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UN: Facebook has turned into a beast in Myanmar

504 points by abhi3 9y ago

blattimwind 9y ago
Facebook: Connecting people is good, even if we help some killers along the way.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  Would you disagree with that? It's basically the same thing we say about roads.
  - confounded 9y ago
    Most roads are generally a public good, which are not used to generate profit to enrich a small number of people. It's also clear where they lead and how they work. Facebook on the other hand have put themselves in a position where they make a profit my offering proprietary mediation (via content selection algorithms and censorship) on top of UGC, as an ad-revenue optimization engine. Once you're in the optimized-mediation business, you're faced with lots of choices, and many of them will pitch people's lives against your profits (not just ad-revenues, but how many people to hire, and where to invest them).
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Who profits off the roads? Because that's what's at issue here.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      So deaths are OK as long as nobody profits from them?
    - lotu 9y ago
      People who own the roads and collect tolls?
  - notacoward 9y ago
    About roads, and mobile phones, and the internet. Looking further afield, confidentiality in finance is generally considered a good thing but has enabled many of the world's worst dictators. The US government has installed or propped up many of those dictators in the name of principles that were (at least by some) considered good at the time. Some people think unlimited access to guns is a good thing, but there have been some debates recently about the consequences of that. Killers use many services. So do police. Blanket assertions about whether the provider of a given service is good or bad are worth a lot less than analyses of what they might do - or be allowed to do - that would have shifted the balance.
  - fakescience 9y ago
    yes, and just like we would want people to design roads in ways that limit driver deaths, we should insist that people design facebook in ways that limit negative consequences inherent to social networks. the problem is that facebook (a) is opaque about these decisions and (b) has shown that it cares more about maximizing profit than it cares about safety and security. the only way to change the infrastructure is to gain control over it. hard to do when power is entirely held by Facebook. Regulation is one way to exercise control, but I'd rather see some kind of mass boycott / unionization among social network users to force Facebook to be more transparent and secure about user data (for what it's worth, I've tried to set something up here [1] and here [2]). [1] https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-strike-on-may-1st-49733f3c7631 https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st... [2] https://www.facebook.com/pg/Internet-Users-Union-1283196705113225/community/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/Internet-Users-Union-12831967051...
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      > just like we would want people to design roads in ways that limit driver deaths This isn't a response. We don't design roads so they're less convenient for murderers than for other people.
  - thomble 9y ago
    Roads are public, and everything around roads and transportation is highly regulated and engineered with actual PUBLIC HEALTH and SAFETY at its core.
- thomble 9y ago
  "Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe it facilitates genocide."
  - zaroth 9y ago
    Could say the same thing about iPhone encryption...
    - aylmao 9y ago
      Why is this getting downvoted? Phones have been used as tools by bad actors and criminals too, that's a fact.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    I find it funny how everyone focuses on this line because out of context it sounds "evil", even though it's far from the focus or what's shady about the memo itself. That line just implies that "the tool" can be used for bad stuff, but then there's also: "Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide." And, just like postal mail, phones, SMS, newspapers, word of mouth, radio, etc. "the tool" can be (and is probably most often) used for good. What's surprising about this? What's actually shady about the memo is not how the tool can be used because of course it can be used for both bad and good things just like any other tool (you can kill a man with a baby bottle if you know what you're doing). What's shady is that it's claiming the ultimate goal, above anything else, is to put the tool in as many's people's hands as possible. And they'll do anything that's possible to do so, even questionable stuff. This memo is about their shady growth practices, not what the platform is used for.
- _greim_ 9y ago
  Actually, I think this whole "connect people at all costs" meme is pushing the wrong narrative. Facebook's failure isn't that it connected too many people, it's that it only made certain kinds of connections, while failing to make others. In other words, they've done the easy work of strengthening existing weak social graphs—and gotten rich doing so—without doing the hard work of building actual new connections between people.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Can anyone do that? That’s literally strong AI territory... They do offer forums, instant messaging, voice chat, video chat, as far as tech goes they offer everything that is available today. But they can’t make me a buddy with Shaq, it’s not their job :)
    - _greim_ 9y ago
      > Can anyone do that? That’s literally strong AI territory... Why wouldn't it be tractable with current AI? I'm assuming they have the brightest minds and some fairly hefty AI software constantly analyzing and running A/B experiments, the result being that the FB experience is gratifying, sticky or even addictive. Now, why not re-purpose some of those resources so that it becomes gratifying for people to expand out of their bubbles? The hardest thing about it is presumably that it doesn't contribute directly to the bottom line.
    - ashelmire 9y ago
      > But they can’t make me a buddy with Shaq, it’s not their job :) This is what Facebook has always failed at, but where MySpace succeeded. On MySpace, I became friends with and met some minor celebs; no such thing has ever happened on Facebook (except maybe in its very earliest days). Facebook has never been about new connections, or even reaching a new audience; it was designed start to finish as a way to broadcast to a network that you already have. Unless, of course, you're an advertiser.
- debt 9y ago
  Andrew Bosworth has got ta go.
thinkloop 9y ago
This is too witch hunty, facebook didn't outwardly do anything to encourage this. By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole. There were similar messages on twitter and chat apps. Facebook is big, so it gets the attention, but it doesn't mean it had outsized influence per capita. We need to be careful putting full blame on the platforms that enable communication.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rhizome 9y ago
  You might be interested in the concept of an attractive nuisance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
  - thinkloop 9y ago
    From the wiki: "landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children" This is precisely the point, facebook did not do anything special to attract these events. Quite they opposite they try to eliminate it, however successfully.
    - cstoner 9y ago
      They built a messaging platform that could be used by litterally anyone to spread any message, and have done a pretty poor job of preventing its use by outside aggitators. That's definitely a tetanus filled rusty playground if I ever heard of it.
      - woah 9y ago
        Quoting the OP: > By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole. It may be trendy to hate on Facebook right now, but this kind of hand-wringing is ultimately an argument for internet censorship.
spraak 9y ago
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised but I do find it so amazing how contradictory it is that these attacks are being carried out by proclaimed Buddhists. That is serious cognitive dissonance.
- rhizome 9y ago
  Every major religion has been used for violence.
- staplers 9y ago
  how contradictory it is that these attacks are being carried out by proclaimed Buddhists Most religious killing is highly contradictory to said religious texts..
  - rhizome 9y ago
    >highly contradictory Not true. If the internal logic of a religious text can be used to justify violence, it's not contradictory. Violence may contradict the popular conception of a religious text, but if a book can be used as a tool for a particular use, eventually it will be. Religious texts don't get patches.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      None of the religious texts of the popular religions where a particular text is central have a strong, well-defined “internal logic”, just a variety of different interpretations of varying popularity. (Also, the idea that a religion is inherently defined by a text, implicit in the upthread comment, is a false generalization.)
      - rhizome 9y ago
        None of the religious texts of the popular religions where a particular text is central have a strong, well-defined “internal logic” Let me clarify: if a logic can be found in a religious text, it will be used. Logic of violence, logic of profit, logic of slavery...all of these are illustrated by history.
enitihas 9y ago
I think a big problem is that the modern communication platforms provide the power to assemble public anytime anonymously, and as a society we are yet to realise that. In a real world gathering, you have media and government obseevers, and anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time scrutinized and exposed. However, now that anyone can publish information fast and to a large number of people, false facts will circulate fast on any communication platform. Here in India in my village, people forward each other long false statements and rumours, and people believe it blindly and propaagte to their contacts. As a society, I don't think we know how to handle this.
- rexpop 9y ago
  > media and government observers, and anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time scrutinized and exposed. This is not true. When groups of people get together in public, they're free to state falsehoods. Big Brother-style government oversight is not the answer to the "problem" of that freedom.
  - enitihas 9y ago
    They are free to state falsehoods. However, gatherings of even a moderate size ger covered in local newspapers, which would analyze and publish their own perspectives. Generally, the larger the gathering, the higher the scrutiny. However the new platforms allow everyone to create very large gatherings anytime. Both the size and number of these gatherings are very large, and so are their scopes. It becomes impossible for people to keep track of the content discussed in these and people then go by whatever they feel good to believe in. On a country level, this can cause huge changes, both good and bad.
    - vkou 9y ago
      Generally, racist/genocidal falsehoods are used to attack a vulnerable minority. The interests of said minority are typically un-represented in local newspapers. The papers are often the second to cheer-lead this sort of behaviour.
    - 9y ago
abhi3 9y ago
Zuckerburg today: "I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, “Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other side."
- r00fus 9y ago
  That's wicked. Does FB know who is inciting this violence? Is it a bot swarm that's training to weaponize FB/social media?
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  This quote is from this Vox interview: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebo... The really interesting follow-up question here, which didn't get asked, would've been, "who's doing that?"
  - jgroszko 9y ago
    It raises a few 'who' questions, besides 'who is sending these messages?' but also 'who receives that alert and makes the decision to block these things?' and 'who's in charge of the heuristics the system uses to identify these behaviors?'
  - notahacker 9y ago
    I imagine the answer is relatively uninteresting, and consists of "many ordinary people from the respective ethnic groups who have Facebook accounts, who are in turn influenced by decades of ethnic tension, rumours, actual news and explicit messages from organised groups mostly within the country" The only real question is whether Facebook is a more effective vector for such messages than offline rumour mills, and I'm not sure it necessarily is. (If anything I'd say social media has added an awareness the outside world has rather lost its admiration for Aung Sung Suu Kyi and been a lot more sympathetic to the Rohingya than the average Burmese person might expect, but I'm not convinced that's helping much either)
justinzollars 9y ago
Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism. It needs to be regulated and deleted.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  > Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism. Given its current shape and policy, I agree. But... > It needs to be regulated and deleted. ...that sounds a bit like "the detainee shall be beaten and then killed".
  - justinzollars 9y ago
    If its bad for Democracy and I believe in Democracy; I'm going to delete that shit. And for those that do not delete it; it needs to be regulated. Today its completely clear, Mark Zuckerberg lacks the willingness to self regulate and does not appreciate the damage his platform has done to our society. FB isn't a detainee nor a victim.
- aylmao 9y ago
  > Facebook is not only bad for Democracy I'd argue TV and broadcast media is worse for democracy. Facebook at least allows two-way communication and some degree of customization, whereas TV it's just CNN, Fox News, etc telling you how to feel and what to think.
notafxn 9y ago
Facebook was cool when it was used by the Obama campaign to have him elected or to push neoliberal values on everybody. Now that Facebook helped Trump win and is being used by people who don't believe in "human rights" to spread information, we have a very big problem here.
- ajkjk 9y ago
  That is an utterly uncharitable interpretation of what's happened here.
- lcfcjs 9y ago
  If you mean "neoliberal" to be factual news, then you have a point.
feelin_googley 9y ago
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-... "I influenced three senators for $477.85" "The goal of the ad campaign was to convince people to call their Senate offices and tell them to vote No on a confirmation. I registered the domain dumpdevos.com anonymously, set up a Facebook page, and we were off." Source: https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-senators-for-477-85-c0256e8ba66c https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-senators-...
- matthewbauer 9y ago
  That bloomberg link is broken for me.
  - riazrizvi 9y ago
    It works for me. Anyhow try this: https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.b...
losvedir 9y ago
IMO this is people being shitty, not facebook. I would probably title it "Facebook has revealed the beast in Myanmar".
- enitihas 9y ago
  The beast is always there in people if you look on a large enough scale. People managed to spread hate even before Facebook, but Facebook and other new communication platforms have made it dramatically easy. The same way guns were a dramatic improvement over swords and arrows. Guns are regulated one way or the other all over the world. We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram. The problem is, these platforms with their tremendous benefits have presented society with a new problem which society should acknowledge and fix somehow.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    > We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram. Not sure how telegram works, but WA and FB (the social network) are very different. The effort required to spread a link/message further is much lower in FB. It's literally one click away to reach all your contacts. (Or group members) That's not what you do with WA.
    - enitihas 9y ago
      I will argue that WhatsApp has a higher potential of spreading rumours than facebook. 1. You can easily broadcast a WhatsApp message to multiple groups. Most people I know are members of 3-4 groups. 2. WhatsApp messages are transmitted instantaneously, and you will surely receive them, unlike facebook where what you see in your timeline is not deterministic. Morever, even if a friend of your sent you some link even without reading, it is nonetheless treated as a personal message from someone trusted. Also, WhatsApp is always on, always checked by people, and atleast where I am, people use WhatsApp a lot more than facebook. It has truly replaced SMS.
WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
There's no better example than this of technology's unintended consequences. Tech has two sides but we only like to focus on the good one. We don't like to face the hidden beast. We all need to keep that in mind.
- aylmao 9y ago
  > Tech has two sides I'd argue tech doesn't have two sides, but rather _we_ have two sides. If you make it about "tech" it implies it's somehow external to us, inherent to tech, and independent of what we do, when in fact, tech is just a tool and since we're the ones using it the fact we can do good or bad implies tech will always be able to do good or bad.
nitwit005 9y ago
It seems more likely that the people of Myanmar turned into a beast, and Facebook reflects that. It's not some fringe ideology. Everyone from politicians to monks have voiced their support for this.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  It's more likely that there was deliberate propagandization of the population and Facebook was one of the mechanisms (like radio was in the Rwanda genocide.)
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://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohing...
- mikehines 9y ago
  > 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.'" There are so many things wrong about this single sentence.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    That is such a sad quote. Just depressing in every way.
  - masklinn 9y ago
    Seems like business as usual. Those most vocals about "the others" are always those least likely to have met any.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    I really like how there's a person half a world ago, that you have also never met, and you're sure you're much smarter and understanding than them about their local situation. What makes you so sure you're the one getting so many things right at once?
    - int_19h 9y ago
      The part where they eagerly admit their own ignorance?
dmihal 9y ago
It's incredible how fast the sentiment has changed regarding Facebook. Back in 2010/2011 Facebook was being praised for fueling the Arab Spring, which toppled dictators and spread democracy (also lead to the horrific war in Syria). Today, stories bounce from fake news, to Russian propaganda, to user data mishandling, to fueling genocide in Myanmar.
- haldean 9y ago
  ...except it didn't really spread democracy, at least not in a particularly long lasting way. Maybe what we've learned is that fueling populist uprisings isn't something that is particularly good, and that seems to be what Facebook is good for, politically.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    I had to look up populism to make sure: >A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite. The idea that the government is going to go after Facebook because it is used to fuel the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite is very scary.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      You need to read the rest of the Wikipedia article you quoted withoit attribution, and he recognize that a frequent use of “populism” without qualifiers is to refer more specifically to authoritarian populism, particularly emergent authoritarian populism built around a mythologized virtuous people opposed by an equally mythologized evil “elite” (which often is not an actual elite, just a recognizable group around whom a conspiracy theory of behind-the-scenes power has been constructed.)
      - ihsw2 9y ago
        Indeed, while it is in vogue to label "Caucasians" and "males" as oppressors in modern Marxist parlance, the same mechanism is used to justify genocide in other parts of the world. Judging people for what they are rather than what they do is the stuff only the likes of Hitler and Stalin can dream up.
Const-me 9y ago
I once reported a group created solely to harass & defame my FB friend. The creator of the group clearly violated multiple Facebook policies, 3.3 You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user, 3.9 You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory, 5.1 You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else's rights or otherwise violates the law. Facebook reaction? They found it doesn’t violate their community standards: http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg Right, “no place for hate speech”.
- abawany 9y ago
  Facebook made it deliberately difficult and obfuscated to report violations as well. Twitter by comparison makes it relatively frictionless. I don't use Facebook except to follow some news sources but I now follow them on Twitter and barely use Facebook. I know one is supposed to assume incompetence where malice is seen but gosh, I can't decide where Facebook falls yet.
  - m52go 9y ago
    I think the point the parent is making is that standards are being applied unevenly. On Twitter, for example, there are a host of accounts that have been banned for seemingly harmless activity while other accounts with much more serious issues remain active. Despite it being easier to report violations on Twitter (taking your word for it...I have no personal experience), standards aren't being applied fairly. That undermines the whole point of standards.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Facebook is notorious from both ends of this, it seems. I've had a Facebook marketplace post taken down with no explanation other than a copy of the guidelines, I appealed, and now my marketplace posts simply don't get seen by other people, even if they search for them. I've had a friend's account get suspended for a meme that pissed some people off, while a legit neo-Nazi group that had Swastikas on the page I had reported months earlier for making comments about the extinction of the pure white race was still up. It seems they only police enough to claim they do. They don't actually do much that anyone is happy with.
feelin_googley 9y ago
"Facebook Allows Advertisers to Target Users on the Basis of Their Interest in Illegal Firearms" "And it doesn't seem interested in closing this loophole any time soon." https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-advertisers-target-users-on-the-basis-of-their-interest-in-illegal-firearms.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-advertise...
riazrizvi 9y ago
Social-news platforms like Facebook and YouTube are automated media machines, without the checks and balances of a people heavy news media company. In traditional news, employees maintain stronger consciences because they deliver the news manually day after day, they are not separated from that news by automation unlike the engineers working on social-news platforms. Because of this, social-news platforms are more free to recommend stories to users that promote anything, as long as the user clicks it's a win. With this anything goes approach to news, we get sensational stories, conspiracy stories and hate stories because people click on them. Obviously the consumers are also responsible, but being perhaps accustomed to journalistic standards, maybe they are culturally unprepared for the level of bullshit-dressed-as-news that we are seeing online. I also notice the problem is compounded by the aggressive evolution of head-faking in media. For example it's becoming really hard to know what is real news vs what is marketing-dressed-as-news. How many commenters are real people? Basically I think algorithm-driven-news and marketing is outpacing traditional society and creating something new, time will tell what but it might be a monster...
- throwaway080383 9y ago
  I'm not sure I would paint traditional media companies, like say local news stations, as paragons of integrity, autonomy, and having a strong conscience. Exhibit A: https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI
olivermarks 9y ago
This FB Mynamar issue reminded me of the looming crisis at Telegram: 'Telegram has told Russian regulators that it is technically unable to hand the encryption keys to user accounts to the country’s secret services, just weeks after the messaging platform was ordered to do so or risk being banned in the country Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications watchdog, told the company last month that it had two weeks to give the FSB, successor to the KGB security agency, access to the company’s encrypted messages or face the possibility of being blocked'. https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407cc8 https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407... Iran (where Telegram have 40 m users) is on the verge of banning it too as it was 'used to organise mass protests last year'. We seem to have gone from FB being an enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to now being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states. Telegram have raised over 2 billion USD (of probably dodgy money given terms of ICO)and may now be crippled by state interference...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > We seem to have gone from FB being the enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to now being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states. Well, (1) you may have confused FB with Twitter in regard to the Arab Spring (both were involved, but Twitter seemed to get more credit at the time), (2) the Arab Spring itself was a set of anti-State uprisings, and (3) in Myanmar, the atrocities FB is accused of facilitating were committed by, rather than against, the State.
  - olivermarks 9y ago
    I'll change 'the' to 'a' as both FB & Twitter were lauded in the western media.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      Your initial statement was correct. In Tunisia -- the spark that arguably started the Arab Spring -- Twitter use was (and still is) virtually non-existent when compared to Facebook use. Twitter is huge in KSA and some of the Gulf, though.
willart4food 9y ago
From the article: "He recalled one incident where Facebook detected that people were trying to spread “sensational messages” through Facebook Messenger to incite violence on both sides of the conflict. He acknowledged that in such instances, it’s clear that people are using Facebook “to incite real-world harm.” But in this case, at least, the messages were detected and stopped from going through." Notable: "through Facebook Messenger" So one extrapolates that FB actively monitors private conversations carried on Messenger.
- bluesign 9y ago
  Probably they are monitoring spam. As in it not end to end encrypted, they sure have access to messages.
  - aylmao 9y ago
    That's how they suggest stickers and responses too, I'd assume.
  - hulahoof 9y ago
    Anecdotally, I often receive ad targeting topics only mentioned in messenger conversations.
- aaron695 9y ago
  Yes! Facebook’s extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-predators/social-networks-scan-for-sexual-predators-with-uneven-results-idUSBRE86B05G20120712 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-predators/so...
kristianc 9y ago
> "This work includes a dedicated Safety Page for Myanmar, a locally illustrated version of our Community Standards, and regular training sessions for civil society and local community groups across the country." [1] Obviously I don't speak Burmese, but given Facebook has been weaponized for hatred and ethnic cleansing, a one-page cartoon PDF seems more than a little inadequate. [1] https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar [2] https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_387974314883053_3511041979574124544_n.pdf?_nc_cat=0&oh=b7540e97779373df37dcc3a60d7122d4&oe=5B6BC88C https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_3...
bowlofpetunias 9y ago
As long as Facebook still aggressively and effectively policies its platforms for violations of its reactionary puritanical agenda, nothing they say about the difficulties of policing hate speech and other hateful propaganda is in any way credible.
golemotron 9y ago
A deeply connected world is a more volatile world [1]. We're on the cusp of understanding that - if we're lucky. [1] http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-twitter-facebook-and-google-are-the-antisocial-networks http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-twitt...
ssaew333 9y ago
Move fast. Break things.
feelin_googley 9y ago
"Indeed, when I asked the company whether it would permit an external audit of its News Feed workflow and algorithms to prove that there are no hidden or inadvertent biases against stories critical of itself, a company spokesperson repeated its statement that it believed there were no biases, but did not respond to two separate requests asking whether it would permit an external audit to prove it. ... Machine learning approaches are especially troubling, as the company continues to refuse to release any information about the functioning and accuracy of its models, even as they play an ever-greater role in shaping what two billion people can see and talk about in its walled garden. Most recently, when asked about its efforts to train machine learning models to autonomously decide what is "fake news," the company responded that it was using a large number of signals (though it declined to elaborate on the full list of signals used) to train computerized models to fully autonomously scan what is being posted and discussed on Facebook and identify new stories the algorithms believe are false - all without any human intervention. ... Despite controlling what nearly a quarter of the earth's population sees and says online in its walled garden, the company has survived nearly a decade and a half of privacy outcries without ever having to open up and give its users even the slightest insight into how they are being manipulated, moderated and commercialized. ... Putting this all together, Facebook's utopian vision has devolved into a surveillance dystopia in which even its programmer creators can't be certain how or why it makes the decisions it does. In the end, the telescreen's of Orwell's 1984 only surveilled the citizenry at random, while Facebook's unblinking algorithms never let us out of their sight, silently shaping what we are able to see and say without us having any right to understand the rules they quietly enforce, while even their engineer creators are not fully aware of the ramifications of the myriad inadvertent decisions that went into their programming." Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/facebook-keeps-saying-trust-us-is-it-finally-time-to-say-no-more/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/faceboo...
incloset 9y ago
Anyone want to comment the fact that facebook/twitter etc being blocked in a few countries? Are they smart? Did they foresee all this coming?
dharma1 9y ago
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2mmlbqkF70gz2dIwK3ucj5JQTx6ygxjPqveHmT4bR41N_txC38X1ZW1pZ51DgdrEgwbkT/pub https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2m... As someone who spent a lot of time in Myanmar in the past 6 years, I saw the country go from near zero internet to 50-60% penetration in a couple of years. The strange thing is that most people don't really use the web - it's all Facebook. The internet, for a vast majority, means Facebook. The way news spreads in Myanmar is gossip and rumours - probably because of very limited press freedom in the past. This combined with some ugly undercurrents of nationalism, extreme poverty (for all ethnicities) in the conflict areas, and decades of poor education, has sometimes turned Facebook into an amplified medium of hate speech. I don't think Facebook is to be blamed for the violence (it has existed, and still does, in many parts of Myanmar against other ethnic minorities - Karen, Kachin, etc - before Facebook, and without the same amount of press given to Rohingya) but it has most likely amplified the hate speech.
- varjag 9y ago
  It's the same dynamics as elsewhere in the world, just more clearly visible due to extreme effects. Social media brings the fringe that had no platform before and unites them to the extent they are able to effect change. From policy change to outright genocide. Traditional journalism/media always get a ton of criticism, but for all it's flaws they at least strived to have basic standards (fact checking, neutral language) and do their best try of objectivity. With the media circumvented this decade, the crazy grandpas of the world united.
- tripzilch 9y ago
  This comment from another subthread is relevant to your observations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743502 Partial quote for your convenience: (read the full comment for sources and more). > FB stopped being a "data sharing platform" when it muscled its way into becoming synonymous of "the internet" in much of the underdeveloped world. In many of these countries (including Myanmar) people can get a really cheap plan that offers next to nothing beyond "Facebook Free Basic", FB's walled garden (e.g for 3$/month you get 100mb of data + unlimited facebook). This is effectively a two-level Internet with FB being the obvious default.
sg0 9y ago
This is a case of government authorized genocide. I just don't understand how shifting blame toward Facebook as a data sharing platform solves the problem. If someone sends hate filled letters to public via USPS, is USPS complicit? Yes, FB could have probably done better by monitoring the content, and muted hostile posts. I hail from a small industrial town in eastern India, where very recently racial tensions erupted between pockets of Hindu/Muslim communities. One of the first things local government did was to turn off internet (data and ISP), to control proliferation of rumors and anything that could incite further violence.
- csbowe 9y ago
  There's a cost (both time and money) associated with spreading knowledge through USPS or similar physical mediums. The cost of spreading ideas is virtually free on social media so there isn't much of a barrier to prevent the ideas spreading like wildfire. Good or bad.
  - dmix 9y ago
    What about the costs of having the platform centrally regulating the content on the platform based on an arbitrary, context-free, highly politicized, and ever expanding definition of 'socially unacceptable' content? We all knew that when FB and Twitter started to centrally control content well beyond the obviously really bad stuff (ie, gore, child porn), that mandate would forever expand and expand, where it's almost impossible for FB to not be criticized for not doing enough ...Absent a massive expansion of content controls, which means massively expensive, which mean incentivizing a) simply limiting the ability for people to communicate on the platform AND/OR b) automation. Which ultimately means countless false-positives and examples of bias by machines trained by the most vocal special interest groups deciding what is okay and not okay to say to another person. The future is going to feature some interesting trolling to see who can game algorithms to get topics banned on social media through phony media outrage campaigns, false reporting, and social engineering.
- ibeckermayer 9y ago
  There is no genuine moral outrage here, anybody with half a brain knows that Facebook is no more to blame for this genocide than the printing press was to blame for the holocaust. Governmental institutions are currently making a concerted effort to falsely blame social media for society's woes in an attempt to rally support for state regulation and control of social media platforms.
thrillgore 9y ago
Black Mirror isn't even prophetic at this point. It just feels like a documentary on real life.
olivermarks 9y ago
'In Myanmar today, Facebook is the internet' http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-with-the-world-its-created/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-with-...
chiefalchemist 9y ago
A slighly alt-analysis here. These hatreds (if you will) are not new, at all. They have been "mismanaged" and/or conveniently exploited for as long as any of us can remember. Certainly, the communications tool (aka FB) can play an enabling role. That is, none the less, a symptom; a symptom of a disease that predates the tool by eons. The UN is confused and distracted; and it seems willing to let - once again - the true guilty parties off the hook. Yes, FB played a role. But to ignore the historic context is silly and dangerous. The disease will persist. Because it can. Because it's easier to blame a symptom.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  I expected down votes, of course :) But the lack of explanation for how and why FB should be held accountable for history is a bit disappointing.
- ferongr 9y ago
  This whole concerted barrage of negative stories about Facebook seems more like the states trying to craft a specific narrative and influence the populace so they can censor the Internet.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jk2323 9y ago
Does anyone here actually know how it is possible to contact Facebook's legal department? Who else could someone contact to whistle-blow something?
merinowool 9y ago
Few times I reported hate speech on Facebook, but every time it was rejected. It seems like hatred towards certain groups of people is allowed on Facebook.
feelin_googley 9y ago
"Facebook says "authenticity" is key to the social network and rigorously policed, and that false information violates the terms of service agreement. ... Computer engineer Ryan Barrett fills in online forms with 0000s whenever a number is required and uses dashes for words. He says it is mostly out of principle: he wants to be in control of his information. Also, it's fun to try to fool the marketers. He has used a dozen different spellings for John Doe rather than entering his name. He even misspells his name when reserving airplane tickets and says it has never created a problem going through security. ... He says he has friends who work at companies that look at multiple services to link up and cross-reference data on individuals-data gleaned from mobile phones, social media, grocery store loyalty cards and more. When those friends searched for him in their systems, they found little to no information. "There's a small feeling of satisfaction," he says. ... All the lying does seem to foil advertisers. It is "a much bigger problem than people are aware of," says Nick Baker, director of research and consulting of U.K. market research company Verve, which conducted a 2015 survey showing a large amount of fake information on website registrations and the like. Incorrect birth years, he says, are particularly nefarious because advertisers are often trying to match up habits or buying patterns with a specific age group. ... Preethy Vaidyanathan, the chief product officer of New York-based marketing technology company Tapad, says they track much more valuable information from phone and web browser use. Still, Ms. Vaidyanathan sees the value in hiding identity online. She says she uses a second email address with a fake name that she gives out to companies she doesn't want to bombard her inbox. Source: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-in-1910-why-people-lie-to-facebook-1522682361?tesla=y https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-in-1910-why...
ValleyOfTheMtns 9y ago
All the technology in the world is not going to fix human nature...
diogenescynic 9y ago
I honestly wonder how Mark and SS sleep at night? Can’t they afford to do better than this? Does their greed and shame know no bounds? I don’t get and it seems like it’s something that will bite them in the long run and open them up to competition, whereas there might not really have ever been a reason for a natural competitor to emerge if FB had just treated its eco-system with a bit more respect and stewardship. Why don’t they want Facebook to be like a curated garden, not a landfill?
PeterStuer 9y ago
I'm no fan of Facebook. I quit using it in September last year . But for this particular issue, inciting of hate, they are no more or less guilty than the 'traditional' tabloid press. Look at the comment section of your local 'populist' newspaper (over here it is https://www.hln.be/ https://www.hln.be/) and see how hate-speech rules supreme and how sensationalist articles are milking for those comments and like.
teekert 9y ago
More like: it doesn't take much for people to turn into beasts.
nnq 9y ago
> "there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place" > Facebook's systems detected what was going on and stopped the messages from going through Wwwwhaaat?! Some people may have just seen that message and interpreted it as "shit hit the fan, let's hide my family in a safe place until this cools down", even if it was intended as a "call to violence". Censoring messages like those could have just as well caused deaths because innocent people just didn't get the heads up. Corporations should clearly define themselves as either "medium companies" and stay completely neutral to whatever flows through their platform as long as it not "explicit content" (yes, this include allowing "hate speech" as long as it's toned down, because that "hate speech" can also contain useful information, and it's not something clearly identifiable), or "message companies", in which case they can clearly take sides in conflicts, but also be responsible (legally) for their actions. This muddy "middle ground" position that some companies take is "the root of all evil". Either let anything happen (including bad things), or pick a side, so that you can later be judged according to the side you picked. It's condescending to imagine that you're actually smart enough to "properly filter" information. You're not, or you're a tyrant imposing his value system on others. I have more sympathy for a corporation that does evil deeds in the service of profit, than for one that interferes in "muddy" ways in social issues and prevents clarity and free flow of information. Sometimes this flow of information cause blood to be spilled, but sometimes problems get solved this way, if a society is not evolved enough to solve them in more peaceful ways. Toning down discussions and letting tensions accumulate is worse.
jlebrech 9y ago
We live in a world where knowledge of Islam by non Muslims can be detrimental to Muslims that only follow certain verses (beliefs) of their book (aka peaceful muslims), unfortunately for them the holy book is immutable (and also can be used to justify ISIS) Also any form of attack on Muslims permits Muslims to retaliate, causing a vicious circle [1][2] 1. https://www.quran.com/9/36 https://www.quran.com/9/36 2. https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-kill-infidels https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-kill...
wemdyjreichert 9y ago
It is wrong to blame a company for people's evil.

504 points by abhi3 9y ago

blattimwind 9y ago

Facebook: Connecting people is good, even if we help some killers along the way.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
Would you disagree with that? It's basically the same thing we say about roads.
- confounded 9y ago
  Most roads are generally a public good, which are not used to generate profit to enrich a small number of people. It's also clear where they lead and how they work. Facebook on the other hand have put themselves in a position where they make a profit my offering proprietary mediation (via content selection algorithms and censorship) on top of UGC, as an ad-revenue optimization engine. Once you're in the optimized-mediation business, you're faced with lots of choices, and many of them will pitch people's lives against your profits (not just ad-revenues, but how many people to hire, and where to invest them).
- r00fus 9y ago
  Who profits off the roads? Because that's what's at issue here.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    So deaths are OK as long as nobody profits from them?
  - lotu 9y ago
    People who own the roads and collect tolls?
- notacoward 9y ago
  About roads, and mobile phones, and the internet. Looking further afield, confidentiality in finance is generally considered a good thing but has enabled many of the world's worst dictators. The US government has installed or propped up many of those dictators in the name of principles that were (at least by some) considered good at the time. Some people think unlimited access to guns is a good thing, but there have been some debates recently about the consequences of that. Killers use many services. So do police. Blanket assertions about whether the provider of a given service is good or bad are worth a lot less than analyses of what they might do - or be allowed to do - that would have shifted the balance.
- fakescience 9y ago
  yes, and just like we would want people to design roads in ways that limit driver deaths, we should insist that people design facebook in ways that limit negative consequences inherent to social networks. the problem is that facebook (a) is opaque about these decisions and (b) has shown that it cares more about maximizing profit than it cares about safety and security. the only way to change the infrastructure is to gain control over it. hard to do when power is entirely held by Facebook. Regulation is one way to exercise control, but I'd rather see some kind of mass boycott / unionization among social network users to force Facebook to be more transparent and secure about user data (for what it's worth, I've tried to set something up here [1] and here [2]). [1] https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-strike-on-may-1st-49733f3c7631 https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st... [2] https://www.facebook.com/pg/Internet-Users-Union-1283196705113225/community/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/Internet-Users-Union-12831967051...
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > just like we would want people to design roads in ways that limit driver deaths This isn't a response. We don't design roads so they're less convenient for murderers than for other people.
- thomble 9y ago
  Roads are public, and everything around roads and transportation is highly regulated and engineered with actual PUBLIC HEALTH and SAFETY at its core.
thomble 9y ago
"Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe it facilitates genocide."
- zaroth 9y ago
  Could say the same thing about iPhone encryption...
  - aylmao 9y ago
    Why is this getting downvoted? Phones have been used as tools by bad actors and criminals too, that's a fact.
- aylmao 9y ago
  I find it funny how everyone focuses on this line because out of context it sounds "evil", even though it's far from the focus or what's shady about the memo itself. That line just implies that "the tool" can be used for bad stuff, but then there's also: "Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide." And, just like postal mail, phones, SMS, newspapers, word of mouth, radio, etc. "the tool" can be (and is probably most often) used for good. What's surprising about this? What's actually shady about the memo is not how the tool can be used because of course it can be used for both bad and good things just like any other tool (you can kill a man with a baby bottle if you know what you're doing). What's shady is that it's claiming the ultimate goal, above anything else, is to put the tool in as many's people's hands as possible. And they'll do anything that's possible to do so, even questionable stuff. This memo is about their shady growth practices, not what the platform is used for.
_greim_ 9y ago
Actually, I think this whole "connect people at all costs" meme is pushing the wrong narrative. Facebook's failure isn't that it connected too many people, it's that it only made certain kinds of connections, while failing to make others. In other words, they've done the easy work of strengthening existing weak social graphs—and gotten rich doing so—without doing the hard work of building actual new connections between people.
- oblio 9y ago
  Can anyone do that? That’s literally strong AI territory... They do offer forums, instant messaging, voice chat, video chat, as far as tech goes they offer everything that is available today. But they can’t make me a buddy with Shaq, it’s not their job :)
  - _greim_ 9y ago
    > Can anyone do that? That’s literally strong AI territory... Why wouldn't it be tractable with current AI? I'm assuming they have the brightest minds and some fairly hefty AI software constantly analyzing and running A/B experiments, the result being that the FB experience is gratifying, sticky or even addictive. Now, why not re-purpose some of those resources so that it becomes gratifying for people to expand out of their bubbles? The hardest thing about it is presumably that it doesn't contribute directly to the bottom line.
  - ashelmire 9y ago
    > But they can’t make me a buddy with Shaq, it’s not their job :) This is what Facebook has always failed at, but where MySpace succeeded. On MySpace, I became friends with and met some minor celebs; no such thing has ever happened on Facebook (except maybe in its very earliest days). Facebook has never been about new connections, or even reaching a new audience; it was designed start to finish as a way to broadcast to a network that you already have. Unless, of course, you're an advertiser.
debt 9y ago
Andrew Bosworth has got ta go.

thinkloop 9y ago

This is too witch hunty, facebook didn't outwardly do anything to encourage this. By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole. There were similar messages on twitter and chat apps. Facebook is big, so it gets the attention, but it doesn't mean it had outsized influence per capita. We need to be careful putting full blame on the platforms that enable communication.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 9y ago
You might be interested in the concept of an attractive nuisance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
- thinkloop 9y ago
  From the wiki: "landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children" This is precisely the point, facebook did not do anything special to attract these events. Quite they opposite they try to eliminate it, however successfully.
  - cstoner 9y ago
    They built a messaging platform that could be used by litterally anyone to spread any message, and have done a pretty poor job of preventing its use by outside aggitators. That's definitely a tetanus filled rusty playground if I ever heard of it.
    - woah 9y ago
      Quoting the OP: > By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole. It may be trendy to hate on Facebook right now, but this kind of hand-wringing is ultimately an argument for internet censorship.

spraak 9y ago

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised but I do find it so amazing how contradictory it is that these attacks are being carried out by proclaimed Buddhists. That is serious cognitive dissonance.

rhizome 9y ago
Every major religion has been used for violence.
staplers 9y ago
how contradictory it is that these attacks are being carried out by proclaimed Buddhists Most religious killing is highly contradictory to said religious texts..
- rhizome 9y ago
  >highly contradictory Not true. If the internal logic of a religious text can be used to justify violence, it's not contradictory. Violence may contradict the popular conception of a religious text, but if a book can be used as a tool for a particular use, eventually it will be. Religious texts don't get patches.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    None of the religious texts of the popular religions where a particular text is central have a strong, well-defined “internal logic”, just a variety of different interpretations of varying popularity. (Also, the idea that a religion is inherently defined by a text, implicit in the upthread comment, is a false generalization.)
    - rhizome 9y ago
      None of the religious texts of the popular religions where a particular text is central have a strong, well-defined “internal logic” Let me clarify: if a logic can be found in a religious text, it will be used. Logic of violence, logic of profit, logic of slavery...all of these are illustrated by history.

enitihas 9y ago

I think a big problem is that the modern communication platforms provide the power to assemble public anytime anonymously, and as a society we are yet to realise that. In a real world gathering, you have media and government obseevers, and anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time scrutinized and exposed. However, now that anyone can publish information fast and to a large number of people, false facts will circulate fast on any communication platform. Here in India in my village, people forward each other long false statements and rumours, and people believe it blindly and propaagte to their contacts. As a society, I don't think we know how to handle this.

rexpop 9y ago
> media and government observers, and anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time scrutinized and exposed. This is not true. When groups of people get together in public, they're free to state falsehoods. Big Brother-style government oversight is not the answer to the "problem" of that freedom.
- enitihas 9y ago
  They are free to state falsehoods. However, gatherings of even a moderate size ger covered in local newspapers, which would analyze and publish their own perspectives. Generally, the larger the gathering, the higher the scrutiny. However the new platforms allow everyone to create very large gatherings anytime. Both the size and number of these gatherings are very large, and so are their scopes. It becomes impossible for people to keep track of the content discussed in these and people then go by whatever they feel good to believe in. On a country level, this can cause huge changes, both good and bad.
  - vkou 9y ago
    Generally, racist/genocidal falsehoods are used to attack a vulnerable minority. The interests of said minority are typically un-represented in local newspapers. The papers are often the second to cheer-lead this sort of behaviour.
  - 9y ago

abhi3 9y ago

Zuckerburg today: "I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, “Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other side."

r00fus 9y ago
That's wicked. Does FB know who is inciting this violence? Is it a bot swarm that's training to weaponize FB/social media?
thaumaturgy 9y ago
This quote is from this Vox interview: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebo... The really interesting follow-up question here, which didn't get asked, would've been, "who's doing that?"
- jgroszko 9y ago
  It raises a few 'who' questions, besides 'who is sending these messages?' but also 'who receives that alert and makes the decision to block these things?' and 'who's in charge of the heuristics the system uses to identify these behaviors?'
- notahacker 9y ago
  I imagine the answer is relatively uninteresting, and consists of "many ordinary people from the respective ethnic groups who have Facebook accounts, who are in turn influenced by decades of ethnic tension, rumours, actual news and explicit messages from organised groups mostly within the country" The only real question is whether Facebook is a more effective vector for such messages than offline rumour mills, and I'm not sure it necessarily is. (If anything I'd say social media has added an awareness the outside world has rather lost its admiration for Aung Sung Suu Kyi and been a lot more sympathetic to the Rohingya than the average Burmese person might expect, but I'm not convinced that's helping much either)

justinzollars 9y ago

Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism. It needs to be regulated and deleted.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago
> Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism. Given its current shape and policy, I agree. But... > It needs to be regulated and deleted. ...that sounds a bit like "the detainee shall be beaten and then killed".
- justinzollars 9y ago
  If its bad for Democracy and I believe in Democracy; I'm going to delete that shit. And for those that do not delete it; it needs to be regulated. Today its completely clear, Mark Zuckerberg lacks the willingness to self regulate and does not appreciate the damage his platform has done to our society. FB isn't a detainee nor a victim.
aylmao 9y ago
> Facebook is not only bad for Democracy I'd argue TV and broadcast media is worse for democracy. Facebook at least allows two-way communication and some degree of customization, whereas TV it's just CNN, Fox News, etc telling you how to feel and what to think.

notafxn 9y ago

Facebook was cool when it was used by the Obama campaign to have him elected or to push neoliberal values on everybody. Now that Facebook helped Trump win and is being used by people who don't believe in "human rights" to spread information, we have a very big problem here.

ajkjk 9y ago
That is an utterly uncharitable interpretation of what's happened here.
lcfcjs 9y ago
If you mean "neoliberal" to be factual news, then you have a point.

feelin_googley 9y ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-... "I influenced three senators for $477.85" "The goal of the ad campaign was to convince people to call their Senate offices and tell them to vote No on a confirmation. I registered the domain dumpdevos.com anonymously, set up a Facebook page, and we were off." Source: https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-senators-for-477-85-c0256e8ba66c https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-senators-...

matthewbauer 9y ago
That bloomberg link is broken for me.
- riazrizvi 9y ago
  It works for me. Anyhow try this: https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.b...

losvedir 9y ago

IMO this is people being shitty, not facebook. I would probably title it "Facebook has revealed the beast in Myanmar".

enitihas 9y ago
The beast is always there in people if you look on a large enough scale. People managed to spread hate even before Facebook, but Facebook and other new communication platforms have made it dramatically easy. The same way guns were a dramatic improvement over swords and arrows. Guns are regulated one way or the other all over the world. We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram. The problem is, these platforms with their tremendous benefits have presented society with a new problem which society should acknowledge and fix somehow.
- viraptor 9y ago
  > We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram. Not sure how telegram works, but WA and FB (the social network) are very different. The effort required to spread a link/message further is much lower in FB. It's literally one click away to reach all your contacts. (Or group members) That's not what you do with WA.
  - enitihas 9y ago
    I will argue that WhatsApp has a higher potential of spreading rumours than facebook. 1. You can easily broadcast a WhatsApp message to multiple groups. Most people I know are members of 3-4 groups. 2. WhatsApp messages are transmitted instantaneously, and you will surely receive them, unlike facebook where what you see in your timeline is not deterministic. Morever, even if a friend of your sent you some link even without reading, it is nonetheless treated as a personal message from someone trusted. Also, WhatsApp is always on, always checked by people, and atleast where I am, people use WhatsApp a lot more than facebook. It has truly replaced SMS.

WheelsAtLarge 9y ago

There's no better example than this of technology's unintended consequences. Tech has two sides but we only like to focus on the good one. We don't like to face the hidden beast. We all need to keep that in mind.

aylmao 9y ago
> Tech has two sides I'd argue tech doesn't have two sides, but rather _we_ have two sides. If you make it about "tech" it implies it's somehow external to us, inherent to tech, and independent of what we do, when in fact, tech is just a tool and since we're the ones using it the fact we can do good or bad implies tech will always be able to do good or bad.

nitwit005 9y ago

It seems more likely that the people of Myanmar turned into a beast, and Facebook reflects that. It's not some fringe ideology. Everyone from politicians to monks have voiced their support for this.

dragonwriter 9y ago
It's more likely that there was deliberate propagandization of the population and Facebook was one of the mechanisms (like radio was in the Rwanda genocide.)

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://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohing...

mikehines 9y ago
> 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.'" There are so many things wrong about this single sentence.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  That is such a sad quote. Just depressing in every way.
- masklinn 9y ago
  Seems like business as usual. Those most vocals about "the others" are always those least likely to have met any.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  I really like how there's a person half a world ago, that you have also never met, and you're sure you're much smarter and understanding than them about their local situation. What makes you so sure you're the one getting so many things right at once?
  - int_19h 9y ago
    The part where they eagerly admit their own ignorance?

dmihal 9y ago

It's incredible how fast the sentiment has changed regarding Facebook. Back in 2010/2011 Facebook was being praised for fueling the Arab Spring, which toppled dictators and spread democracy (also lead to the horrific war in Syria). Today, stories bounce from fake news, to Russian propaganda, to user data mishandling, to fueling genocide in Myanmar.

haldean 9y ago
...except it didn't really spread democracy, at least not in a particularly long lasting way. Maybe what we've learned is that fueling populist uprisings isn't something that is particularly good, and that seems to be what Facebook is good for, politically.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  I had to look up populism to make sure: >A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite. The idea that the government is going to go after Facebook because it is used to fuel the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite is very scary.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    You need to read the rest of the Wikipedia article you quoted withoit attribution, and he recognize that a frequent use of “populism” without qualifiers is to refer more specifically to authoritarian populism, particularly emergent authoritarian populism built around a mythologized virtuous people opposed by an equally mythologized evil “elite” (which often is not an actual elite, just a recognizable group around whom a conspiracy theory of behind-the-scenes power has been constructed.)
    - ihsw2 9y ago
      Indeed, while it is in vogue to label "Caucasians" and "males" as oppressors in modern Marxist parlance, the same mechanism is used to justify genocide in other parts of the world. Judging people for what they are rather than what they do is the stuff only the likes of Hitler and Stalin can dream up.

Const-me 9y ago

I once reported a group created solely to harass & defame my FB friend. The creator of the group clearly violated multiple Facebook policies, 3.3 You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user, 3.9 You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory, 5.1 You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else's rights or otherwise violates the law. Facebook reaction? They found it doesn’t violate their community standards: http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg Right, “no place for hate speech”.

abawany 9y ago
Facebook made it deliberately difficult and obfuscated to report violations as well. Twitter by comparison makes it relatively frictionless. I don't use Facebook except to follow some news sources but I now follow them on Twitter and barely use Facebook. I know one is supposed to assume incompetence where malice is seen but gosh, I can't decide where Facebook falls yet.
- m52go 9y ago
  I think the point the parent is making is that standards are being applied unevenly. On Twitter, for example, there are a host of accounts that have been banned for seemingly harmless activity while other accounts with much more serious issues remain active. Despite it being easier to report violations on Twitter (taking your word for it...I have no personal experience), standards aren't being applied fairly. That undermines the whole point of standards.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Facebook is notorious from both ends of this, it seems. I've had a Facebook marketplace post taken down with no explanation other than a copy of the guidelines, I appealed, and now my marketplace posts simply don't get seen by other people, even if they search for them. I've had a friend's account get suspended for a meme that pissed some people off, while a legit neo-Nazi group that had Swastikas on the page I had reported months earlier for making comments about the extinction of the pure white race was still up. It seems they only police enough to claim they do. They don't actually do much that anyone is happy with.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Facebook Allows Advertisers to Target Users on the Basis of Their Interest in Illegal Firearms" "And it doesn't seem interested in closing this loophole any time soon." https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-advertisers-target-users-on-the-basis-of-their-interest-in-illegal-firearms.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-advertise...

riazrizvi 9y ago

Social-news platforms like Facebook and YouTube are automated media machines, without the checks and balances of a people heavy news media company. In traditional news, employees maintain stronger consciences because they deliver the news manually day after day, they are not separated from that news by automation unlike the engineers working on social-news platforms. Because of this, social-news platforms are more free to recommend stories to users that promote anything, as long as the user clicks it's a win. With this anything goes approach to news, we get sensational stories, conspiracy stories and hate stories because people click on them. Obviously the consumers are also responsible, but being perhaps accustomed to journalistic standards, maybe they are culturally unprepared for the level of bullshit-dressed-as-news that we are seeing online. I also notice the problem is compounded by the aggressive evolution of head-faking in media. For example it's becoming really hard to know what is real news vs what is marketing-dressed-as-news. How many commenters are real people? Basically I think algorithm-driven-news and marketing is outpacing traditional society and creating something new, time will tell what but it might be a monster...

throwaway080383 9y ago
I'm not sure I would paint traditional media companies, like say local news stations, as paragons of integrity, autonomy, and having a strong conscience. Exhibit A: https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI

olivermarks 9y ago

This FB Mynamar issue reminded me of the looming crisis at Telegram: 'Telegram has told Russian regulators that it is technically unable to hand the encryption keys to user accounts to the country’s secret services, just weeks after the messaging platform was ordered to do so or risk being banned in the country Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications watchdog, told the company last month that it had two weeks to give the FSB, successor to the KGB security agency, access to the company’s encrypted messages or face the possibility of being blocked'. https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407cc8 https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407... Iran (where Telegram have 40 m users) is on the verge of banning it too as it was 'used to organise mass protests last year'. We seem to have gone from FB being an enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to now being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states. Telegram have raised over 2 billion USD (of probably dodgy money given terms of ICO)and may now be crippled by state interference...

dragonwriter 9y ago
> We seem to have gone from FB being the enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to now being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states. Well, (1) you may have confused FB with Twitter in regard to the Arab Spring (both were involved, but Twitter seemed to get more credit at the time), (2) the Arab Spring itself was a set of anti-State uprisings, and (3) in Myanmar, the atrocities FB is accused of facilitating were committed by, rather than against, the State.
- olivermarks 9y ago
  I'll change 'the' to 'a' as both FB & Twitter were lauded in the western media.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Your initial statement was correct. In Tunisia -- the spark that arguably started the Arab Spring -- Twitter use was (and still is) virtually non-existent when compared to Facebook use. Twitter is huge in KSA and some of the Gulf, though.

willart4food 9y ago

From the article: "He recalled one incident where Facebook detected that people were trying to spread “sensational messages” through Facebook Messenger to incite violence on both sides of the conflict. He acknowledged that in such instances, it’s clear that people are using Facebook “to incite real-world harm.” But in this case, at least, the messages were detected and stopped from going through." Notable: "through Facebook Messenger" So one extrapolates that FB actively monitors private conversations carried on Messenger.

bluesign 9y ago
Probably they are monitoring spam. As in it not end to end encrypted, they sure have access to messages.
- aylmao 9y ago
  That's how they suggest stickers and responses too, I'd assume.
- hulahoof 9y ago
  Anecdotally, I often receive ad targeting topics only mentioned in messenger conversations.
aaron695 9y ago
Yes! Facebook’s extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-predators/social-networks-scan-for-sexual-predators-with-uneven-results-idUSBRE86B05G20120712 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-predators/so...

kristianc 9y ago

> "This work includes a dedicated Safety Page for Myanmar, a locally illustrated version of our Community Standards, and regular training sessions for civil society and local community groups across the country." [1] Obviously I don't speak Burmese, but given Facebook has been weaponized for hatred and ethnic cleansing, a one-page cartoon PDF seems more than a little inadequate. [1] https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar [2] https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_387974314883053_3511041979574124544_n.pdf?_nc_cat=0&oh=b7540e97779373df37dcc3a60d7122d4&oe=5B6BC88C https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_3...

bowlofpetunias 9y ago

As long as Facebook still aggressively and effectively policies its platforms for violations of its reactionary puritanical agenda, nothing they say about the difficulties of policing hate speech and other hateful propaganda is in any way credible.

golemotron 9y ago

A deeply connected world is a more volatile world [1]. We're on the cusp of understanding that - if we're lucky. [1] http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-twitter-facebook-and-google-are-the-antisocial-networks http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-twitt...

ssaew333 9y ago

Move fast. Break things.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Indeed, when I asked the company whether it would permit an external audit of its News Feed workflow and algorithms to prove that there are no hidden or inadvertent biases against stories critical of itself, a company spokesperson repeated its statement that it believed there were no biases, but did not respond to two separate requests asking whether it would permit an external audit to prove it. ... Machine learning approaches are especially troubling, as the company continues to refuse to release any information about the functioning and accuracy of its models, even as they play an ever-greater role in shaping what two billion people can see and talk about in its walled garden. Most recently, when asked about its efforts to train machine learning models to autonomously decide what is "fake news," the company responded that it was using a large number of signals (though it declined to elaborate on the full list of signals used) to train computerized models to fully autonomously scan what is being posted and discussed on Facebook and identify new stories the algorithms believe are false - all without any human intervention. ... Despite controlling what nearly a quarter of the earth's population sees and says online in its walled garden, the company has survived nearly a decade and a half of privacy outcries without ever having to open up and give its users even the slightest insight into how they are being manipulated, moderated and commercialized. ... Putting this all together, Facebook's utopian vision has devolved into a surveillance dystopia in which even its programmer creators can't be certain how or why it makes the decisions it does. In the end, the telescreen's of Orwell's 1984 only surveilled the citizenry at random, while Facebook's unblinking algorithms never let us out of their sight, silently shaping what we are able to see and say without us having any right to understand the rules they quietly enforce, while even their engineer creators are not fully aware of the ramifications of the myriad inadvertent decisions that went into their programming." Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/facebook-keeps-saying-trust-us-is-it-finally-time-to-say-no-more/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/faceboo...

incloset 9y ago

Anyone want to comment the fact that facebook/twitter etc being blocked in a few countries? Are they smart? Did they foresee all this coming?

dharma1 9y ago

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2mmlbqkF70gz2dIwK3ucj5JQTx6ygxjPqveHmT4bR41N_txC38X1ZW1pZ51DgdrEgwbkT/pub https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2m... As someone who spent a lot of time in Myanmar in the past 6 years, I saw the country go from near zero internet to 50-60% penetration in a couple of years. The strange thing is that most people don't really use the web - it's all Facebook. The internet, for a vast majority, means Facebook. The way news spreads in Myanmar is gossip and rumours - probably because of very limited press freedom in the past. This combined with some ugly undercurrents of nationalism, extreme poverty (for all ethnicities) in the conflict areas, and decades of poor education, has sometimes turned Facebook into an amplified medium of hate speech. I don't think Facebook is to be blamed for the violence (it has existed, and still does, in many parts of Myanmar against other ethnic minorities - Karen, Kachin, etc - before Facebook, and without the same amount of press given to Rohingya) but it has most likely amplified the hate speech.

varjag 9y ago
It's the same dynamics as elsewhere in the world, just more clearly visible due to extreme effects. Social media brings the fringe that had no platform before and unites them to the extent they are able to effect change. From policy change to outright genocide. Traditional journalism/media always get a ton of criticism, but for all it's flaws they at least strived to have basic standards (fact checking, neutral language) and do their best try of objectivity. With the media circumvented this decade, the crazy grandpas of the world united.
tripzilch 9y ago
This comment from another subthread is relevant to your observations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16743502 Partial quote for your convenience: (read the full comment for sources and more). > FB stopped being a "data sharing platform" when it muscled its way into becoming synonymous of "the internet" in much of the underdeveloped world. In many of these countries (including Myanmar) people can get a really cheap plan that offers next to nothing beyond "Facebook Free Basic", FB's walled garden (e.g for 3$/month you get 100mb of data + unlimited facebook). This is effectively a two-level Internet with FB being the obvious default.

sg0 9y ago

This is a case of government authorized genocide. I just don't understand how shifting blame toward Facebook as a data sharing platform solves the problem. If someone sends hate filled letters to public via USPS, is USPS complicit? Yes, FB could have probably done better by monitoring the content, and muted hostile posts. I hail from a small industrial town in eastern India, where very recently racial tensions erupted between pockets of Hindu/Muslim communities. One of the first things local government did was to turn off internet (data and ISP), to control proliferation of rumors and anything that could incite further violence.

csbowe 9y ago
There's a cost (both time and money) associated with spreading knowledge through USPS or similar physical mediums. The cost of spreading ideas is virtually free on social media so there isn't much of a barrier to prevent the ideas spreading like wildfire. Good or bad.
- dmix 9y ago
  What about the costs of having the platform centrally regulating the content on the platform based on an arbitrary, context-free, highly politicized, and ever expanding definition of 'socially unacceptable' content? We all knew that when FB and Twitter started to centrally control content well beyond the obviously really bad stuff (ie, gore, child porn), that mandate would forever expand and expand, where it's almost impossible for FB to not be criticized for not doing enough ...Absent a massive expansion of content controls, which means massively expensive, which mean incentivizing a) simply limiting the ability for people to communicate on the platform AND/OR b) automation. Which ultimately means countless false-positives and examples of bias by machines trained by the most vocal special interest groups deciding what is okay and not okay to say to another person. The future is going to feature some interesting trolling to see who can game algorithms to get topics banned on social media through phony media outrage campaigns, false reporting, and social engineering.
ibeckermayer 9y ago
There is no genuine moral outrage here, anybody with half a brain knows that Facebook is no more to blame for this genocide than the printing press was to blame for the holocaust. Governmental institutions are currently making a concerted effort to falsely blame social media for society's woes in an attempt to rally support for state regulation and control of social media platforms.

thrillgore 9y ago

Black Mirror isn't even prophetic at this point. It just feels like a documentary on real life.

olivermarks 9y ago

'In Myanmar today, Facebook is the internet' http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-with-the-world-its-created/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-with-...

chiefalchemist 9y ago

A slighly alt-analysis here. These hatreds (if you will) are not new, at all. They have been "mismanaged" and/or conveniently exploited for as long as any of us can remember. Certainly, the communications tool (aka FB) can play an enabling role. That is, none the less, a symptom; a symptom of a disease that predates the tool by eons. The UN is confused and distracted; and it seems willing to let - once again - the true guilty parties off the hook. Yes, FB played a role. But to ignore the historic context is silly and dangerous. The disease will persist. Because it can. Because it's easier to blame a symptom.

chiefalchemist 9y ago
I expected down votes, of course :) But the lack of explanation for how and why FB should be held accountable for history is a bit disappointing.
ferongr 9y ago
This whole concerted barrage of negative stories about Facebook seems more like the states trying to craft a specific narrative and influence the populace so they can censor the Internet.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jk2323 9y ago

Does anyone here actually know how it is possible to contact Facebook's legal department? Who else could someone contact to whistle-blow something?

merinowool 9y ago

Few times I reported hate speech on Facebook, but every time it was rejected. It seems like hatred towards certain groups of people is allowed on Facebook.

feelin_googley 9y ago

"Facebook says "authenticity" is key to the social network and rigorously policed, and that false information violates the terms of service agreement. ... Computer engineer Ryan Barrett fills in online forms with 0000s whenever a number is required and uses dashes for words. He says it is mostly out of principle: he wants to be in control of his information. Also, it's fun to try to fool the marketers. He has used a dozen different spellings for John Doe rather than entering his name. He even misspells his name when reserving airplane tickets and says it has never created a problem going through security. ... He says he has friends who work at companies that look at multiple services to link up and cross-reference data on individuals-data gleaned from mobile phones, social media, grocery store loyalty cards and more. When those friends searched for him in their systems, they found little to no information. "There's a small feeling of satisfaction," he says. ... All the lying does seem to foil advertisers. It is "a much bigger problem than people are aware of," says Nick Baker, director of research and consulting of U.K. market research company Verve, which conducted a 2015 survey showing a large amount of fake information on website registrations and the like. Incorrect birth years, he says, are particularly nefarious because advertisers are often trying to match up habits or buying patterns with a specific age group. ... Preethy Vaidyanathan, the chief product officer of New York-based marketing technology company Tapad, says they track much more valuable information from phone and web browser use. Still, Ms. Vaidyanathan sees the value in hiding identity online. She says she uses a second email address with a fake name that she gives out to companies she doesn't want to bombard her inbox. Source: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-in-1910-why-people-lie-to-facebook-1522682361?tesla=y https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-in-1910-why...

ValleyOfTheMtns 9y ago

All the technology in the world is not going to fix human nature...

diogenescynic 9y ago

I honestly wonder how Mark and SS sleep at night? Can’t they afford to do better than this? Does their greed and shame know no bounds? I don’t get and it seems like it’s something that will bite them in the long run and open them up to competition, whereas there might not really have ever been a reason for a natural competitor to emerge if FB had just treated its eco-system with a bit more respect and stewardship. Why don’t they want Facebook to be like a curated garden, not a landfill?

PeterStuer 9y ago

I'm no fan of Facebook. I quit using it in September last year . But for this particular issue, inciting of hate, they are no more or less guilty than the 'traditional' tabloid press. Look at the comment section of your local 'populist' newspaper (over here it is https://www.hln.be/ https://www.hln.be/) and see how hate-speech rules supreme and how sensationalist articles are milking for those comments and like.

teekert 9y ago

More like: it doesn't take much for people to turn into beasts.

nnq 9y ago

> "there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place" > Facebook's systems detected what was going on and stopped the messages from going through Wwwwhaaat?! Some people may have just seen that message and interpreted it as "shit hit the fan, let's hide my family in a safe place until this cools down", even if it was intended as a "call to violence". Censoring messages like those could have just as well caused deaths because innocent people just didn't get the heads up. Corporations should clearly define themselves as either "medium companies" and stay completely neutral to whatever flows through their platform as long as it not "explicit content" (yes, this include allowing "hate speech" as long as it's toned down, because that "hate speech" can also contain useful information, and it's not something clearly identifiable), or "message companies", in which case they can clearly take sides in conflicts, but also be responsible (legally) for their actions. This muddy "middle ground" position that some companies take is "the root of all evil". Either let anything happen (including bad things), or pick a side, so that you can later be judged according to the side you picked. It's condescending to imagine that you're actually smart enough to "properly filter" information. You're not, or you're a tyrant imposing his value system on others. I have more sympathy for a corporation that does evil deeds in the service of profit, than for one that interferes in "muddy" ways in social issues and prevents clarity and free flow of information. Sometimes this flow of information cause blood to be spilled, but sometimes problems get solved this way, if a society is not evolved enough to solve them in more peaceful ways. Toning down discussions and letting tensions accumulate is worse.

jlebrech 9y ago

We live in a world where knowledge of Islam by non Muslims can be detrimental to Muslims that only follow certain verses (beliefs) of their book (aka peaceful muslims), unfortunately for them the holy book is immutable (and also can be used to justify ISIS) Also any form of attack on Muslims permits Muslims to retaliate, causing a vicious circle [1][2] 1. https://www.quran.com/9/36 https://www.quran.com/9/36 2. https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-kill-infidels https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-kill...

wemdyjreichert 9y ago

It is wrong to blame a company for people's evil.