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> Ethnic cleansing and ethno-religious conflict with Rohingya has been happening and accelerating since before Facebook existed. Just because the problem exist
by azernik 8y ago
> Ethnic cleansing and ethno-religious conflict with Rohingya has been happening and accelerating since before Facebook existed.
Just because the problem existed before Facebook doesn't mean Facebook is completely free of responsibility. It amplifies existing prejudices in those echo-chambers we know so well from American politics; and it provides practical help to the organization of "grassroots" violence. From this New York Times article on the similar Sri Lankan situation:
> “We don’t completely blame Facebook,” said Harindra Dissanayake, a presidential adviser in Sri Lanka. “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind, you know?”
- djohnston 8y agothis argument can be made for any piece of technology humanity has ever invented
- trhway 8y agoThe argument isn't about technology. The argument is about knowingly letting and abetting a genocide with your technology.
- aspaceman 8y agowhich is precisely why those who create technology must consider how it will be used.
- shrimp_emoji 8y agoYes. Roads can service vehicles used by terrorists or invading armies. Roads are a necessary evil that should be heavily moderated, and any road makers must be held accountable to who uses their roads.
- azernik 8y agoExactly. To build a private road you need government cooperation, there are usually special arrangements for policing roads, governments pay (traffic engineers to pay) attention to the systemic effects of adding roads, etc.
- smt88 8y agoPoint taken, but earlier in the thread, the discussion was about Facebook, which doesn't function like a neutral road at all.
- debt 8y agoI do wonder why the Valley has such an aversion to defense contracts then if other non-defense related “necessary” technologies cause guaranteed collateral damage. Is it because these technologies such as self-driving cars will only kill people accidentally?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"
- madhadron 8y agoThat's a new thing. Silicon Valley was built on defense money after WWII. The microcomputer and BBS world there was very connected to utopian and pacifist ideals, which is where a lot of the anti-military ethos present today comes from. That was later, though.
- tormeh 8y agoYou sound like you're sarcastic, but I know the road system in northern Norway was made with the explicit intention that it should be slow for an army to drive westwards. If you made a private east-west road during the cold war, you'd probably get some unpleasant encounters with officials. Of course, all development at this scale has to be sanctioned by the state, but in this particular case you'd be much more likely to have a Bad Time.
- andrewflnr 8y agoDoes that extend to, say, crypto software? Should the authors of Signal, IPFS et al be held accountable when their works are used for evil?
- wyattpeak 8y agoIt applies to all technologies. I seriously thought we got past this "we only do science, we're not responsible for its use" shit during the Manhattan Project. That's not to say that various technologies shouldn't exist (certainly not encryption), or that researchers should be liable in a legal sense. But everyone who develops technology has a responsibility to consider the harm it might cause, alongside the good it might do.
- chii 8y ago> But everyone who develops technology has a responsibility to consider the harm it might cause, alongside the good it might do. but if the harm it might do out-weights the good but only to somebody else? Ala, externalized harm? In this game theoretic system, the actors that benefit the most are the ones that externalized the harm. For example, AI development may actually cause harm. But that harm can either happen to those who get marginalized due to AI taking over their existing roles, or that humanity gets destroyed by an AI. But in the short term, an AI that works well can make massive profits.
- andrewflnr 8y ago"Responsibility to consider the harm" is a far, far cry from "should be held accountable for the harm", which is the statement I was responding to. Not even comparable, really, in terms of impact. Whether the harm should be "considered" was never in question, AFAICT.
- 8bitsrule 8y agoAgreed fully in principle. But that runs contrary to the history of development, which is profit-motivated. From arrowheads to phonographs to nuclear fission to broadband. I look forward to the day when technologists consider both.
- azernik 8y agoAnd is true. Governments reserve the power to take off-air radio stations inciting violence, any new mode of transportation is heavily studied and regulated before going into widespread use, etc.
- fouc 8y agoWhy is facebook responsible? I mean ultimately it's just a social network/communication technology. It's not at all setup to police people's speech, so there'd be a huge cost to dealing with that. If anything, it could enable the local government to do the policing and prevent hate killings. Unless the government itself is participating in that. Then who's to blame here? (The government/people are)
- azernik 8y agoIt's totally set up to police people's speech! That's what the "report" button and paid moderators are for! It's just that in peripheral markets like the Sri Lankan case I mentioned, they're not willing to put in the financial investment to be a responsible social network; they had no Sinhalese speaking moderators, no staff in-country, and did not respond to either reports of content inciting violence or direct outreach from the government. Until they were blocked and realized their precious market share was in danger. Facebook can do all those good things you mentioned, and it generally chooses not to until the consequences become too enormous to brush off.