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Facebook ‘looking into’ hiding of posts calling for PM’s resignation in India

224 points by asenna 5y ago

ta9999 5y ago
They're unable to handle their child pornography problem but they can still find the resources to rig democracies. Why people let any of their software near their computers is a very interesting psychology problem.
- manquer 5y ago
  Not to defend facebook, but they are hardly the party to blame here, any company to operate anywhere has to bow to the local government wishes, Companies should not be expected to make a stand against governments. Indian government has bungled the covid19 response in so many ways already, not helping anyone, not allowing ppl to help each other either.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  I'm not aware of a major child porn problem on Facebook. It is a dominant social media platform. You make it sound like it is rampantly abused by a bunch of pedos to share images of naked kids, when in reality the problem is mostly teens sharing photos of themselves with friends or other teens sharing photos in message groups. In one statement you mention not letting their software near their computers, presumably because of privacy issues but in the next you indicate the the only solution would be to enact more spying and privacy intrusion.
tracer4201 5y ago
I’m disappointed in Facebook and saddened by what’s happening in India. Modi is slowly erasing secularism in favor of Hindu nationalism. People speaking out against him are accused of being Pakistani agents. And his governments response to COVID has been a disaster.
- robofanatic 5y ago
  bet you haven't read the article at all because your comment has nothing to do with it.
  - tracer4201 5y ago
    > On its website, Facebook said it had hidden posts with “ResignModi” hashtag because some of those violated its community standards What did I not read? Please clarify
amrrs 5y ago
Indian Government recently made Twitter do similar things. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-fire-over-deletion-of-critical-covid-tweets-in-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-... Do you know what's worst? A guy was booked yesterday for Tweeting he needed oxygen cylinders which according to a state government is spreading fake news. https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-sherwani-oxygen-smriti-irani https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s... While COVID hasn't been kind to the people of India, The current regime's attempts to curb democracy is quite disturbing.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  COVID is a catastrophe in India because the government's core is religious extremism and other forms of bigotry, and those have driven its response, including cabinet members promoting folk remedies above vaccines and encouraging large religious gatherings (including an upcoming one).
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    I guess in America there is a lot of the same with some groups of people believing they can pray the virus away or that it simply doesn't exist and is part of some satanic cults agenda.
    - lindy2021 5y ago
      Or those that won't trust the science and insist on masks and distancing even after vaccination.
    - bobthechef 5y ago
      Seems like a very caricaturish characterization of what people actually believe. That sort of broad contempt and unwillingness to understand the range of perspectives on the issues besides the "official" (read: oligarchic) narrative is unfortunate.
      - 5y ago
asenna 5y ago
The media control and censorship here in India is definitely getting our of hand! Setting aside the absolute criminal mismanagement and planning of the Covid situation in the past few months, the fact that the people in power are still applying their brains and might into figuring out how to manipulate the narrative and how to squash dissent in this moment when the country is going through an unimaginable disaster. Just today, a guy was slapped with some serious charges (which could lead to Jail time) because he tweeted that he needed Oxygen for his Grandfather. [1][2] I know this is sounding alarmist but I've seen the change in the past 8 years and the country is heading in the direction of China at breakneck speed right now (not in the good way). [1] https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-sherwani-oxygen-smriti-irani https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_oxygen_for_grandfather_via_tweet_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_...
- yinyang_in 5y ago
  First the wire is known to be very alt-left but even then the patient didn't had any requirement for oxygen, his grandfather died of heart-attack. Not sure which part of article or twitter thread says a normal guy got screwed up ?
  - iliekcomputers 5y ago
    He has charges against him for trying to find oxygen for his sick grandfather. What part of that does not involve the guy getting screwed? Also, instead of criticizing the source, criticize the content.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-conditions/h/heart-attack-myocardial-infarction.html https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-con... > Often a person who is having a heart attack is given oxygen, which also helps heart tissue damage to be less. COVID isn't the only disease that requires oxygen.
  - ben_w 5y ago
Vadoff 5y ago
Updated at 1.17am IST, Thursday: Facebook comms Andy Stone said the company has restored the posts and is “looking into what happened.”
mancerayder 5y ago
Shocking. What do the pro censorship people say all the time when defending Facebook or Twitter: speech is free but not free from consequences. I believe that's the line.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  The Indian government's position is perfectly in line with so-called free speech defenders: they are shutting down illegal content, not applying their own judgement.
  - lindy2021 5y ago
    When you can define the laws, any content you dislike becomes "Illegal content".
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Perhaps the issue is that the law does not protect free speech.
  - mancerayder 5y ago
    Couldn't Facebook just call it Misinformation? Certainly authoritarian enough for Silicon Valley to rally behind.
- neither_color 5y ago
  I believe they say "as long as we censor just this one particular politician because he's really bad just this one time using a variety of arbitrarily enforced technicalities, it's not censorship and it'll never come back to haunt us."
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > I believe that's the line. I believe you're misrepresenting the line. Free speech in the US is about being protected from government-inflicted consequences. I can say "fuck you" all I like, but that's never meant I can say it to my boss and demand a First Amendment right to remain employed. It's never been an absolute, either. Incitement to riot, fraud, libel, actionable threats; all are speech, but we've long accepted restrictions on it.
eyear 5y ago
I never used Facebook. What's the use of it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Jaygles 5y ago
  When it first came out it was actually a pretty good tool to communicate, coordinate, and share things with your friends. Over time they monetized the platform until it no longer resembled anything useful, but it has too much inertia and keeps chugging along.
bobthechef 5y ago
American involvement.
lindy2021 5y ago
The entire world is heading in the direction of China at breakneck speed. The capitol of the free world is surrounded by steel mesh fencing with some 2,250 armed National Guard troops on duty. We can't expect developing countries to uphold democracy as it dies in the west.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I think that says less about democracy and more about the US' former president.
  - lindy2021 5y ago
    This is on Biden's watch. Trump was berated for even contemplating deploying the National Guard as American cities burnt last summer.
    - hkt 5y ago
      A comparison between BLM protests and precautions against the storming of the federal legislature by people who sincerely believed the election was "stolen" is infantile and skewed in the extreme.
      - lindy2021 5y ago
        You're right, BLM protests resulted in the murder of dozens of civilians, several police officers, and billions in damage. The "insurrection" only resulted in the murder of a Trump supporter. Not to mention we've even seen BLM protesters storm a capitol last week: https://twitter.com/tylertalley22/status/1384972821714161667 https://twitter.com/tylertalley22/status/1384972821714161667 https://kfor.com/news/local/protesters-gather-at-oklahoma-capitol/ https://kfor.com/news/local/protesters-gather-at-oklahoma-ca...
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        To the extent they were both damaging public property, where they were, it seems a fair comparison. To the extent one has a well-documented history of grievance, and the other has conspiracy theories, it does does not.
asenna 5y ago
I've always wanted to ask the HN community about this problem, what exactly can be done from a technology standpoint? I feel we're already at a point where tools are available to make a censorship resistant social network. The main challenges would be: - Kickstarting a network is a difficult problem - A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile internet users to onboard Would love to hear your thoughts. In my opinion a blockchain based solution seems appropriate (I know there's a lot blockchain-hate on HN but requesting for constructive comments). I know something needs to come up soon because the situation on the ground is actually quite bad.
- lucasmullens 5y ago
  I think Mastodon might be similar to what you're describing?
  - asenna 5y ago
    Yeah I've heard about it and will be looking into this. But I haven't actually ever seen it in the wild anywhere online which makes me wonder why it hasn't gained traction much. For a country like India, the solution needs to be dead simple. Exploring a mastadon server a bit, it doesn't feel like it would cut it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- 219b2d67-b38e 5y ago
  >A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile internet users to onboard You can't. It's like asking for a printing press that does not allow heresy. The technology is content neutral and any society that does not use it to its full potential will be buried by it. We can have the same tired discussion that evidence of a crime, e.g. photographs and videos of child rape are not a crime any more than photographs and videos of murder are, but as a society we have decided this is not the case. As such Anglophone civilization in its current guise will not the be society that harnesses distributed digital media to its true potential. Anyone trying to do this will have the predictable result of getting burned at the stake. Keep in mind that you have the potential for ridiculous profits because of centralization. So enjoy the ride and have an exit strategy.
1cvmask 5y ago
Facebook and other social media platforms (even Google manipulating and sacrificing search integrity to prevent unearthing alleged misinformation much to the detriment of academic research when we need long tail results) are already censorship platforms and have been for a while. They even censor academic conferences on censorship. Outcomes like these are to be expected when you also commit censorship (including shadow banning, algorithmic downvoting etc.) blatantly. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217 https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-censorship-conference-censored-youtube/274918/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-censorship-conference-ce...
Arjuna144 5y ago
Haven't Facebook not already had enough trouble with interfering into our democracies?! How dare they?!
naruvimama 5y ago
It is funny to discuss free speech on hn where people want to downvote you because they do not like facts that contradict their opinions about India of which they know nothing about :)
99_00 5y ago
When your side is silenced it's 'censorship', when the other side is silenced it is 'moderation' or 'removing misinformation'.
- birksherty 5y ago
  No, it's all about truth, lie, death threats. Which one was deleted.
- smt88 5y ago
  I broadly agree, but I think it's not exactly the problem here. In this case, one "side" would be a government (assuming this was done at govt request), which means it is literally censorship to silence the other side -- regardless of where the truth lies. If FB did it proactively to appease a govt (which they did/do in the US), then it's a lot murkier of an issue. It's almost like "soft" censorship.
fareesh 5y ago
The way these companies openly engage in politically biased publishing and selective enforcement in the USA made this kind of thing inevitable. During this past election the New York Post was banned because of a story that painted candidate Biden's son in a poor light, and nearly everyone who works in these companies wanted candidate Biden to win so they used their positions to protect his image, knowing that there would be no real consequences for them. Now we have a crisis in my country and we are unable to criticize the government publicly because our posts can just be suppressed on a whim. We know all about the coveted "muh next billion users" meme that these companies obsess over - some of you probably hear about it at work all the time. They aren't going to have the cooperation of the government unless they do as they're told. Just like with the NY Post incident, some song and dance excuse will be concocted about this and everyone will blindly accept it, and expect the rest of us to go along with it like fools, when it's pretty obvious what is happening here. This has even been published in the news a few months ago and the country's policy head got caught telling employees that they had to do their moderating duties in a partisan way so that it did not "damage the company's business prospects in the country", and had to resign (link below). Now we are supposed to believe that this was her personal position and literally zero people in company leadership had the same idea. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54715995 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54715995) Next year is a Midterm election in the USA, so I fully expect more coincidental and highly unusual yet conveniently partisan stories like this coming up where some scandal gets buried and some out of context quote gets amplified. We have seen whistleblowers from Facebook talking about features like "deboost" being employed in a partisan manner. By then everyone would have forgotten about this and I'll be seeing "boosted" clips from all the late night TV "comedy" propagandists talking about some obscure senate or house seat in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance lest the evil red party take control. Pathetic.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I don't think this take is totally fair, it doesn't include a lot of context. For sure it's a real discussion to have but I think only should be debated with the full context. First FB didn't totally block it was still shared over 600k times and they said they were not promoting in the feed until their fact check process proceeded. The specific reason Twitter cited for an actual block was their policy on hacked source material. Which in itself is kind of BS on its face I agree with you there, no one stoped Snowden. Compromising news is still news, even if the source material was stolen some of the best reporting ever is from 'stolen' source material. But the source material couldn't be independently verified and the Post seemed to treat it as direct source fact even though at best it's 2nd hand hearsay through Guiliani, at worst through some spy agency. Important context here is the impact of the Podesta emails originally reported to possibly have false or edited material, though in the future Senate report said unlikely. Being more careful is understandable and I think laudable. These are important nuances in reporting from more legit access to verifiable direct sources versus a more opinion style non-factual piece from the NyPost. There is also the political context of known and ongoing direct attacks on our Democracy and foreign nation state interference. The origin story of the laptop is suspect at a minimum and I can understand caution. again not verifiable. especially given all the attacks and degradation of Democratic norms and wanting to not repeat the same mistakes as Clinton which undeniably had very big important impacts long term, whether you think good or bad. Maybe they should have included that argument in their reasoning since it seems it probably had a big impact on their decision. Maybe they were given some tip offs from the FBI who knows. We might find out soon about Guilini's part in this, the actual 'russiagate' of direct cooperation with foreign government to undermine the election.
lovecg 5y ago
This headline is at best misleading and at worst intentionally dishonest. How I interpreted it when I first saw it: “Facebook is considering hiding these posts” (looking into, as in planning to do something). Censorship, bad, etc. What it actually says (after reading the article and the referenced tweet): “Facebook is investigating why these posts were removed” (looking into, as in investigating an action that happened).
isaacremuant 5y ago
This is what people who defend censorship when it comes to their own opinions of Dems Vs Reps support. You can't pick and choose your censorship and government intervention. I don't expect to convince those who are used to make "rules for thee but not for me"
pessimizer 5y ago
The willingness of the big social networks and Google to submit to authoritarian rulers makes it obvious that any difficulties we have in the US with them are a legislative failure, not a Silicon Valley one. They're not evil, or twisted, they're sociopathic; they'll do whatever they're told, but we refuse to decide what to tell them. They'd love to be made into common carriers as long as they could still run ads.
- varispeed 5y ago
  Their customers are shareholders and consumers are just a product. They'll do whatever it takes to provide value for their customers. It's like turning capitalism on its head and that should be stopped.
naruvimama 5y ago
The democrats tried to stop critical raw materials for vaccine production in India. These are raw materials that the US itself did not need for its vaccine production. They only relented after it was pointed out India was supplying critical raw materials for Pfizer. India has been supplying vaccines to the wider world and prioritizing those in a crisis. Indian exports made up 80% of UN vaccine program for poorer countries. It was only natural that we would expect the world to offer a hand when we are in a crisis. Perhaps for once you can focus on exporting what we need instead of exporting your leftist hypocracy and hollow ideology. For all the aloofness the US and EU have showed themselves to be the pettiest global players, not to mention Xitler the creator of the coronavirus.
president 5y ago
Whether you think it is good or bad, Facebook is going to abide by "local laws and regulations". Why risk getting kicked out of the country and lose money? Unfortunate but most of us know that corporations value money over morals, despite what their PR departments may say.
naruvimama 5y ago
Democrats had stopped critical vaccine raw materials just when India most needed it, just to score a political millage or for big pharma. Careful when you are on high horses, if you fall it is a long way down.
perryizgr8 5y ago
Facebook is a private company. They can decide not to provide you a platform for any reason or without any reason. If you don't like it create your own Facebook and post comments there.

224 points by asenna 5y ago

They're unable to handle their child pornography problem but they can still find the resources to rig democracies. Why people let any of their software near their computers is a very interesting psychology problem.

manquer 5y ago
Not to defend facebook, but they are hardly the party to blame here, any company to operate anywhere has to bow to the local government wishes, Companies should not be expected to make a stand against governments. Indian government has bungled the covid19 response in so many ways already, not helping anyone, not allowing ppl to help each other either.
encryptluks2 5y ago
I'm not aware of a major child porn problem on Facebook. It is a dominant social media platform. You make it sound like it is rampantly abused by a bunch of pedos to share images of naked kids, when in reality the problem is mostly teens sharing photos of themselves with friends or other teens sharing photos in message groups. In one statement you mention not letting their software near their computers, presumably because of privacy issues but in the next you indicate the the only solution would be to enact more spying and privacy intrusion.

tracer4201 5y ago

I’m disappointed in Facebook and saddened by what’s happening in India. Modi is slowly erasing secularism in favor of Hindu nationalism. People speaking out against him are accused of being Pakistani agents. And his governments response to COVID has been a disaster.

robofanatic 5y ago
bet you haven't read the article at all because your comment has nothing to do with it.
- tracer4201 5y ago
  > On its website, Facebook said it had hidden posts with “ResignModi” hashtag because some of those violated its community standards What did I not read? Please clarify

amrrs 5y ago

Indian Government recently made Twitter do similar things. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-fire-over-deletion-of-critical-covid-tweets-in-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-... Do you know what's worst? A guy was booked yesterday for Tweeting he needed oxygen cylinders which according to a state government is spreading fake news. https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-sherwani-oxygen-smriti-irani https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s... While COVID hasn't been kind to the people of India, The current regime's attempts to curb democracy is quite disturbing.

rodgerd 5y ago
COVID is a catastrophe in India because the government's core is religious extremism and other forms of bigotry, and those have driven its response, including cabinet members promoting folk remedies above vaccines and encouraging large religious gatherings (including an upcoming one).
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  I guess in America there is a lot of the same with some groups of people believing they can pray the virus away or that it simply doesn't exist and is part of some satanic cults agenda.
  - lindy2021 5y ago
    Or those that won't trust the science and insist on masks and distancing even after vaccination.
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    Seems like a very caricaturish characterization of what people actually believe. That sort of broad contempt and unwillingness to understand the range of perspectives on the issues besides the "official" (read: oligarchic) narrative is unfortunate.
    - 5y ago

asenna 5y ago

The media control and censorship here in India is definitely getting our of hand! Setting aside the absolute criminal mismanagement and planning of the Covid situation in the past few months, the fact that the people in power are still applying their brains and might into figuring out how to manipulate the narrative and how to squash dissent in this moment when the country is going through an unimaginable disaster. Just today, a guy was slapped with some serious charges (which could lead to Jail time) because he tweeted that he needed Oxygen for his Grandfather. [1][2] I know this is sounding alarmist but I've seen the change in the past 8 years and the country is heading in the direction of China at breakneck speed right now (not in the good way). [1] https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-sherwani-oxygen-smriti-irani https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_oxygen_for_grandfather_via_tweet_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_...

yinyang_in 5y ago
First the wire is known to be very alt-left but even then the patient didn't had any requirement for oxygen, his grandfather died of heart-attack. Not sure which part of article or twitter thread says a normal guy got screwed up ?
- iliekcomputers 5y ago
  He has charges against him for trying to find oxygen for his sick grandfather. What part of that does not involve the guy getting screwed? Also, instead of criticizing the source, criticize the content.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-conditions/h/heart-attack-myocardial-infarction.html https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-con... > Often a person who is having a heart attack is given oxygen, which also helps heart tissue damage to be less. COVID isn't the only disease that requires oxygen.
- ben_w 5y ago

Vadoff 5y ago

Updated at 1.17am IST, Thursday: Facebook comms Andy Stone said the company has restored the posts and is “looking into what happened.”

mancerayder 5y ago

Shocking. What do the pro censorship people say all the time when defending Facebook or Twitter: speech is free but not free from consequences. I believe that's the line.

rodgerd 5y ago
The Indian government's position is perfectly in line with so-called free speech defenders: they are shutting down illegal content, not applying their own judgement.
- lindy2021 5y ago
  When you can define the laws, any content you dislike becomes "Illegal content".
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Perhaps the issue is that the law does not protect free speech.
- mancerayder 5y ago
  Couldn't Facebook just call it Misinformation? Certainly authoritarian enough for Silicon Valley to rally behind.
neither_color 5y ago
I believe they say "as long as we censor just this one particular politician because he's really bad just this one time using a variety of arbitrarily enforced technicalities, it's not censorship and it'll never come back to haunt us."
ceejayoz 5y ago
> I believe that's the line. I believe you're misrepresenting the line. Free speech in the US is about being protected from government-inflicted consequences. I can say "fuck you" all I like, but that's never meant I can say it to my boss and demand a First Amendment right to remain employed. It's never been an absolute, either. Incitement to riot, fraud, libel, actionable threats; all are speech, but we've long accepted restrictions on it.

eyear 5y ago

I never used Facebook. What's the use of it?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Jaygles 5y ago
When it first came out it was actually a pretty good tool to communicate, coordinate, and share things with your friends. Over time they monetized the platform until it no longer resembled anything useful, but it has too much inertia and keeps chugging along.

bobthechef 5y ago

American involvement.

lindy2021 5y ago

The entire world is heading in the direction of China at breakneck speed. The capitol of the free world is surrounded by steel mesh fencing with some 2,250 armed National Guard troops on duty. We can't expect developing countries to uphold democracy as it dies in the west.

ethbr0 5y ago
I think that says less about democracy and more about the US' former president.
- lindy2021 5y ago
  This is on Biden's watch. Trump was berated for even contemplating deploying the National Guard as American cities burnt last summer.
  - hkt 5y ago
    A comparison between BLM protests and precautions against the storming of the federal legislature by people who sincerely believed the election was "stolen" is infantile and skewed in the extreme.
    - lindy2021 5y ago
      You're right, BLM protests resulted in the murder of dozens of civilians, several police officers, and billions in damage. The "insurrection" only resulted in the murder of a Trump supporter. Not to mention we've even seen BLM protesters storm a capitol last week: https://twitter.com/tylertalley22/status/1384972821714161667 https://twitter.com/tylertalley22/status/1384972821714161667 https://kfor.com/news/local/protesters-gather-at-oklahoma-capitol/ https://kfor.com/news/local/protesters-gather-at-oklahoma-ca...
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      To the extent they were both damaging public property, where they were, it seems a fair comparison. To the extent one has a well-documented history of grievance, and the other has conspiracy theories, it does does not.

asenna 5y ago

I've always wanted to ask the HN community about this problem, what exactly can be done from a technology standpoint? I feel we're already at a point where tools are available to make a censorship resistant social network. The main challenges would be: - Kickstarting a network is a difficult problem - A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile internet users to onboard Would love to hear your thoughts. In my opinion a blockchain based solution seems appropriate (I know there's a lot blockchain-hate on HN but requesting for constructive comments). I know something needs to come up soon because the situation on the ground is actually quite bad.

lucasmullens 5y ago
I think Mastodon might be similar to what you're describing?
- asenna 5y ago
  Yeah I've heard about it and will be looking into this. But I haven't actually ever seen it in the wild anywhere online which makes me wonder why it hasn't gained traction much. For a country like India, the solution needs to be dead simple. Exploring a mastadon server a bit, it doesn't feel like it would cut it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
219b2d67-b38e 5y ago
>A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile internet users to onboard You can't. It's like asking for a printing press that does not allow heresy. The technology is content neutral and any society that does not use it to its full potential will be buried by it. We can have the same tired discussion that evidence of a crime, e.g. photographs and videos of child rape are not a crime any more than photographs and videos of murder are, but as a society we have decided this is not the case. As such Anglophone civilization in its current guise will not the be society that harnesses distributed digital media to its true potential. Anyone trying to do this will have the predictable result of getting burned at the stake. Keep in mind that you have the potential for ridiculous profits because of centralization. So enjoy the ride and have an exit strategy.

1cvmask 5y ago

Facebook and other social media platforms (even Google manipulating and sacrificing search integrity to prevent unearthing alleged misinformation much to the detriment of academic research when we need long tail results) are already censorship platforms and have been for a while. They even censor academic conferences on censorship. Outcomes like these are to be expected when you also commit censorship (including shadow banning, algorithmic downvoting etc.) blatantly. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217 https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-censorship-conference-censored-youtube/274918/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-censorship-conference-ce...

Arjuna144 5y ago

Haven't Facebook not already had enough trouble with interfering into our democracies?! How dare they?!

naruvimama 5y ago

It is funny to discuss free speech on hn where people want to downvote you because they do not like facts that contradict their opinions about India of which they know nothing about :)

99_00 5y ago

When your side is silenced it's 'censorship', when the other side is silenced it is 'moderation' or 'removing misinformation'.

birksherty 5y ago
No, it's all about truth, lie, death threats. Which one was deleted.
smt88 5y ago
I broadly agree, but I think it's not exactly the problem here. In this case, one "side" would be a government (assuming this was done at govt request), which means it is literally censorship to silence the other side -- regardless of where the truth lies. If FB did it proactively to appease a govt (which they did/do in the US), then it's a lot murkier of an issue. It's almost like "soft" censorship.

fareesh 5y ago

The way these companies openly engage in politically biased publishing and selective enforcement in the USA made this kind of thing inevitable. During this past election the New York Post was banned because of a story that painted candidate Biden's son in a poor light, and nearly everyone who works in these companies wanted candidate Biden to win so they used their positions to protect his image, knowing that there would be no real consequences for them. Now we have a crisis in my country and we are unable to criticize the government publicly because our posts can just be suppressed on a whim. We know all about the coveted "muh next billion users" meme that these companies obsess over - some of you probably hear about it at work all the time. They aren't going to have the cooperation of the government unless they do as they're told. Just like with the NY Post incident, some song and dance excuse will be concocted about this and everyone will blindly accept it, and expect the rest of us to go along with it like fools, when it's pretty obvious what is happening here. This has even been published in the news a few months ago and the country's policy head got caught telling employees that they had to do their moderating duties in a partisan way so that it did not "damage the company's business prospects in the country", and had to resign (link below). Now we are supposed to believe that this was her personal position and literally zero people in company leadership had the same idea. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54715995 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54715995) Next year is a Midterm election in the USA, so I fully expect more coincidental and highly unusual yet conveniently partisan stories like this coming up where some scandal gets buried and some out of context quote gets amplified. We have seen whistleblowers from Facebook talking about features like "deboost" being employed in a partisan manner. By then everyone would have forgotten about this and I'll be seeing "boosted" clips from all the late night TV "comedy" propagandists talking about some obscure senate or house seat in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance lest the evil red party take control. Pathetic.

dillondoyle 5y ago
I don't think this take is totally fair, it doesn't include a lot of context. For sure it's a real discussion to have but I think only should be debated with the full context. First FB didn't totally block it was still shared over 600k times and they said they were not promoting in the feed until their fact check process proceeded. The specific reason Twitter cited for an actual block was their policy on hacked source material. Which in itself is kind of BS on its face I agree with you there, no one stoped Snowden. Compromising news is still news, even if the source material was stolen some of the best reporting ever is from 'stolen' source material. But the source material couldn't be independently verified and the Post seemed to treat it as direct source fact even though at best it's 2nd hand hearsay through Guiliani, at worst through some spy agency. Important context here is the impact of the Podesta emails originally reported to possibly have false or edited material, though in the future Senate report said unlikely. Being more careful is understandable and I think laudable. These are important nuances in reporting from more legit access to verifiable direct sources versus a more opinion style non-factual piece from the NyPost. There is also the political context of known and ongoing direct attacks on our Democracy and foreign nation state interference. The origin story of the laptop is suspect at a minimum and I can understand caution. again not verifiable. especially given all the attacks and degradation of Democratic norms and wanting to not repeat the same mistakes as Clinton which undeniably had very big important impacts long term, whether you think good or bad. Maybe they should have included that argument in their reasoning since it seems it probably had a big impact on their decision. Maybe they were given some tip offs from the FBI who knows. We might find out soon about Guilini's part in this, the actual 'russiagate' of direct cooperation with foreign government to undermine the election.

lovecg 5y ago

This headline is at best misleading and at worst intentionally dishonest. How I interpreted it when I first saw it: “Facebook is considering hiding these posts” (looking into, as in planning to do something). Censorship, bad, etc. What it actually says (after reading the article and the referenced tweet): “Facebook is investigating why these posts were removed” (looking into, as in investigating an action that happened).

isaacremuant 5y ago

This is what people who defend censorship when it comes to their own opinions of Dems Vs Reps support. You can't pick and choose your censorship and government intervention. I don't expect to convince those who are used to make "rules for thee but not for me"

pessimizer 5y ago

The willingness of the big social networks and Google to submit to authoritarian rulers makes it obvious that any difficulties we have in the US with them are a legislative failure, not a Silicon Valley one. They're not evil, or twisted, they're sociopathic; they'll do whatever they're told, but we refuse to decide what to tell them. They'd love to be made into common carriers as long as they could still run ads.

varispeed 5y ago
Their customers are shareholders and consumers are just a product. They'll do whatever it takes to provide value for their customers. It's like turning capitalism on its head and that should be stopped.

naruvimama 5y ago

The democrats tried to stop critical raw materials for vaccine production in India. These are raw materials that the US itself did not need for its vaccine production. They only relented after it was pointed out India was supplying critical raw materials for Pfizer. India has been supplying vaccines to the wider world and prioritizing those in a crisis. Indian exports made up 80% of UN vaccine program for poorer countries. It was only natural that we would expect the world to offer a hand when we are in a crisis. Perhaps for once you can focus on exporting what we need instead of exporting your leftist hypocracy and hollow ideology. For all the aloofness the US and EU have showed themselves to be the pettiest global players, not to mention Xitler the creator of the coronavirus.

president 5y ago

Whether you think it is good or bad, Facebook is going to abide by "local laws and regulations". Why risk getting kicked out of the country and lose money? Unfortunate but most of us know that corporations value money over morals, despite what their PR departments may say.

naruvimama 5y ago

Democrats had stopped critical vaccine raw materials just when India most needed it, just to score a political millage or for big pharma. Careful when you are on high horses, if you fall it is a long way down.

perryizgr8 5y ago

Facebook is a private company. They can decide not to provide you a platform for any reason or without any reason. If you don't like it create your own Facebook and post comments there.