6 ms·

Between 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 thank

Between 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 ago
I 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 ago
  What 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 ago
    For better or worse, passively encouraging genocide isn't illegal under US law.
    - invalidname 5y ago
      I'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
    If that's how low the bar is set then most of the US media would be legally liable for the war in Iraq.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Facebook doesn't show content chronologically. Their algorithm decides what people see. They may not have purposefully pushed pro genocide content, but that doesn't mean they aren't liable if the court finds they were negligent in building the algorithm.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    I don’t doubt the algorithm prioritizes popular content. But how you go from that to saying the algorithm prioritizes genocidal content I don’t know.
    - criddell 5y ago
      It might not be intentional, but there's a pretty good chance that it does lead to extremism. I haven't read it, but perhaps the UN report has more information. I believe it could be true because it doesn't seem that different from reports[1] a few years ago talking about how YouTube would push more and more extreme suggestions. IIRC YouTube made changes pushing people towards more mainstream content and away from small producers in part to avoid extremism. [1] https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/4/3/18293293/youtube-extremism-criticism-bloomberg https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/4/3/18293293/youtube...
      - nradov 5y ago
        There is no law against doing things that tend to encourage extremism. For example, it's would be perfectly legal for a communist to state in general terms that we should execute all rich people as class enemies. Now obviously that's a horrible thing to say, but it isn't illegal.
        criddell 5y ago
        There doesn't have to be a law against something for a jury to find you responsible for damages. This is a civil suit, right?
        beepbooptheory 5y ago
- diveanon 5y ago
  Facebook is a radicalization engine. It is designed to reinforce existing beliefs and preferences in order to increase engagement. In this case the beliefs were virulently racists and bigoted, and the engagement was usually done with a machete.
  - beej71 5y ago
    More generally, it's an anything-that-improves-the-bottom-line engine. And it turns out that hate, fear, and tribalism are great for that.
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
These all add up to a story where Facebook is doing bad things having a negative impact on the world, but that's a very different question than whether they violated any legal obligations. The plaintiff's primary theory of harm seems to be that Facebook allowed people to publish "extreme and outrageous hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories", and publishing things like that would be legally protected in the US even if Mark Zuckerberg himself were the one writing them.
shadowgovt 5y ago
It's going to get into some very thick first-amendment weeds before section 230 protections are even introduced. Where do we draw the culpability line? Should Facebook have been legally obligated to ban those posts? If so, then if next week a failed coup attempt occurs in Burma to try and overthrow the military power that took control, should Facebook be held accountable for aiding and abetting the coup? We rapidly converge on a scenario where Facebook is culpable for existing, and then we may as well start shutting off forums in general. With broad fringes, we generally draw the line at "no, the media isn't constrained from propagating a message; the responsibility rests on the speaker and the listener" in the US. Not to say the suit has no merit. Merely that it faces a stiff headwind and a long uphill battle against a very laissez-faire freedom-of-information-flow precedent.
- bikeshaving 5y ago
  I would love to learn more about which precedents are relevant to this case.
- criddell 5y ago
  Does the first amendment and section 230 mean anything in Burma?
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    The suit was filed in the state of California and would be judged under US law.
    - criddell 5y ago
      Ah, that makes sense.
- bb88 5y ago
  In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's an algorithm that determines your feed, and therefore the profit of Facebook itself. If FB were connecting people, making the world a better place, and making profit by doing that, I think I'd be fine with that. But it looks like FB can trade the general good will of people, replace it with extremism and make a profit doing so. And if that's true, I think we need to seriously look at section 230. There's a series of commons that we all share (e.g. water, air). I'm not quite sure if this fits in this category, but for democracy to work, people have to agree to not resort to violence to solve their problems. Trading the common good will for your fellow country men for profit, while watching the world burn, is I think not what we want as a society.
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Here is a bit more detail on this determined role they took to spread the speech from reuters. "To this day, the company continues to rely heavily on users reporting hate speech in part because its systems struggle to interpret Burmese text. Even now, Facebook doesn’t have a single employee in the country of some 50 million people. Instead, it monitors hate speech from abroad. This is mainly done through a secretive operation in Kuala Lumpur that’s outsourced to Accenture, the professional services firm, and codenamed “Project Honey Badger.” According to people familiar with the matter, the project, which handles many Asian countries, hired its first two Burmese speakers, who were based in Manila, just three years ago. As of June, Honey Badger had about 60 people reviewing reports of hate speech and other content posted by Myanmar’s 18 million active Facebook users. Facebook itself in April had three full-time Burmese speakers at a separate monitoring operation at its international headquarters in Dublin, according to a former employee."
- nradov 5y ago
  In fairness to Facebook you can hardly expect them to hire employees in Myanmar. It would be impossible to keep them safe.
  - whoknowswhat11 5y ago
    I wasn't totally clear about the difference between total apathy, which I'm sure facebook had for a small country with a language not in system vs "determined effort".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ryan93 5y ago

I 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 ago
What 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 ago
  For better or worse, passively encouraging genocide isn't illegal under US law.
  - invalidname 5y ago
    I'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
  If that's how low the bar is set then most of the US media would be legally liable for the war in Iraq.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Facebook doesn't show content chronologically. Their algorithm decides what people see. They may not have purposefully pushed pro genocide content, but that doesn't mean they aren't liable if the court finds they were negligent in building the algorithm.
- ryan93 5y ago
  I don’t doubt the algorithm prioritizes popular content. But how you go from that to saying the algorithm prioritizes genocidal content I don’t know.
  - criddell 5y ago
    It might not be intentional, but there's a pretty good chance that it does lead to extremism. I haven't read it, but perhaps the UN report has more information. I believe it could be true because it doesn't seem that different from reports[1] a few years ago talking about how YouTube would push more and more extreme suggestions. IIRC YouTube made changes pushing people towards more mainstream content and away from small producers in part to avoid extremism. [1] https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/4/3/18293293/youtube-extremism-criticism-bloomberg https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/4/3/18293293/youtube...
    - nradov 5y ago
      There is no law against doing things that tend to encourage extremism. For example, it's would be perfectly legal for a communist to state in general terms that we should execute all rich people as class enemies. Now obviously that's a horrible thing to say, but it isn't illegal.
      - criddell 5y ago
        There doesn't have to be a law against something for a jury to find you responsible for damages. This is a civil suit, right?
      - beepbooptheory 5y ago
diveanon 5y ago
Facebook is a radicalization engine. It is designed to reinforce existing beliefs and preferences in order to increase engagement. In this case the beliefs were virulently racists and bigoted, and the engagement was usually done with a machete.
- beej71 5y ago
  More generally, it's an anything-that-improves-the-bottom-line engine. And it turns out that hate, fear, and tribalism are great for that.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

These all add up to a story where Facebook is doing bad things having a negative impact on the world, but that's a very different question than whether they violated any legal obligations. The plaintiff's primary theory of harm seems to be that Facebook allowed people to publish "extreme and outrageous hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories", and publishing things like that would be legally protected in the US even if Mark Zuckerberg himself were the one writing them.

shadowgovt 5y ago

It's going to get into some very thick first-amendment weeds before section 230 protections are even introduced. Where do we draw the culpability line? Should Facebook have been legally obligated to ban those posts? If so, then if next week a failed coup attempt occurs in Burma to try and overthrow the military power that took control, should Facebook be held accountable for aiding and abetting the coup? We rapidly converge on a scenario where Facebook is culpable for existing, and then we may as well start shutting off forums in general. With broad fringes, we generally draw the line at "no, the media isn't constrained from propagating a message; the responsibility rests on the speaker and the listener" in the US. Not to say the suit has no merit. Merely that it faces a stiff headwind and a long uphill battle against a very laissez-faire freedom-of-information-flow precedent.

bikeshaving 5y ago
I would love to learn more about which precedents are relevant to this case.
criddell 5y ago
Does the first amendment and section 230 mean anything in Burma?
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  The suit was filed in the state of California and would be judged under US law.
  - criddell 5y ago
    Ah, that makes sense.
bb88 5y ago
In general I think I agree with you, but on forums this is subtly different. In a general internet forum, it's up to you decide what you read. On FB, there's an algorithm that determines your feed, and therefore the profit of Facebook itself. If FB were connecting people, making the world a better place, and making profit by doing that, I think I'd be fine with that. But it looks like FB can trade the general good will of people, replace it with extremism and make a profit doing so. And if that's true, I think we need to seriously look at section 230. There's a series of commons that we all share (e.g. water, air). I'm not quite sure if this fits in this category, but for democracy to work, people have to agree to not resort to violence to solve their problems. Trading the common good will for your fellow country men for profit, while watching the world burn, is I think not what we want as a society.

whoknowswhat11 5y ago

Here is a bit more detail on this determined role they took to spread the speech from reuters. "To this day, the company continues to rely heavily on users reporting hate speech in part because its systems struggle to interpret Burmese text. Even now, Facebook doesn’t have a single employee in the country of some 50 million people. Instead, it monitors hate speech from abroad. This is mainly done through a secretive operation in Kuala Lumpur that’s outsourced to Accenture, the professional services firm, and codenamed “Project Honey Badger.” According to people familiar with the matter, the project, which handles many Asian countries, hired its first two Burmese speakers, who were based in Manila, just three years ago. As of June, Honey Badger had about 60 people reviewing reports of hate speech and other content posted by Myanmar’s 18 million active Facebook users. Facebook itself in April had three full-time Burmese speakers at a separate monitoring operation at its international headquarters in Dublin, according to a former employee."

nradov 5y ago
In fairness to Facebook you can hardly expect them to hire employees in Myanmar. It would be impossible to keep them safe.
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  I wasn't totally clear about the difference between total apathy, which I'm sure facebook had for a small country with a language not in system vs "determined effort".