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"Facebook doesn't want this kind of stuff on their platform. But, it can be very hard for them to stop it." So, in other words, this is the price of doing busi

"Facebook doesn't want this kind of stuff on their platform. But, it can be very hard for them to stop it." So, in other words, this is the price of doing business?

skissane 8y ago
Anyone who runs a website with user-submitted content has this problem. If you allow users to post content in any language, how can you effectively moderate their postings if you don't understand the language they are posting in? There are thousands of minority languages in the world, it is infeasible (even for a company as big as Facebook) to retain staff with language skills in all of them. The other option is to ban the use of minority languages. Only major languages are allowed. But, from a human rights perspective, that is an affront to diversity and freedom, and is contributing to the endangered state of many of these languages. But, if you allow minority languages, you run the risk that people are advocating or organising human rights violations in that minority language (slave trading, advocating for genocide, etc), and the platform can't stop it because it can't understand it. So, it is a tradeoff, which threat to human rights do you prevent, because you can't feasibly prevent both.
- sorokod 8y ago
  Calling Facebook a "site with user submitted content" is not incorrect but to make it a bit more accurate is to add that FB makes massive amount of money from the site with user submitted content (you may want to ponder how exactly Sudanese users are monetized). With this in mind it looks like the occasional slave auction is just an unfortunate consequence of the scale and ambition of the enterprise.
  - skissane 8y ago
    Yes, they make a lot of money. But, I'm pretty sure they don't make a lot of money from all languages equally. According to Ethnologue, there are 401 languages with over 1 million speakers, and 1370 with over 100,000. Now, can Facebook justify retaining moderation teams with skills in 401 different languages, even 1370 different languages, when most of those languages probably make very little advertising revenue, not enough to pay for the required moderation? Should Facebook be forced to provide moderation services, at a loss, for lesser used languages? Or, should they ban the use of those languages, where advertising revenue is insufficient to pay for moderation? Or allow them on the platform unmoderated, at the risk that their speakers might get away with saying or doing some horrible things? I don't think Facebook should be forced to provide moderation services for languages with little or no revenue, and I think allowing them to be used unmoderated is the lesser evil than banning them.
    - sorokod 8y ago
      Nobody forced FB to run a business that allows a slave auction on their platform. How to make it impossible is not my problem - it should be their problem.

"Facebook doesn't want this kind of stuff on their platform. But, it can be very hard for them to stop it." So, in other words, this is the price of doing business?

skissane 8y ago

Anyone who runs a website with user-submitted content has this problem. If you allow users to post content in any language, how can you effectively moderate their postings if you don't understand the language they are posting in? There are thousands of minority languages in the world, it is infeasible (even for a company as big as Facebook) to retain staff with language skills in all of them. The other option is to ban the use of minority languages. Only major languages are allowed. But, from a human rights perspective, that is an affront to diversity and freedom, and is contributing to the endangered state of many of these languages. But, if you allow minority languages, you run the risk that people are advocating or organising human rights violations in that minority language (slave trading, advocating for genocide, etc), and the platform can't stop it because it can't understand it. So, it is a tradeoff, which threat to human rights do you prevent, because you can't feasibly prevent both.

sorokod 8y ago
Calling Facebook a "site with user submitted content" is not incorrect but to make it a bit more accurate is to add that FB makes massive amount of money from the site with user submitted content (you may want to ponder how exactly Sudanese users are monetized). With this in mind it looks like the occasional slave auction is just an unfortunate consequence of the scale and ambition of the enterprise.
- skissane 8y ago
  Yes, they make a lot of money. But, I'm pretty sure they don't make a lot of money from all languages equally. According to Ethnologue, there are 401 languages with over 1 million speakers, and 1370 with over 100,000. Now, can Facebook justify retaining moderation teams with skills in 401 different languages, even 1370 different languages, when most of those languages probably make very little advertising revenue, not enough to pay for the required moderation? Should Facebook be forced to provide moderation services, at a loss, for lesser used languages? Or, should they ban the use of those languages, where advertising revenue is insufficient to pay for moderation? Or allow them on the platform unmoderated, at the risk that their speakers might get away with saying or doing some horrible things? I don't think Facebook should be forced to provide moderation services for languages with little or no revenue, and I think allowing them to be used unmoderated is the lesser evil than banning them.
  - sorokod 8y ago
    Nobody forced FB to run a business that allows a slave auction on their platform. How to make it impossible is not my problem - it should be their problem.