7 ms·

Myanmar group questions Zuckerberg’s claim on Facebook hate speech prevention

131 points by abhi3 9y ago

cryptoz 9y ago
This is not a non-story. This is Mark Zuckerberg either lying or not knowing anything about current issues on Facebook. This is not a pile-on or beating a dead horse like all the comments in other Facebook threads are saying about this rash of Facebook stories. Mark Zuckerberg's false confidence/lies about how Facebook is handling the issue of user's private data is sufficient story in an of itself.
- opmelogy 9y ago
  "This is Mark Zuckerberg either lying or not knowing anything about current issues on Facebook." This sums up my general reaction that has been built up over time with how things have been handled. I'm sure that Zuckerberg is playing the PR route sometimes, but more often than not, my suspicion is that it's more about incompetence and cringe-worthy cluelessness than anything else. The Facebook offices I've seen are filled with posters and messages that are more inclusive and respectful across different cultures and minorities. While there, it felt like I was looking at my own Facebook news feed. But compare that with other family member's feeds and their world is vastly different. Filled with fear about minorities, making false claims about history, countries, events, and medicine, and blatant lies that are obviously aimed at aggregating power to a select few. When the idea of fake news and Russian interference surfaced, the general reaction from Zuckerberg came across "lol - wat? That's not even a thing." There's been enough data points since then that shows his incompetence, be it deliberately lying or being completely clueless. For me, I've hit a point where trust is broken. Not just with leadership, but with the platform in general.
  - 908087 9y ago
    > The Facebook offices I've seen are filled with posters and messages that are more inclusive and respectful across different cultures and minorities. Most cults use positive imagery to keep the flock drinking the kool-aid. All these posters indicate is Facebook's desire to keep their developers believing that they're working for some kind of altruistic company looking to "improve the world".
    - methodover 9y ago
      They are.
      - webbles 9y ago
        Hows that kool aid tasting?
- username223 9y ago
  These people are lying like their jobs depend upon it, because they do. Here's Sheryl Sandberg today: > I don’t think that’s true and I don’t think that’s fair. Facebook at its core is a sharing service. We are not sweeping up data. People are inputting data. People are sharing data with Facebook. -- https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandberg-we-are-not-sweeping-up-data-2018-04-05 https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandbe... Where have I heard the word "sharing" before? If they accomplish nothing else, these companies will have killed a word that used to mean an act of generosity.
  - amirmc 9y ago
    I think ‘the sharing economy’ already did that.
734786710934 9y ago
"In response to critics Facebook vows to do more to monitor its users' messages" - future TechCrunch headline. People might want to think about the unintended consequences of their criticism a bit more.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  Facebook offering no button to report abusive messages in Myanmar does not mean anything about reeading people's personal messages or invading their privacy. It is a simple feature that would help these people and improve their lives by protecting them from abusers on Facebook. But for some reason, Facebook won't implement that feature or even talk to these people about why not, or what else can be done.
  - amirmc 9y ago
    There’s something particularly creepy in what Zuckerberg said and what the folks in Myanmar claim. Zuck says “we detected”, whereas the folks in Myanmar say they explicitly tried to raise the issue. Having a ‘report and moderate’ capability seems like one thing but from the above, it seems FB believes in constant monitoring and (presumably) censoring — which is something else entirely. Combine that with a country where “Facebook is the internet”, and it’s quite scary.
    - written 9y ago
      If you find above creepy, you should probably be creeped out by spam filters too (for at least 20 years now). Those are some third parties deciding what will get into your mailbox and what will not, based on questionable criteria. There were several business opprotunities just this year that vanished just because email providers of people who inquired to me over e-mail blocked my responses with 5xx error. Those people just think I ignored them, but in reality it was their provider censoring e-mail. They're not in control of their e-mail so they will never know. What's actually creepy here is that some unknown person is sending unsolicited messages about a group of people organizing to harm the receipient, and seemingly doing this en-masse for many users.
tonypace 9y ago
FB people, if this isn't your canary, than what is?
feelin_googley 9y ago
I do not see the issue with this letter to Zuckerberg as suggested by some of the comments here. I see the issue as one of Zuckerbergs choice of words, how he is portraying the facts. It was his words in the interview that triggered the letter. FB has now apologised for Zuckerbergs comment: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-04-06-facebook-apologises-after-myanmar-groups-blast-mark-zuckerberg/ https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-04-06-faceb... Facebook users and others are paying very careful attention to what Zuckerberg says. Here is a piece that discusses why choice of words can be important, for example when giving testimony before US Congress. There are some provocative examples from past CEOs who have appeared to testify. https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/04/06/what-to-watch-for-when-facebooks-zuckerberg-appears-before-us-congress.html https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/04/06/what-to-... Whether "trust" matters to FB business (selling ads) is another question. Poll: Does FB need to have trust to succeed in the future?
- rpvnwnkl 9y ago
  Yes. But people need to understand why trust matters to them, or they won’t care about it.
tim333 9y ago
>Facebook is not equipped to respond to hate speech in international markets since it relied entirely on information from the ground, where Facebook does not have an office, in order to learn of the issue. It seems to me that rather than hire a bunch of people in California to try and understand local feuds all over the planet they should have a gamified system a bit more like stackoverflow where if you get enough karma you can restrict posts, promote peaceful messages and so on. In fact someone could offer the anti-hate thing as a service. There's a hackathon/startup project for someone.

131 points by abhi3 9y ago

This is not a non-story. This is Mark Zuckerberg either lying or not knowing anything about current issues on Facebook. This is not a pile-on or beating a dead horse like all the comments in other Facebook threads are saying about this rash of Facebook stories. Mark Zuckerberg's false confidence/lies about how Facebook is handling the issue of user's private data is sufficient story in an of itself.

opmelogy 9y ago
"This is Mark Zuckerberg either lying or not knowing anything about current issues on Facebook." This sums up my general reaction that has been built up over time with how things have been handled. I'm sure that Zuckerberg is playing the PR route sometimes, but more often than not, my suspicion is that it's more about incompetence and cringe-worthy cluelessness than anything else. The Facebook offices I've seen are filled with posters and messages that are more inclusive and respectful across different cultures and minorities. While there, it felt like I was looking at my own Facebook news feed. But compare that with other family member's feeds and their world is vastly different. Filled with fear about minorities, making false claims about history, countries, events, and medicine, and blatant lies that are obviously aimed at aggregating power to a select few. When the idea of fake news and Russian interference surfaced, the general reaction from Zuckerberg came across "lol - wat? That's not even a thing." There's been enough data points since then that shows his incompetence, be it deliberately lying or being completely clueless. For me, I've hit a point where trust is broken. Not just with leadership, but with the platform in general.
- 908087 9y ago
  > The Facebook offices I've seen are filled with posters and messages that are more inclusive and respectful across different cultures and minorities. Most cults use positive imagery to keep the flock drinking the kool-aid. All these posters indicate is Facebook's desire to keep their developers believing that they're working for some kind of altruistic company looking to "improve the world".
  - methodover 9y ago
    They are.
    - webbles 9y ago
      Hows that kool aid tasting?
username223 9y ago
These people are lying like their jobs depend upon it, because they do. Here's Sheryl Sandberg today: > I don’t think that’s true and I don’t think that’s fair. Facebook at its core is a sharing service. We are not sweeping up data. People are inputting data. People are sharing data with Facebook. -- https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandberg-we-are-not-sweeping-up-data-2018-04-05 https://www.marketwatch.com/Story/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandbe... Where have I heard the word "sharing" before? If they accomplish nothing else, these companies will have killed a word that used to mean an act of generosity.
- amirmc 9y ago
  I think ‘the sharing economy’ already did that.

734786710934 9y ago

"In response to critics Facebook vows to do more to monitor its users' messages" - future TechCrunch headline. People might want to think about the unintended consequences of their criticism a bit more.

cryptoz 9y ago
Facebook offering no button to report abusive messages in Myanmar does not mean anything about reeading people's personal messages or invading their privacy. It is a simple feature that would help these people and improve their lives by protecting them from abusers on Facebook. But for some reason, Facebook won't implement that feature or even talk to these people about why not, or what else can be done.
- amirmc 9y ago
  There’s something particularly creepy in what Zuckerberg said and what the folks in Myanmar claim. Zuck says “we detected”, whereas the folks in Myanmar say they explicitly tried to raise the issue. Having a ‘report and moderate’ capability seems like one thing but from the above, it seems FB believes in constant monitoring and (presumably) censoring — which is something else entirely. Combine that with a country where “Facebook is the internet”, and it’s quite scary.
  - written 9y ago
    If you find above creepy, you should probably be creeped out by spam filters too (for at least 20 years now). Those are some third parties deciding what will get into your mailbox and what will not, based on questionable criteria. There were several business opprotunities just this year that vanished just because email providers of people who inquired to me over e-mail blocked my responses with 5xx error. Those people just think I ignored them, but in reality it was their provider censoring e-mail. They're not in control of their e-mail so they will never know. What's actually creepy here is that some unknown person is sending unsolicited messages about a group of people organizing to harm the receipient, and seemingly doing this en-masse for many users.

tonypace 9y ago

FB people, if this isn't your canary, than what is?

feelin_googley 9y ago

I do not see the issue with this letter to Zuckerberg as suggested by some of the comments here. I see the issue as one of Zuckerbergs choice of words, how he is portraying the facts. It was his words in the interview that triggered the letter. FB has now apologised for Zuckerbergs comment: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-04-06-facebook-apologises-after-myanmar-groups-blast-mark-zuckerberg/ https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/2018-04-06-faceb... Facebook users and others are paying very careful attention to what Zuckerberg says. Here is a piece that discusses why choice of words can be important, for example when giving testimony before US Congress. There are some provocative examples from past CEOs who have appeared to testify. https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/04/06/what-to-watch-for-when-facebooks-zuckerberg-appears-before-us-congress.html https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/04/06/what-to-... Whether "trust" matters to FB business (selling ads) is another question. Poll: Does FB need to have trust to succeed in the future?

rpvnwnkl 9y ago
Yes. But people need to understand why trust matters to them, or they won’t care about it.

tim333 9y ago

>Facebook is not equipped to respond to hate speech in international markets since it relied entirely on information from the ground, where Facebook does not have an office, in order to learn of the issue. It seems to me that rather than hire a bunch of people in California to try and understand local feuds all over the planet they should have a gamified system a bit more like stackoverflow where if you get enough karma you can restrict posts, promote peaceful messages and so on. In fact someone could offer the anti-hate thing as a service. There's a hackathon/startup project for someone.