13 ms·

Fearing More Violence, Sri Lanka Silences Social Media

134 points by panarky 8y ago

panarky 8y ago
Sri Lanka’s action “is a damning indictment” of companies that once portrayed the platforms as vehicles for liberation... Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings. Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence. Company officials largely failed to respond until the government shut down access, after which they promised to hire more moderators and improve communication. And from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-expl... Rather than trusting in Facebook and other companies to police their networks for hate speech or incitement that could arise as a result of Sunday’s attacks, the government was treating the platforms as too dangerous to remain online.
Mirioron 8y ago
It just goes to show that governments are going to censor when they feel like it. If your only contact with someone is through social media then you'd have no way to contact them to find out if they're okay. On the other hand, I can understand short term temporary shutdowns to try to stop further violence, but that's not what Sri Lanka is doing in this case.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  "Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings. Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence." Sri Lanka isn't trying prevent people from communicating with each other or censorship. Sounds like they've been bitten by social media-driven violence in the past, which wouldn't be the first country to see this phenomenon (Myanmar). It's so easy to assume a corrupt government motive here, but we've seen ethnic violence perpetuated on social media in the past. What's a government supposed to do when that happens?
  - galimaufry 8y ago
    Myanmar is not a typical example: social media drove violence, but social media was being manipulated by the army: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    >What's a government supposed to do when that happens? If people perpetuate ethnic violence through cell phones, does the government ban phones? If people perpetuate ethnic violence through speaking, will the government ban speaking?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
malwarebytess 8y ago
>A growing body of research has linked social media to religious and racial violence. >Social media platforms build their businesses on sophisticated algorithms that serve up content that will keep users engaged. This favors posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger and fear, studies suggest. I think governments, and researchers, are going to find that censoring social media doesn't have as large an effect as they imagine. Most of it is noise anyway. Buzz buzz.
- mlinksva 8y ago
  The article does link to a couple papers which I have not read yet, but have added to my list. I'd love a link to the most current review of evidence on social media and crime. Surely there are some decent natural experiments by now. Is any jurisdiction doing RCTs?
- pugworthy 8y ago
  It is noise, but the noise is fuel on a fire sometimes.
Mikeb85 8y ago
Considering this action is in response to a bunch of bombings of Christian churches (which happens in nearly every country with a Christian minority around Easter), maybe the problem isn't social media but a particular (Saudi funded) extremist sect of a certain religion?
- jfk13 8y ago
  > bombings of Christian churches ... happens in nearly every country with a Christian minority around Easter That's quite a claim. How many examples can you think of?
  - Mikeb85 8y ago
    Egypt. Every damned year (keep in mind Orthodox churches like Egypt celebrate Easter on a different day). Nigeria. Give me 5 minutes I can probably find a dozen countries it's happened in. Gets drowned out in the news though. Literally today in Sri Lanka. Hence the OP.
    - jfk13 8y ago
      That's still a long way from being "nearly every country with a Christian minority".
      - Mikeb85 8y ago
        Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Syria, Iraq, Google it, it's happened. Pick any country with a sizeable Muslim population and Christian minority and there's been an attack on Easter. It gets drowned out, but it's a thing.
        philliphaydon 8y ago
        I couldn’t find anything for Indonesia.
        8y ago
karlakush 8y ago
I don't see how this is supposed to reduce violence. Censorship seems like it would be more likely to engender violence than suppress it. Also, trying to blame violence on social media is a little ridiculous when the entire history of the world before social media is nothing but horrible atrocities. Al Qaeda seemed to organize just fine without social media.
HenryBemis 8y ago
I read all so far comments, I don't think that blocking social media is to silence voices and block freedom of speech. I strongly believe (from a crowd-control/security standpoint) that eliminating social media, whatsapp, signal, etc, the hidden communication channels are removed. So if the government knows that e.g. Henry Bemis is a known trouble-maker, it is easier to monitor his phonecalls, emails, SMS and find out what are his next steps of this bomber/terrorist/whatever. If Henry Bemis is using Signal, WhatsApp, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, etc. it is easier to coordinate the next steps of an attack, awaken sleepers etc. without the government's security forces to be able to react equally fast. Typical counter-terrorism stuff (or I just have a wild imagination).
- kevas 8y ago
  I’m not for what they did, but this comment is to expand your idea. You forgot to think about the people they don’t know about right now. I’m presuming they’re freaking the F out right now and are worried about unknown cells and their communications. So... in the moment, decision was to make unknown cells communications more difficult by disabling low hanging fruit.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Terrorism doesn't require hidden communication channels. But it is actually propaganda, usually foreign, so governments feel threatened by it and naturally want to block it. If they can't, they can decide to block the next best thing, i.e. uncontrollable mass communication channels. Censorship in its pure form, not counter terrorism.
  - HenryBemis 8y ago
    In the cases of events, e.g. bombing a church, paramedics, firemen are easy targets/sitting ducks. Being able to block coordination of further attacks is important. The hidden channels is not to silence the propaganda. That will never happen. But communicating to a vast network of perpetrators that "I just saw the army driving to location ABC, therefore we do the round 2 attack in location XYZ". I am never in favor of censorship. I am merely stating that I understand a potential use under these circumstances. I don't agree. I just undertand the reasoning.
speeq 8y ago
Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has a long history of violence even before the age of social media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  And sporadic community-based strife prior to that, beginning certainly no later than the first millennium AD.
- titanix2 8y ago
  And the religion involved in the bombing have centuries of history of violence, yet most other civilizations seems to be cool with it (China being the exemption).
matchagaucho 8y ago
I've been travelling in foreign countries where it felt like political tensions could be cut with a knife. And in those moments, "everyone" is heads down into their smartphones. Just thumb scrolling and looking for anything that reinforces their beliefs.
- meowface 8y ago
  Sounds like you just accurately described the United States in 2019, as well. Any country undergoing political turmoil is in a similar boat, and sadly probably always will be. The technological means will just continue to evolve.
  - jammygit 8y ago
    Or 2016...
    - talmand 8y ago
      Or just about any year of your choosing. Today it's phones, before then it was newspapers, before then it was the town square, before then it was the village crier, before then it was the guy that talked to spirits/gods/sky, and so on... This is not a new thing.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jopsen 8y ago
Wow, are we know so scared of mob mentality that we don't condemn brazen free speech interference? I know social media platforms can create mobs, but since when are we all scared that: > That digital rights and press freedom advocates might now sympathize, if not agree, with Sri Lanka’s action. This seems questionable to me, and problematic for people trying to find each other.
- danharaj 8y ago
  "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death (of other people) your right to say it."
  - manfredo 8y ago
    There's a reason why we set the bar for prioritizing safety over speech at credible, immediate threat rather than an abstract threat. Effectively every movement or political group has committed acts of violence. Whether its Islamists blowing up marathons or shooting up nightclubs, or right wingers shooting up churches and mosques, or liberals trying to assassinate congressmen at a baseball game. If you look hard enough you can point to deaths or criminality caused by most political speech, and use that as justification for bans.
    - weaksauce 8y ago
      > liberals trying to assasinate congressmen at a baseball game. One deranged man not liberals in general. There have been numerous right wingers shooting up churches and mosques and planned parenthood buildings.
      - meowface 8y ago
        You know full well that their post was discussing a more abstract point. Violent extremists exist among all ideologies and groups, and always will.
        8y ago
apo 8y ago
Disappointing to see that this is one of the first tools a government reaches for in a crisis. It's one of the worst possible responses because of how well censorship plays into the hands of skilled extremists.
HNthrow22 8y ago
"The extraordinary step reflects growing global concern, particularly among governments, about the capacity of American-owned networks to spin up violence." "Officials blocked the platforms, he said, out of fear that misinformation about the attacks and hate speech could spread, provoking more violence." Good, a step in the right direction and finally officials are connecting the dots on this. I know HN hates to hear this but this is long overdue. It's my view that the executives in charge of these social networks should face criminal prosecution for their supreme negligence and wildly irresponsible behavior, allowing extremism to spread and hateful ideologies to flourish in the name of increasing quarterly engagement metrics. Free speech has little to do with this. Social media is a fertile breeding ground for hate and a powerful recruitment tool for extremists. I doubt we're able to sort through all the FUD and misinformation, concerted and successful efforts to dictate public opinion and change narratives to suit whatever special interests or political agendas. We're truly in the post-truth era, with the power in the hands of a few SV elite and billionaire aristocrats. From everything I've seen I don't see mankind sorting this out before it's too late for all of us. Social media is the great filter.
chriselles 8y ago
I’m happy to defer to others with more relevant regional cultural ground truth. But it’s my understanding that social media, specifically WhatsApp, has been accused of amplifying fake news and violence in India, resulting in reduced sharing limits to mitigate against malignant virility. 14 months ago there were anti Muslim riots in Sri Lanka and more recently major Bangladesh/Myanmar Muslim refugee crisis. If I was running security in Sri Lanka I would also consider a temporary shut down or throttling of social media to mitigate the amplification of sectarian violence. This is a real tragedy, especially when looked at in perspective with the incredibly violent, costly, and lengthy Sri Lankan Civil War. When looked at thru the lens of having followed the Sri Lankan Civil War at a distance, the extreme violence(suicide bomber was “invented there) and urban terrorism was a near constant. This is a horrible tragedy that I hope Sri Lankan can contain and prevent viral escalation.
- phakeNews 8y ago
  Yeah, gee. Fake news. I bet you're right. Me? I'm really worried about fake news. Fake news is at the root of it all. Fake news killed my dog. Fake news was our downfall. Fake news is what caused all these problems.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  If you are following the Indian election I found an interesting article yesterday about how bots are being deployed on social media to influence that contest. https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-bots-on-both-sides-in-india-c87c84040229 https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-bots-on-both-sides-i...
tibyat 8y ago
US next please!
rdl 8y ago
This seems like a bad move for both moral and practical reasons. Morally, free communication is a basic human right. Practically, having a bunch of churches/hotels attacked by an easily-identifiable group, followed by shutting off communications tools, would probably turn people from "death squad curious" into hardcore whatever the local version of hacking your enemies apart with a machete is (parang?). A reasonable but scared person might assume the attacks are of a larger scale, or supported or condoned by the government, or otherwise an ongoing event, rather than a tragic event which happened and is now over and could be left to policy solutions. I know if 9/11 or something like that had happened and then the USG had immediately tried to institute a communications blackout (except for state controlled broadcast media), a lot of people I know would be very on-edge.
- vijaybritto 8y ago
  Preventing rapid spread of misinformation is important in some extreme scenarios. Especially when social media platforms amplify sensation over facts. Also the same rules as the developed world don't apply elsewhere in the developing world.
  - rdl 8y ago
    Preventing spread of misinformation is good, but preventing the spread of "information" in a context where people are already sensitized could be worse. It depends on whether people will assume censorship/blackout means something negative, and whether the communications tool is actually needed to organize the responsive violence. It depends on the specific culture/society.
    - dvhh 8y ago
      trouble is that social network helps misinformation spreading at a faster rate than "good" information. Initial misinformation, is usually quite widespread before any correction is issued, and even then correction usually get less spread ( mostly because people who have been spreading misinformation would not admit that they are wrong ). Also blocking, muting and bubble effect contribute to wrong information staying in the same sphere.
username223 8y ago
I wonder what would happen if they went back to a strictly chronological feed, instead of one optimized for "engagement"? Sure, it wouldn't eliminate any of the hate, but it also wouldn't deliberately concentrate it at the top of the page. People would still see "KILL THEM ALL," but the selfies and cat memes mixed in might put things in perspective.
sjwbrownshirt 8y ago
I like how all the EFF bros hop on here saying "I'm pro speech" and yet in the span of a few comments hop onto the next post and totally brown shirt the shit out of anyone that isn't a self-described SJW that can't even tolerate someone addressing someone else in their preferred pronouns. What a bunch of self righteous social signaling assholes. Admit it - you're as authoritarian as they came. You ain't no activist - you're just a Mussolini.
village-idiot 8y ago
It says a lot about Facebook’s low standing that a lot of people, myself included, are generally OK with it being blocked during emergencies.
identity-haver 8y ago
One part of me hopes that governments keep doing this every time there's as much as a bad mugging, so that people will stop relying on the ability of their government-controlled ISP and a US-controlled cloud platform to communicate with each other and maybe try some new P2P technology, or possibly just talk to each other in person instead. Then again, this is wishful thinking. The only reason the Sri Lankan government has to resort to such a drastic and ham-fisted measure is that they don't yet have the clout or connection to call their friends at Google, Facebook, & Twitter and say "immediately shadowban this set of keywords" like the US and EU can.
narrator 8y ago
While they're at it, they might want to ban whatever the people who committed the acts of violence against the churches were using.
Kim_Bruning 8y ago
I just wish people used this flash-mob-forming capability for good more often than evil. :-/ I don't think it's hardly exploited enough!
csense 8y ago
How does the block work on a technical level? Did they just nicely ask Facebook to geo-IP block their whole country, and Facebook agreed voluntarily? Is there some legal process, where Facebook's under threat of having money/property in the country seized and/or employees in the country arrested if they don't comply? Or are they doing it without Facebook's assistance? Do they have government-controlled routers that can blackhole specific DNS queries or IP address ranges? Or put their ISP's under threat of some legal process to implement the same? How do we make the Internet more robust against the specific attack launched by the government? Or should governments always be able to shut down sites they don't like, when they judge it necessary?

134 points by panarky 8y ago

Sri Lanka’s action “is a damning indictment” of companies that once portrayed the platforms as vehicles for liberation... Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings. Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence. Company officials largely failed to respond until the government shut down access, after which they promised to hire more moderators and improve communication. And from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-expl... Rather than trusting in Facebook and other companies to police their networks for hate speech or incitement that could arise as a result of Sunday’s attacks, the government was treating the platforms as too dangerous to remain online.

Mirioron 8y ago

It just goes to show that governments are going to censor when they feel like it. If your only contact with someone is through social media then you'd have no way to contact them to find out if they're okay. On the other hand, I can understand short term temporary shutdowns to try to stop further violence, but that's not what Sri Lanka is doing in this case.

save_ferris 8y ago
"Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings. Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence." Sri Lanka isn't trying prevent people from communicating with each other or censorship. Sounds like they've been bitten by social media-driven violence in the past, which wouldn't be the first country to see this phenomenon (Myanmar). It's so easy to assume a corrupt government motive here, but we've seen ethnic violence perpetuated on social media in the past. What's a government supposed to do when that happens?
- galimaufry 8y ago
  Myanmar is not a typical example: social media drove violence, but social media was being manipulated by the army: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >What's a government supposed to do when that happens? If people perpetuate ethnic violence through cell phones, does the government ban phones? If people perpetuate ethnic violence through speaking, will the government ban speaking?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

malwarebytess 8y ago

>A growing body of research has linked social media to religious and racial violence. >Social media platforms build their businesses on sophisticated algorithms that serve up content that will keep users engaged. This favors posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger and fear, studies suggest. I think governments, and researchers, are going to find that censoring social media doesn't have as large an effect as they imagine. Most of it is noise anyway. Buzz buzz.

mlinksva 8y ago
The article does link to a couple papers which I have not read yet, but have added to my list. I'd love a link to the most current review of evidence on social media and crime. Surely there are some decent natural experiments by now. Is any jurisdiction doing RCTs?
pugworthy 8y ago
It is noise, but the noise is fuel on a fire sometimes.

Mikeb85 8y ago

Considering this action is in response to a bunch of bombings of Christian churches (which happens in nearly every country with a Christian minority around Easter), maybe the problem isn't social media but a particular (Saudi funded) extremist sect of a certain religion?

jfk13 8y ago
> bombings of Christian churches ... happens in nearly every country with a Christian minority around Easter That's quite a claim. How many examples can you think of?
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  Egypt. Every damned year (keep in mind Orthodox churches like Egypt celebrate Easter on a different day). Nigeria. Give me 5 minutes I can probably find a dozen countries it's happened in. Gets drowned out in the news though. Literally today in Sri Lanka. Hence the OP.
  - jfk13 8y ago
    That's still a long way from being "nearly every country with a Christian minority".
    - Mikeb85 8y ago
      Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Syria, Iraq, Google it, it's happened. Pick any country with a sizeable Muslim population and Christian minority and there's been an attack on Easter. It gets drowned out, but it's a thing.
      - philliphaydon 8y ago
        I couldn’t find anything for Indonesia.
        8y ago

karlakush 8y ago

I don't see how this is supposed to reduce violence. Censorship seems like it would be more likely to engender violence than suppress it. Also, trying to blame violence on social media is a little ridiculous when the entire history of the world before social media is nothing but horrible atrocities. Al Qaeda seemed to organize just fine without social media.

HenryBemis 8y ago

I read all so far comments, I don't think that blocking social media is to silence voices and block freedom of speech. I strongly believe (from a crowd-control/security standpoint) that eliminating social media, whatsapp, signal, etc, the hidden communication channels are removed. So if the government knows that e.g. Henry Bemis is a known trouble-maker, it is easier to monitor his phonecalls, emails, SMS and find out what are his next steps of this bomber/terrorist/whatever. If Henry Bemis is using Signal, WhatsApp, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, etc. it is easier to coordinate the next steps of an attack, awaken sleepers etc. without the government's security forces to be able to react equally fast. Typical counter-terrorism stuff (or I just have a wild imagination).

kevas 8y ago
I’m not for what they did, but this comment is to expand your idea. You forgot to think about the people they don’t know about right now. I’m presuming they’re freaking the F out right now and are worried about unknown cells and their communications. So... in the moment, decision was to make unknown cells communications more difficult by disabling low hanging fruit.
zzzcpan 8y ago
Terrorism doesn't require hidden communication channels. But it is actually propaganda, usually foreign, so governments feel threatened by it and naturally want to block it. If they can't, they can decide to block the next best thing, i.e. uncontrollable mass communication channels. Censorship in its pure form, not counter terrorism.
- HenryBemis 8y ago
  In the cases of events, e.g. bombing a church, paramedics, firemen are easy targets/sitting ducks. Being able to block coordination of further attacks is important. The hidden channels is not to silence the propaganda. That will never happen. But communicating to a vast network of perpetrators that "I just saw the army driving to location ABC, therefore we do the round 2 attack in location XYZ". I am never in favor of censorship. I am merely stating that I understand a potential use under these circumstances. I don't agree. I just undertand the reasoning.

speeq 8y ago

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has a long history of violence even before the age of social media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
And sporadic community-based strife prior to that, beginning certainly no later than the first millennium AD.
titanix2 8y ago
And the religion involved in the bombing have centuries of history of violence, yet most other civilizations seems to be cool with it (China being the exemption).

matchagaucho 8y ago

I've been travelling in foreign countries where it felt like political tensions could be cut with a knife. And in those moments, "everyone" is heads down into their smartphones. Just thumb scrolling and looking for anything that reinforces their beliefs.

meowface 8y ago
Sounds like you just accurately described the United States in 2019, as well. Any country undergoing political turmoil is in a similar boat, and sadly probably always will be. The technological means will just continue to evolve.
- jammygit 8y ago
  Or 2016...
  - talmand 8y ago
    Or just about any year of your choosing. Today it's phones, before then it was newspapers, before then it was the town square, before then it was the village crier, before then it was the guy that talked to spirits/gods/sky, and so on... This is not a new thing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jopsen 8y ago

Wow, are we know so scared of mob mentality that we don't condemn brazen free speech interference? I know social media platforms can create mobs, but since when are we all scared that: > That digital rights and press freedom advocates might now sympathize, if not agree, with Sri Lanka’s action. This seems questionable to me, and problematic for people trying to find each other.

danharaj 8y ago
"I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death (of other people) your right to say it."
- manfredo 8y ago
  There's a reason why we set the bar for prioritizing safety over speech at credible, immediate threat rather than an abstract threat. Effectively every movement or political group has committed acts of violence. Whether its Islamists blowing up marathons or shooting up nightclubs, or right wingers shooting up churches and mosques, or liberals trying to assassinate congressmen at a baseball game. If you look hard enough you can point to deaths or criminality caused by most political speech, and use that as justification for bans.
  - weaksauce 8y ago
    > liberals trying to assasinate congressmen at a baseball game. One deranged man not liberals in general. There have been numerous right wingers shooting up churches and mosques and planned parenthood buildings.
    - meowface 8y ago
      You know full well that their post was discussing a more abstract point. Violent extremists exist among all ideologies and groups, and always will.
      - 8y ago

apo 8y ago

Disappointing to see that this is one of the first tools a government reaches for in a crisis. It's one of the worst possible responses because of how well censorship plays into the hands of skilled extremists.

HNthrow22 8y ago

"The extraordinary step reflects growing global concern, particularly among governments, about the capacity of American-owned networks to spin up violence." "Officials blocked the platforms, he said, out of fear that misinformation about the attacks and hate speech could spread, provoking more violence." Good, a step in the right direction and finally officials are connecting the dots on this. I know HN hates to hear this but this is long overdue. It's my view that the executives in charge of these social networks should face criminal prosecution for their supreme negligence and wildly irresponsible behavior, allowing extremism to spread and hateful ideologies to flourish in the name of increasing quarterly engagement metrics. Free speech has little to do with this. Social media is a fertile breeding ground for hate and a powerful recruitment tool for extremists. I doubt we're able to sort through all the FUD and misinformation, concerted and successful efforts to dictate public opinion and change narratives to suit whatever special interests or political agendas. We're truly in the post-truth era, with the power in the hands of a few SV elite and billionaire aristocrats. From everything I've seen I don't see mankind sorting this out before it's too late for all of us. Social media is the great filter.

chriselles 8y ago

I’m happy to defer to others with more relevant regional cultural ground truth. But it’s my understanding that social media, specifically WhatsApp, has been accused of amplifying fake news and violence in India, resulting in reduced sharing limits to mitigate against malignant virility. 14 months ago there were anti Muslim riots in Sri Lanka and more recently major Bangladesh/Myanmar Muslim refugee crisis. If I was running security in Sri Lanka I would also consider a temporary shut down or throttling of social media to mitigate the amplification of sectarian violence. This is a real tragedy, especially when looked at in perspective with the incredibly violent, costly, and lengthy Sri Lankan Civil War. When looked at thru the lens of having followed the Sri Lankan Civil War at a distance, the extreme violence(suicide bomber was “invented there) and urban terrorism was a near constant. This is a horrible tragedy that I hope Sri Lankan can contain and prevent viral escalation.

phakeNews 8y ago
Yeah, gee. Fake news. I bet you're right. Me? I'm really worried about fake news. Fake news is at the root of it all. Fake news killed my dog. Fake news was our downfall. Fake news is what caused all these problems.
anigbrowl 8y ago
If you are following the Indian election I found an interesting article yesterday about how bots are being deployed on social media to influence that contest. https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-bots-on-both-sides-in-india-c87c84040229 https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-bots-on-both-sides-i...

tibyat 8y ago

US next please!

rdl 8y ago

This seems like a bad move for both moral and practical reasons. Morally, free communication is a basic human right. Practically, having a bunch of churches/hotels attacked by an easily-identifiable group, followed by shutting off communications tools, would probably turn people from "death squad curious" into hardcore whatever the local version of hacking your enemies apart with a machete is (parang?). A reasonable but scared person might assume the attacks are of a larger scale, or supported or condoned by the government, or otherwise an ongoing event, rather than a tragic event which happened and is now over and could be left to policy solutions. I know if 9/11 or something like that had happened and then the USG had immediately tried to institute a communications blackout (except for state controlled broadcast media), a lot of people I know would be very on-edge.

vijaybritto 8y ago
Preventing rapid spread of misinformation is important in some extreme scenarios. Especially when social media platforms amplify sensation over facts. Also the same rules as the developed world don't apply elsewhere in the developing world.
- rdl 8y ago
  Preventing spread of misinformation is good, but preventing the spread of "information" in a context where people are already sensitized could be worse. It depends on whether people will assume censorship/blackout means something negative, and whether the communications tool is actually needed to organize the responsive violence. It depends on the specific culture/society.
  - dvhh 8y ago
    trouble is that social network helps misinformation spreading at a faster rate than "good" information. Initial misinformation, is usually quite widespread before any correction is issued, and even then correction usually get less spread ( mostly because people who have been spreading misinformation would not admit that they are wrong ). Also blocking, muting and bubble effect contribute to wrong information staying in the same sphere.

username223 8y ago

I wonder what would happen if they went back to a strictly chronological feed, instead of one optimized for "engagement"? Sure, it wouldn't eliminate any of the hate, but it also wouldn't deliberately concentrate it at the top of the page. People would still see "KILL THEM ALL," but the selfies and cat memes mixed in might put things in perspective.

sjwbrownshirt 8y ago

I like how all the EFF bros hop on here saying "I'm pro speech" and yet in the span of a few comments hop onto the next post and totally brown shirt the shit out of anyone that isn't a self-described SJW that can't even tolerate someone addressing someone else in their preferred pronouns. What a bunch of self righteous social signaling assholes. Admit it - you're as authoritarian as they came. You ain't no activist - you're just a Mussolini.

village-idiot 8y ago

It says a lot about Facebook’s low standing that a lot of people, myself included, are generally OK with it being blocked during emergencies.

identity-haver 8y ago

One part of me hopes that governments keep doing this every time there's as much as a bad mugging, so that people will stop relying on the ability of their government-controlled ISP and a US-controlled cloud platform to communicate with each other and maybe try some new P2P technology, or possibly just talk to each other in person instead. Then again, this is wishful thinking. The only reason the Sri Lankan government has to resort to such a drastic and ham-fisted measure is that they don't yet have the clout or connection to call their friends at Google, Facebook, & Twitter and say "immediately shadowban this set of keywords" like the US and EU can.

narrator 8y ago

While they're at it, they might want to ban whatever the people who committed the acts of violence against the churches were using.

Kim_Bruning 8y ago

I just wish people used this flash-mob-forming capability for good more often than evil. :-/ I don't think it's hardly exploited enough!

csense 8y ago

How does the block work on a technical level? Did they just nicely ask Facebook to geo-IP block their whole country, and Facebook agreed voluntarily? Is there some legal process, where Facebook's under threat of having money/property in the country seized and/or employees in the country arrested if they don't comply? Or are they doing it without Facebook's assistance? Do they have government-controlled routers that can blackhole specific DNS queries or IP address ranges? Or put their ISP's under threat of some legal process to implement the same? How do we make the Internet more robust against the specific attack launched by the government? Or should governments always be able to shut down sites they don't like, when they judge it necessary?