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Class-action suit filed against Meta for facilitating Rohingya Genocide [pdf]
- helge9210 5y agoWill there be actual personal responsibility for management and engineers involved?
- dekhn 5y agoNobody below the C-level would have any real responsibility in a case like this.
- tmp_anon_22 5y agoDid accountants, engineers, and other staff, receive sentences for participation in other genocides? Serious question.
- augustuspolius 5y agoNot sure if a valid analogy, but don’t think engineers who designed and built autobahns or other infrastructure in Nazi Germany were held responsible for indirectly facilitating a genocide.
- paisawalla 5y agoSome journalists and announcers for Radio Télévision Libre des Milles-Collines were given sentences after the Rwandan genocide. (I am not saying Facebook's role is at all comparable to RTLMC's)
- dekhn 5y agoI have no idea. I believe in Nuremburg trials (an exceptional and extraordinary situation far behind what this case claims) most of the legal power was brought to bear on leaders although we often say "just following orders" is not an excuse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders). The people who created this case want to damage the leadership of the company (who set the primary policy decisions), not engineers or other staff, unless they could find that an engineer worked on their own (and documented in a discoverable way). Honestly, I don't think this case has even a remote chance of making it through the courts. The filer would have done far better to not ask for a enormous monetary sum (2X the GDP of myanmar).
- micromacrofoot 5y agothey're all just doing their jobs, of course
- SavantIdiot 5y agoWell, Zuck did retain 51% control of the company. If there are any knives out in the org structure, I bet they'd be delighted to watch him take the blame. Plus aren't all the expensive lawyers tied up with Maxwell and Trump's allies right now?
- kbenson 5y agoDoesn't that presume guilt a bit? The whole point of a trial is to see if there is guilt, and if so maybe which parties are guilty will be shown (in the case of a company).
- nradov 5y agoThis is a civil trial. If it goes forward then the court will determine liability, not guilt.
- kbenson 5y agoYes, but isn't the presumption that you're only liable if you are in some way guilty (culpable) of what's being alleged? In any case, just because someone's levied some charges doesn't mean we should necessarily assume they are accurate. I'm not s fan of Facebook by any means, but that doesn't mean I support trial by public opinion before there's even a chance for defense.
- criddell 5y agoSoftware Engineers aren't really engineers IMHO. In the US, Professional Engineers are often licensed and can be punished for malpractice. Maybe licensing and enforcing standards of practice wouldn't be such a bad idea for software engineers.
- freen 5y agoGood. Facebook is the global scale, slow motion online equivalent of the Fyre Festival.
- jeffreyrogers 5y agoThis seems kind of silly. Should radio equipment manufacturers be liable for the Rwandan genocide? I'm not fan of Facebook (I don't even have an account) but requiring them to fulfill a function that the Burmese government didn't do seems shortsighted.
- kelseyfrog 5y agoIf radio equipment manufacturers built their business on choosing which messages to promote would it change things?
- tintor 5y agoRadio equipment manufacturers don't specifically amplify messages that incite outrage, and also don't perform mass psychological experiments on their users [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-apologises-psychological-experiments-on-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...
- ascagnel_ 5y agoAnd there's a difference between something like a forum that moderates versus what Facebook's algorithm is doing -- one is reactive to its users (and generally reacting based on what other users believe is inappropriate conduct), while the algorithm is proactive in pushing content to users.
- fallingknife 5y agoWhen other companies do it, it's an A/B test. When FB does it, it's a "mass psychological experiment." What a joke.
- ChemSpider 5y agoIf they can not fulfill that, then they should offer their service in such countries, or at the very least stop doing it once they became aware of the issue. Facebook's scale comes with responsibility.
- anm89 5y ago
- 0des 5y agoStarting to wonder if the name became "Meta" so that the headlines wouldn't read "Class action suit filed against Facebook" or "Scandal involving Facebook".
- sva_ 5y agoThere used to be some telecom company in my country, who had some TV personality in all of their TV ads. Then, one day he wasn't in the ads anymore. It had been said that they stopped putting him in the ads, because the audience tends to associate negative emotions with a person more easily than with abstract concepts. Perhaps something similar is going on with some of these tech companies, where they use some really abstract name to which it's hard to attach negative emotions to.
- SavantIdiot 5y agoMaybe they should stop putting Zuck in front of cameras. I associate strong negative emotions with him.
- anshumankmr 5y agoHow effective can such a thing be? Aren't they using the Meta keyword on all of their products now? As well as the fact it was likely all over the news, globally.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 0des 5y agoThe headline didn't mention facebook, did it?
- anshumankmr 5y agoLet's see https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-nam... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/technology/facebook-meta-name-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/technology/facebook-meta-... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59083601 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59083601 Though you have a point, I know a lot of people who don't know that Alphabet is the parent of Google.
- baybal2 5y agoThe Western world needs to resume to exert power, or let its inability to do so be seen as a weakness, a weakness which will invite further trouble. Burmese regime is one of world's most unruly, despotic, prolific, and it can be wiped out clean by US military with ease, without involving any of its allies. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/military-rape-12032021170414.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/military-rape-12032...
- wayoutthere 5y agoWhy should we send American kids to die in Burma? To look tough? To redeem the “western world”? What happens after? Are we really liberating Burma for its own purpose, or just establishing American military bases in close proximity to China? It’s these kinds of neo-colonialist urges that got us into the messes in Afghanistan and Iraq. We (the US in particular but also NATO as a whole) need to stop running around the world pretending we know the solution to everyone’s problems. Sometimes you have to let the local populations work it out themselves, and accept that China is a more natural ally for many countries in SE Asia.
- baybal2 5y ago> To look tough? Yes, if enemies think you are not tough, you get intimidated, humiliated, and then ultimately attacked. > To redeem the “western world”? Yes, to reverse the 20 years of disgrace, and regain the mandate of righteousness. Without righteousness, you can't do anything well as a united Western bloc — a raison d'etre for the entire post-war Western political system.
- wayoutthere 5y agoFrom my vantage point, the wars the US gets into are solely designed to grind young American lives into windfall profits for a defense industry that prioritizes contract value over mission goals. Which is why we had no definition of success in either place. There is no righteousness on the world stage, only exploitation. The US has simply put itself ahead of its allies too many times for the world to trust us anymore.
- brainlessdev 5y agoDidn't know signing as "Jane Doe" was a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_defendants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_defendants EDIT: to clarify, in this case "Jane Doe" is the plaintiff.
- dnautics 5y agoI learned of "Corporation Doe" through the epstein private suits.
- zionic 5y agoThis reminds me of something I’ve been mulling over for a while. Should it be illegal for a media outlet to publish the untested claims of a lawsuit? I’ve seen this behavior all too often. “XYZ happened, person A did this, claims new suit”. You can sue over just about anything, and make whatever absurd claims you want. People see these headlines and believe as if they have been settled in court when this is almost never the case at print time.
- ascagnel_ 5y agoI think it's fine to report on the claims in a lawsuit once an initial hearing has taken place. If a judge reviews the claims and believes them to be reliable enough for the case to proceed, then it's enough to report as long as it's made clear that the claims are from a lawsuit that hasn't been fully tested in court.
- rhino369 5y agoThe standard for surviving a motion to dismiss is really low in Federal Court. The court mostly assumes the factual allegations are true and then decides whether a claim could be made based on the law. So it's mostly a tool to weed out legally deficient law suits, but not factually wrong law suits. The judge won't consider the actual evidence until the case progresses pretty far--the summary judgement stage. But even then, the judge only grants summary judgement if there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact.
- sva_ 5y agoI think news media outlets usually have to throw an "allegedly" in there somewhere. This is a direct link to the lawsuit though. The title was chosen by a user, presumably a private individual.
- pixelgeek 5y agoOr "claims are untested in court" is a common disclaimer in Canada
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- bikeshaving 5y agoBetween the UN fact-finding mission saying Facebook played a “determining role” in the genocide, the Bosworth memo, and the shit ton of access we now have thanks to the whistleblower, how is this not a strong case?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ryan93 5y agoI don’t see how Facebook is liable for the actions of other adults.maybe evidence comes out that Facebook actively encouraged it. But seems unlikely.
- abvdasker 5y agoWhat if they just passively or inadvertently encouraged it? It’s entirely possible that the algorithms Facebook has used to prioritize content highlight inflammatory or violent content. Maybe in the process of maximizing attention they simultaneously optimized for showing violent or hateful content. YouTube has been shown to have done almost exactly that.
- nradov 5y agoFor better or worse, passively encouraging genocide isn't illegal under US law.
- invalidname 5y agoI'm not so sure you're right about that... Speech has limits and Facebook has corporate responsibility. They do monitor speech in the USA and still the impact is big (see January 6th) this is what happens with zero monitoring. They can claim discrimination and many other such claims. It seems there's a lot of evidence to support criminal negligence. If inaction led to deaths a civil suit can get a big payout.
- native_samples 5y ago
- jimbob45 5y agoThe British, EU, and US can get away with extorting FB/MS/Apple every few years because the loss of those markets would be greater than the extortion they're asking for (in the form of regulations). It's laughable that the small market Burmese think they can pull this garbage. Facebook doesn't need Myanmar and the Burmese government would best prepare for a second insurrection if they think their people would be okay with Facebook pulling out from Myanmar.
- iso1631 5y agoYou clearly have no idea who is filing this case or why. Start with a simple google search, or even just the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
- vimacs2 5y agoWhat's laughable is the insinuation that any population would be willing to start an insurrection over the absence of fucking Facebook.
- john37386 5y agoCan we trust this news? Who is edelson?
- joezydeco 5y agoThey're the firm that won the USD $650 million privacy suit against Facebook earlier this year. They....kind of have a track record when it comes to class action lawsuits.
- iso1631 5y agoEdleson is Counsel for Plaintiff and the Proposed Class, the Plaintiff in the Complaint that's linked to. Are you asking if the company that created this document actually filed it? Here's some news about it https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/your-profit-fuelled-genocide-rohingya-sue-facebook-for-150bn-qdnm9j223 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/your-profit-fuelled-genoc...
- throw7 5y agoReminds me of IBM and WW2. Maybe a class action suit should be drawn up for IBM also?
- soperj 5y agoOr IBM and apartheid.
- iso1631 5y agoLike this one https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/11/world/lawsuit-says-ibm-aided-the-nazis-in-technology.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/11/world/lawsuit-says-ibm-ai... And this one https://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/08/ramasastry.holocaust.ibm/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/08/ramasastry.holocaust....
- throwawaycities 5y agoPlenty of companies have been sued and paid out claims for their use of forced Jewish labor and other wrongs during WW2.
- merpnderp 5y agoAnd yet plenty of American corporations are using slave labor today. Wonder where those lawsuits are, or has Congress shielded them from consequences.
- throwawaycities 5y agoAmerican companies are sued and pay claims every single day for violations of employment labor standards. Just as an example you can find lawsuits against Uber for misclassifying its workers as independent contractors instead of employees. Not sure what of facts you have that shows American companies using slaves and being immune from civil or criminal lawsuits.
- 1cvmask 5y agoObama graced Aung San Suu Kyi despite her well known track record. Obama also at similar times embraced Narendra Modi, despite his known track record. Obama even removed the Modi sanctions and visa block that George W Bush put on him after his alleged role in the Gujarat Muslim massacre/genocide. Newspapers gloated about Obama's bromance with Modi. Will they now sue Obama? https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/how-aung-san-suu-kyi-went-from-saintly-to-a-despot-1.5448110 https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/how-au... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/9/14/obama-to-aung-san-suu-kyi-us-to-lift-myanmar-sanctions https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/9/14/obama-to-aung-san-s... https://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/27/asia/india-obama-modi-look-back/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/27/asia/india-obama-modi-loo...
- _blz2 5y agoInteresting how you portrayed Obama in a way that he's a does-only-good person. He played a huge role in Arab springs which destroyed more lives than any of the other alleged bad deeds you refer. Some probably should sue him, not for indirect roles, but direct ones.
- nradov 5y agoPresidents have complete legal immunity for all official acts. Cranks file lawsuits against Presidents all the time and judges immediately dismiss them.
- dundarious 5y agoI think 1cvmask is actually being quite critical of Obama.
- triceratops 5y agoAt the time Bush visa-banned Modi, he was not the Prime Minister of India. By the time Obama embraced him, he was. For better or worse, Modi came to power in a free and fair, democratic election. Diplomacy demands treating him like any other leader of a major power.
- viro 5y agoSo I'm a little confused. How is Facebook responsible for some thing a government did? Or is this just because they can't do anything to the government without invading.
- DoItToMe81 5y agoNot to mention that Myanmar has had serious problems with repression of religious and ethnic minorities for decades. I find it very difficult to believe Facebook is the spark that ignited an already sectarian government in a country with a long history of ethnic persecution.
- _blz2 5y agoWill someone do the same against Twitter for the Arab springs which lead to the rise of ISIS?
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoI think the Iraq invasion of 2003 is what really set us down the path of ISIS.
- _blz2 5y agoThe spread outside of Iraq to the rest of the Levant is most certainly due to neighboring countries being destabilized.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoWhy not against Western countries who did far more to create ISIS then merely be a passive communication platform?
- diveanon 5y agoAlgorithmically tailoring feeds is not passive.
- y-c-o-m-b 5y agoSeems kind of a wild leap to blame the rise of ISIS on Twitter. ISIS came from the events in Iraq and is an offshoot of "Al Qaeda in Iraq". It even stands for "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant". They existed long before the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring started in 2010 and ISIS didn't enter Syria (which I think is the connection you're making?) until well after that.
- 1cvmask 5y agoTwitter, and others, is a tool of the government, and national security state, and was weaponized multiple times to overthrow governments, institute color revolutions, allow terrorists to flourish etc... The Obama administration even bragged about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twi... https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media....
- cryptica 5y agoGovernments should form an international institution to regulate the algorithms used by social media and search engines. The goal of this institution should strictly be to ensure that algorithms of big tech companies: - Are impartial to specific (especially large) corporate or political interests. - Promote decentralization. Economic decentralization is necessary to ensure that markets remain competitive (which is good for consumers) and it limits how much power any specific entity has over society.
- nradov 5y agoNo thanks. I don't want repressive authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia or Australia to have any control over my social media feeds.
- bighoss97 5y agoThere's this WP article https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/26/facebook-angry-emoji-algorithm/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/26/faceboo... where they bend the truth. The headline is "5 points for an angry emoji, one for a like", but in reality it's 5 points for any emoji at all, and one for a like. Which I think makes sense, hitting like is something that's automatic for a lot of people, whereas taking the time to select an emoji that most closely matches your reaction to a post is a much more "engaged" interaction.
- hiyer 5y agoThe Rohingyas are hardly innocent and have conducted massacres and ethnic cleansing themselves[1]. How about they sue themselves first? 1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/myanmar-new-evidence-reveals-rohingya-armed-group-massacred-scores-in-rakhine-state/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/myanmar-new-e...
- invalidname 5y agoThis is a distraction. No one is innocent. Ever. That doesn't remove the blame from the guilty party. Your claim is similar to a guy running over me with his car then claiming I ran over someone else with a car a few years back. Two separate cases which have no baring on one another... Sounds like something a Facebook lawyer would say.
- hiyer 5y agoSure, I'm not saying FB is not guilty. But one of the so-called "fake news" spread against the Rohingyas was specifically this - that they committed ethnic cleansing against others in Rakhine. Turns out it was not fake at all.