. What about: - Broadband internet is spreading hatred - Chrome Browser is spreading hatred - ISPs are spreading hatred (etc) Don't blame a company, or the service they provide. A crackdown on Facebook will force the hating people to another tool or communication method. They'll probably move to a more encrypted method of communication, which will make finding the wrong-doings and the people much harder. The only thing they could do is ask Facebook to cooperate and provide details to find the haters.

lou1306 9y ago
> which will make finding the wrong-doings and the people much harder This is exactly the point: to push hate-mongering back into the fringe it belongs to. Law enforcement will still be able to crack down on them, have no fear.
foepys 9y ago
> Don't blame a company, or the service they provide Facebook is making billions by exploiting exactly that kind of behavior. The more one-sided and scandalous a headline is, the more clicks it gets. This leads to being seen by more poeple. Also, showing people only what they want to see leads to echo chambers and is ditremental to society as those groups tend to develop into extremes that refuse to accept anything outside of their bubble.
- redcodenl 9y ago
  > Also, showing people only what they want to see leads to echo chambers Not sure I agree with this. The internet made it possbile for the whole world to see information coming from all kinds of sources. Before, in history, you had to rely on local news/newspapers, or even less information. Much more bubbly than this modern age. Again: I think the reason those bubbles appear have to do with society and the urge to belong to a group, Facebook is not to blame here. Facebook reflects people and society, not the other way around.

tzahola 9y ago

Too bad the Rwanda genocide happened in the 90s. If Facebook was around back then, we could have washed hands and blame them for that too.

pjc50 9y ago
As it happened, the "social media" of its day was a pro-genocide radio station. They were not only blamed (correctly) for it, but the directors were arrested, charged with crimes against humanity, and sentenced to over 30 years in prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...
matt4077 9y ago
By that logic, Nazis weren’t responsible for WW2 because they weren’t around in the time of the 60 years’ war.

zelos 9y ago

>Facebook was a huge part of public, civil and private life, and the government used it to disseminate information to the public. Seriously? I know they probably have bigger things to worry about in Myanmar, but that's pretty crazy.

salvar 9y ago
Which part? That the government uses the most effective communication channel to disseminate information?

joshuajeeson 9y ago

Amplification of a message is the problem and not being a medium of exchange of messages. Facebook can/should only be held responsible for amplifying a message and should not be accountable for being a medium. The information on 'Who' paid 'When' and 'How much' to amplify 'What' message/post to 'Whom' should be publicly accountable. This model should apply to any AD agency.

reustle 9y ago

I went to Myanmar at the beginning of 2015 for a few weeks, and was blown away at how many people had cell phones. It was only a few years before that phones were unobtainable due to extremely high sim card prices (only one provider). Once they allowed in competition (2 other networks), the price flew down to sub $1 per sim card, and in a flash everyone was online. What really stood out was how much of the country ran on facebook. Groups for everything, pages for businesses, messenger for communication, etc. It resembled being in china and having everything run through wechat. I guess this is one of those consequences.