6 ms·

Facebook accused of 'fanning ethnic violence' in Ethiopian civil war

57 points by gigama 5y ago

gigama 5y ago
"Facebook accused of 'fanning ethnic violence' in Ethiopian civil war Frances Haugen, a former data scientist at Facebook, told members of a Senate subcommittee that her former employer bears some of the blame for the growing conflict in Ethiopia. More than once, Haugen accused Facebook's algorithms of "literally fanning ethnic violence" in Ethiopia. "My fear is that without action, divisive and extremist behaviors we see today are only the beginning," Haugen said. "What we saw in Myanmar and are now seeing in Ethiopia are only the beginning chapters of a story so terrifying no one wants to read the end of it." Freelance journalist Zecharias Zelalem is one of the people attempting to document that story in real time. He reports extensively on Ethiopia and agrees with Haugen's assessment. "Just looking at the instances of documented evidence over the course of the past three years in which prominent Facebook posters would post unverified, often inflammatory posts or rhetoric that would then go on to incite mob violence, ethnic clashes, crackdowns on independent press or outspoken voices," Zelalem said. In one recent instance, Zelalem saw an inflammatory Facebook post from a media outlet that falsely blamed members of an ethnic minority group for carrying out murders and kidnappings that took place on Sept. 27. The post quickly got hundreds of shares and likes. A day later, on Sept. 28, Zelalem said the village cited in the post was ransacked, burnt to the ground and the inhabitants were murdered. "Despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment," he said.
- annadane 5y ago
  > "Despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment," he said. This to me, is the real issue. Say what you want about "it's the users, not the platform, stop blaming the platform". If the platform doesn't give a shit and will only do what it can to make money then this is what you get (and Facebook doesn't exactly have the most ethical history)
- megaman821 5y ago
  > Zelalem said the village cited in the post was ransacked, burnt to the ground and the inhabitants were murdered. Did the people who carried out these actions attribute them to Facebook? This seems like a pretty weak correlation here. How many villages have been attacked that aren't being heavily shared on Facebook versus those that are?
- angelzen 5y ago
  A sobering reminder that hurling accusations targeted at an ethnic group using social media goes far beyond clout accumulation and may translate into real world violence.
eutropia 5y ago
Facebook rents out an appearance of legitimacy akin to that of a news organization to whatever content makes it the most money. Should that level of amplification and circulation be handed out with zero human editorial oversight?
- hpoe 5y ago
  Counterpoint: The greatest human atrocities in history were generally carried out with the explicit oversight of "legitimate" viewpoints. I think something should be done but a lot of the suggestions I see seem like "this is something therefore this must be done." I agree however it does seem that giving everyone the ability to push whatever they want has seemed to cause problems.
throwawaybchr 5y ago
More accurate title: Ethiopians create posts which are unwittingly optimized for amplification by Facebook's algorithms.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  Given the shenanigans that Cambridge Analytica pulled with global elections, I don't remotely trust that these were organic posts and not some sinister state actors being assisted by an amoral data analytics firm.
  - throwawaybchr 5y ago
    Cambridge Analytica had pretty much no impact. There was a study on this done in the UK. Much of the world wanted Brexit and Trump. Random ads on Facebook simply aren't that effective.
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      I'd love to see the study if you have a link, and I'm not referring just to Trump and Brexit. CA and their parent firm Strategic Communication Laboratires Group[1][2] (a military psychological warfare consulting firm) had a hand in elections in over 200 elections globally[3]. They went far beyond basic Facebook ads. > As part of the Channel 4 investigation, executives said Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) had worked in more than 200 elections across the world, including in the Czech Republic. > "We've just used a different organisation to run a very, very successful project in an Eastern European country where... no-one even knew they were there," company executive Mark Turnbull said. It's also a pretty big contortion of facts to say the "world" "wanted" Brexit and Trump. Trump never won the popular vote in the US, and he was always wildly unpopular globally. The polls for Brexit were tight at times, but they were predominantly for 'remain' the majority of the historic timeline[4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group [2] https://sclgroup.online/ https://sclgroup.online/ [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43476762 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43476762 [4] https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referendum-on-britains-membership-of-the-eu-how-would-you-vote-2/ https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referen...
mullingitover 5y ago
I wonder if they actually implemented a single recommendation from their own report[1] since the last time they were instrumental in a genocide. [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/ https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
missedthecue 5y ago
"In one recent instance, Zelalem saw an inflammatory Facebook post from a media outlet that falsely blamed members of an ethnic minority group for carrying out murders and kidnappings that took place on Sept. 27. The post quickly got hundreds of shares and likes." So once again, the problem here isn't Facebook itself at all, but the people using Facebook. It's true that posts which gain traction will get shown to more users, but that's not a good or bad thing in and of itself. That's how any social network functions with any post, be it about the latest ethnic civil war news or cute cat videos. At worst, you could say that Facebook's problem here is their inaction in deciding what sort of local opinions about an ethnic civil war are approved or not. I know the zeitgeist on HN is to hate all things Facebook and Facebook related, but surely I cannot be the only one who thinks that it's unrealistic to expect engineers sitting in Mountain View to know whether or not it was ethnic group A or ethnic group B that conducted a given kidnapping in rural Ethiopia a few weeks ago and then moderate the conversation based on their own views.
- Randosaurus 5y ago
  Doesn't it seem odd to you that a company with the resources of Facebook are quicker to pull down a post by a practicing medical doctor stating masks aren't 100% effective than they are to pull down a post inciting violence in a country that has been in the middle of such violence for the last 3 years? The problem with opinions like yours isn't that they're wrong, it's that you've lost all perspective.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Facebook drew up some pretty clear guidelines about what was permitted in terms of posting covid related opinions. That makes it very simple for them to make decisions regarding removing flagged posts about masks or vaccines. Facebook doesn't have a set of approved guidelines on what news Ethiopian media can report about their own domestic conflict. The article doesn't share the content of the post in question, so it's impossible to tell, but they don't say that it violated Facebook's general community guidelines in regards to hatespeech or provoking violence. The article just states an opinion of one person that the local media created a post blaming the wrong group. I don't see how facebook can judge whether that news report is right or wrong. It's just he said/she said.
Vosporos 5y ago
Nobody is surprised. :/
rumblerock 5y ago
The more I read all the arguments for or against the responsibility of these platforms – and I definitely lean towards them having responsibility – what I really want is for them not to exist at all. I honestly don't think we would lose much after adapting to a loss of some of their sub-services, and have healthier, more stable societies as a result. Pretty clear cost / benefit to me. But pandora's box is open so this is all just wishful thinking.
bob229 5y ago
No shit. Social media is cancer

57 points by gigama 5y ago

"Facebook accused of 'fanning ethnic violence' in Ethiopian civil war Frances Haugen, a former data scientist at Facebook, told members of a Senate subcommittee that her former employer bears some of the blame for the growing conflict in Ethiopia. More than once, Haugen accused Facebook's algorithms of "literally fanning ethnic violence" in Ethiopia. "My fear is that without action, divisive and extremist behaviors we see today are only the beginning," Haugen said. "What we saw in Myanmar and are now seeing in Ethiopia are only the beginning chapters of a story so terrifying no one wants to read the end of it." Freelance journalist Zecharias Zelalem is one of the people attempting to document that story in real time. He reports extensively on Ethiopia and agrees with Haugen's assessment. "Just looking at the instances of documented evidence over the course of the past three years in which prominent Facebook posters would post unverified, often inflammatory posts or rhetoric that would then go on to incite mob violence, ethnic clashes, crackdowns on independent press or outspoken voices," Zelalem said. In one recent instance, Zelalem saw an inflammatory Facebook post from a media outlet that falsely blamed members of an ethnic minority group for carrying out murders and kidnappings that took place on Sept. 27. The post quickly got hundreds of shares and likes. A day later, on Sept. 28, Zelalem said the village cited in the post was ransacked, burnt to the ground and the inhabitants were murdered. "Despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment," he said.

annadane 5y ago
> "Despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment," he said. This to me, is the real issue. Say what you want about "it's the users, not the platform, stop blaming the platform". If the platform doesn't give a shit and will only do what it can to make money then this is what you get (and Facebook doesn't exactly have the most ethical history)
megaman821 5y ago
> Zelalem said the village cited in the post was ransacked, burnt to the ground and the inhabitants were murdered. Did the people who carried out these actions attribute them to Facebook? This seems like a pretty weak correlation here. How many villages have been attacked that aren't being heavily shared on Facebook versus those that are?
angelzen 5y ago
A sobering reminder that hurling accusations targeted at an ethnic group using social media goes far beyond clout accumulation and may translate into real world violence.

eutropia 5y ago

Facebook rents out an appearance of legitimacy akin to that of a news organization to whatever content makes it the most money. Should that level of amplification and circulation be handed out with zero human editorial oversight?

hpoe 5y ago
Counterpoint: The greatest human atrocities in history were generally carried out with the explicit oversight of "legitimate" viewpoints. I think something should be done but a lot of the suggestions I see seem like "this is something therefore this must be done." I agree however it does seem that giving everyone the ability to push whatever they want has seemed to cause problems.

throwawaybchr 5y ago

More accurate title: Ethiopians create posts which are unwittingly optimized for amplification by Facebook's algorithms.

mullingitover 5y ago
Given the shenanigans that Cambridge Analytica pulled with global elections, I don't remotely trust that these were organic posts and not some sinister state actors being assisted by an amoral data analytics firm.
- throwawaybchr 5y ago
  Cambridge Analytica had pretty much no impact. There was a study on this done in the UK. Much of the world wanted Brexit and Trump. Random ads on Facebook simply aren't that effective.
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    I'd love to see the study if you have a link, and I'm not referring just to Trump and Brexit. CA and their parent firm Strategic Communication Laboratires Group[1][2] (a military psychological warfare consulting firm) had a hand in elections in over 200 elections globally[3]. They went far beyond basic Facebook ads. > As part of the Channel 4 investigation, executives said Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) had worked in more than 200 elections across the world, including in the Czech Republic. > "We've just used a different organisation to run a very, very successful project in an Eastern European country where... no-one even knew they were there," company executive Mark Turnbull said. It's also a pretty big contortion of facts to say the "world" "wanted" Brexit and Trump. Trump never won the popular vote in the US, and he was always wildly unpopular globally. The polls for Brexit were tight at times, but they were predominantly for 'remain' the majority of the historic timeline[4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group [2] https://sclgroup.online/ https://sclgroup.online/ [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43476762 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43476762 [4] https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referendum-on-britains-membership-of-the-eu-how-would-you-vote-2/ https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referen...

mullingitover 5y ago

I wonder if they actually implemented a single recommendation from their own report[1] since the last time they were instrumental in a genocide. [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/ https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/

missedthecue 5y ago

"In one recent instance, Zelalem saw an inflammatory Facebook post from a media outlet that falsely blamed members of an ethnic minority group for carrying out murders and kidnappings that took place on Sept. 27. The post quickly got hundreds of shares and likes." So once again, the problem here isn't Facebook itself at all, but the people using Facebook. It's true that posts which gain traction will get shown to more users, but that's not a good or bad thing in and of itself. That's how any social network functions with any post, be it about the latest ethnic civil war news or cute cat videos. At worst, you could say that Facebook's problem here is their inaction in deciding what sort of local opinions about an ethnic civil war are approved or not. I know the zeitgeist on HN is to hate all things Facebook and Facebook related, but surely I cannot be the only one who thinks that it's unrealistic to expect engineers sitting in Mountain View to know whether or not it was ethnic group A or ethnic group B that conducted a given kidnapping in rural Ethiopia a few weeks ago and then moderate the conversation based on their own views.

Randosaurus 5y ago
Doesn't it seem odd to you that a company with the resources of Facebook are quicker to pull down a post by a practicing medical doctor stating masks aren't 100% effective than they are to pull down a post inciting violence in a country that has been in the middle of such violence for the last 3 years? The problem with opinions like yours isn't that they're wrong, it's that you've lost all perspective.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Facebook drew up some pretty clear guidelines about what was permitted in terms of posting covid related opinions. That makes it very simple for them to make decisions regarding removing flagged posts about masks or vaccines. Facebook doesn't have a set of approved guidelines on what news Ethiopian media can report about their own domestic conflict. The article doesn't share the content of the post in question, so it's impossible to tell, but they don't say that it violated Facebook's general community guidelines in regards to hatespeech or provoking violence. The article just states an opinion of one person that the local media created a post blaming the wrong group. I don't see how facebook can judge whether that news report is right or wrong. It's just he said/she said.

Vosporos 5y ago

Nobody is surprised. :/

rumblerock 5y ago

The more I read all the arguments for or against the responsibility of these platforms – and I definitely lean towards them having responsibility – what I really want is for them not to exist at all. I honestly don't think we would lose much after adapting to a loss of some of their sub-services, and have healthier, more stable societies as a result. Pretty clear cost / benefit to me. But pandora's box is open so this is all just wishful thinking.

bob229 5y ago

No shit. Social media is cancer