15 ms·

Meta in Myanmar

345 points by tim_sw 3y ago

et-al 3y ago
Did anyone else struggle to read this because of its choppiness?
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  What does choppiness mean in this context?
  - fritzo 3y ago
    lack of flow, as if it were a concatenated collection of notes that were not worked together in a final pass
charcircuit 3y ago
Free speech is important. People don't get mad at air because it allows people to transmit their thoughts. People don't get mad at pencils because it doesn't censor what people write. Internet companies transmitting people's ideas is no different and wanting to censor people is against the principles of a free society.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  This is juvenile. Facebook is not free speech, nor does it merely "transmit" speech. It is a machine for algorithmically amplifying speech. Facebook is not a pencil. Notice the article does not criticise mobile phone vendors for including keyboards in their phones. Who do you think was pushing to subsidise data usage for Facebook? And to what end? Air doesn't do that. I completely agree that free speech is important. I'm sure the people of Myanmar agree with that too after decades of regime rule. But it's irrelevant to this discussion.
  - v3ss0n 3y ago
    I am on the ground and let me say this. I am Burmese , I am from Myanmar . I born there. Genocide is done by the organized criminal group sponsored by military junta. I totally disagree with freespeech cause the crisis.Junta is the one responsible for mass killing and genocide.Freespeech is helping us to fight junta . I am risking too much my self to say this already. Freespeech is what they afraid a lot. Even with algorithm , Facebook is platform to deliver our words. I wish there are non-algorithmic , un-mainipulatble , non-moderated platform that can be reached out to the world.
    - crabmusket 3y ago
      My heart goes out to you. I can't imagine what you and your country are going through. I pray that your words will win out over those of hate and ignorance, over force and violence.
    - anon84873628 3y ago
      I've seen all your replies in this thread and appreciate you sharing your viewpoints. I understand your points and there is one thing that needs to be said in response: All of the stories and citations in this article also come from Burmese people and international monitors on the ground in the country. So parallel to your claims that Facebook is irrelevant, there are other people working in this space with equally valid claims that Facebook does bear some responsibility. People who saw the situation developing and tried to warn Facebook, only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. Thanks again and best of luck to you.
- deleted 3y ago
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- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  Liberty is not an absolute, positive liberty is one thing, negative liberty can't be accepted, we mean for positive liberty the ability to act within the boundaries of the liberty possessed by the rest of society, the ability for libertarian to be idiots affect themselves only, but until their idiocy doesn't become negative liberty, and for negative liberty we mean that set of liberties that go to affect the liberties of the rest of the society, saying that we should fucilate all libertarians is a negative liberty, because it spreads hate and put someone else in the society in danger and so my liberty directly limits the liberty of someone else
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >and put someone else in the society in danger Words can't put someone in danger. Sharing people's words doesn't limit other's liberty.
    - Avshalom 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - lnxg33k1 3y ago
      It's the safest thing we can do to let some violent "ideas"/"ideals" spread, and then acting when they're acting on it only no? We've seen it with Nazi on Africans, Gays and Jews (alphabetically ordered), it ended up so well. I'd say, the freedom of speech can't contain concept that put third party in danger, or that could limit the liberties of others, because bad ideas have always become sufference
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        >It's the safest thing I am not arguing about what is the safest thing. A free society should be free to make themselves unsafe if they so wish. >the freedom of speech can't contain concept that put third party in danger, or that could limit the liberties of others If a free society is not capable of relinquishing their freedom, then are they truly free?
- dwrodri 3y ago
  I respect agree with your belief that freedom of speech is important, but I disagree with your conclusion that "Internet companies transmitting people's ideas" is no different. The key idea here is that freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach: Facebook might give everyone the same text box to write posts or upload content, but they need to answer for HOW and WHY they recommend certain content over other types of content. The comparison pencils or air isn't fair because they aren't being boosted by a recommender system, powering the application layer of the content delivery platform for 90% of a country's people. If I write a message on paper containing a call to action which incites violence (e.g. "We should round up all people with six toes on each foot and shoot them") and hand it to one person, the message has reached one person. I would say, the digital equivalent to "pencil and paper" or "talking in a public square" more like "Writing a message in an HTML file and putting that HTML on a web server you own." I think it would be much more difficult for your average user in Myanmar to reach millions, even if they were given a web server and the means to write HTML. Comparing it to "getting mad at air because it allows people to transmit their thoughts" equates Facebook the Internet, when one is an organization of people who provide technology and the other is technology. There are data scientists and engineers who created the models which learned how to optimize for engagement, and there are product managers who help set the KPIs for those engineers (i.e. encouraged them to solve for engagement) and there are execs who benefit from all of the above. While no single person is solely to blame for what happened in Myanmar, it's wrong to claim that we can't at least reason and discuss the products still created, maintained and own by company (made of people). My opinion on this is heavily formed by the training I received when I wanted to DJ for my university's radio station. Even in the US, where freedom of speech is protected in the Amendments to the Consitution, there were very specific things you could and could not say on the air (while being classified as a non-profit radio station). You could receive massive fines for profanity, obscenity, inciting violence, hate speech, with a large general emphasis on calls to action. Generally, I think this training was good and it encouraged everyone who learned to DJ to be more intentional with their language. I really think that if Facebook is gonna enable users to reach millions, there absolutely should be some caveats to that. People should be able to say whatever they want if they are capable of providing the means by which their own speech is amplified--and even then there are clear cases where the megaphone needs to be taken away. Facebook is giving megaphones to people and some people use it to dispense hate speech. While I might've been willing to give Facebook a pass in their early years, it is clear that between Cambridge Analytica and this that governments around the world need to do better when it comes to working with Facebook to better identify content on their platform which incites violence or calls to action which present a clear and present danger to other people if acted upon. Facebook isn't some amorphous inanimate entity that we can't negotiate/regulate/punish. If someone uploads a hateful message which has a 0.00001% of encouraging a hate crime in Burma, Burma can expect around 5 hate crimes as a result of this message. With great power comes great responsibility.
- brg 3y ago
  While air is a passive requirement, I would suggest that writing, the printing press, speakers, radio, television, and the web are all more similar. They are intentionally used to increase engagement of content intentionally created.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  I agree 100% , freespeech is very important for us.
yoz 3y ago
Read this. Once I started, I couldn't stop. It's a far quicker read than it looks (though this is just part 1) and utterly essential. Kissane has put together a concise, readable, and horrifying account of both the background of the Rohingya genocide and how Meta actively fanned the flames. Her argument for Meta's culpability is simple and effective. Meta faced two problems in Myanmar: (1) not enough Facebook users, and (2) increasing incitement and hate speech that was clearly and repeatedly stoking anti-Rohingya violence. The company repeatedly showed that it was only interested in growing the user base, even though they were clearly aware of how that growth fed a genocide.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - shwaj 3y ago
    Facebook isn’t a dumb pipe. It is an algorithm which preferentially selects content which will increase engagement, in this case apparently sparking a genocide. Your analogy falls flat.
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      And the algorithm that maximizes engagement is the algorithm that gives the user exactly the content he most wants to engage with. In other words, with iteration, it will converge on an algorithm whose output is entirely driven by the user, not the developer. In this way it is basically a dumb pipe just like a phone that lets the user say exactly what he wants when he wants.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - dr_kiszonka 3y ago
        You are assuming users visit Facebook to engage with content and that Facebook's definition of engagement is consistent with the users' understanding of it. (One example, merely viewing my brother's photo is not considered engagement but sharing or liking it is.) I think many people would agree that a dumb pipe in this context would mean FB not ranking and filtering content. I am not saying all users want unfiltered content. I am just arguing against calling FB a dumb pipe. If anything, it is a smart pipe, or a pipe bomb.
zebomon 3y ago
This is artfully researched. A great read and a valuable take on events that we'll need as a society to learn from, as the algorithm-powered platforms are not going anywhere. Very strange to hear any "free speech" arguments in this thread. I can only assume those commenters haven't read the article, which enumerates multiple examples of speech that are equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theater.
- dannyobrien 3y ago
  I not only read the article (which was great), but I was in the same space at this time: one of the civil society groups constantly trying to raise issues with Facebook. It all rings very true to me: I think one thing to note is that not only did Facebook lack Burmese speakers internally, but so did the human rights groups with the best access to Facebook. As Kissane notes, Myanmar came online very quickly after the reforms, and -- unlike many countries in the Middle East or even China, because the story there was not one of authoritarian oppression, but a /release/ from authoritarian pressure, it did not fit easily into the template that tech companies were slowly learning to respond to. A few years before this, Facebook and Twitter had been shaken into some kind of recognition of their responsibilities in the Arab Spring and Iranian protests, but the result of that had been a very, shall we say, US-centric view of how repression plays out globally. Bluntly, the violent genocide of muslims by buddhists, in a country led by Nobel Peace Prize winner and defender of democracy Aung Sang Suu Shi, was a story that had to cut across many political and cultural presumptions of the US and Europe before it would be listened to. I guess that brings me to your comment about "free speech". It seems a little petty to point you to the usual put-downs about how the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has historically been deployed to /silence/ people trying to /stop/ mass violence (because they are seen to be trouble-makers). I'll note though that the failures of Facebook and others at this time came about because people claimed to be able to moderate and provide a forum where only civil discussion and "the truth" would be discussed -- and could be swayed to stop it, if you could just get through to the right people. Many of us, both in "free speech" organizations and on-the-ground humanitarian groups, argued that this was a role that Facebook was not, and could not play: and the more it claimed it could take on this responsibility, the more terrible the consequences would be.
dan-robertson 3y ago
The whole situation is awful. I do wonder what the internal discussions in Facebook at the time were like. How did all the human-rights groups find themselves talking with the department of fobbing people off instead of the one that would do something. Maybe the department of fobbing people off were trying to do something but had insufficient political power within Facebook. Though I guess those discussions/emails would be very unlikely to come out except in a court case and I’m not sure what case that would be. If you look at the things Facebook work on, it does seem that they do care a lot about not wanting various kinds of bad behaviour on their platform. I don’t know if the scope was materially narrower in the past or if this was a problem of being too disconnected from the users in Myanmar (ie language barriers or applying policies designed for the US). I have a hard time thinking about the counterfactuals. Could this have happened with Twitter for example? It feels to me like the biggest advantage facebook had was being subsidised and if it didn’t have the advantage (and maybe if prices had gone down a bit over a few years) the same thing could have happened over Twitter. It’s not clear to me how much the government wanted the genocide to happen. Presumably the big advantage to them to it happening over Facebook is some kind of deniability and if they didn’t care about that and were sufficiently competent they could have put the hate preachers on the radio instead of letting them find their audience on the internet.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > Could this have happened with Twitter for example? It did - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/09/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-accused-of-ignoring-plight-of-rohingya-in-tweets-promoting-myanmar https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/09/twitter-c... FB was much more destructive simply because it was part of FB's Internet.org initiative [1] which drove FB adoption. > It’s not clear to me how much the government wanted the genocide to happen. The Arakan National Party, the primary party in Rakhine/Arakan, is anti-Rohingya and its leadership participated in the 2012 riots along with the 969 movement. They entered a coalition with the National League for Democracy (Aung Sang Syu Ki's party) and even got an Ethnic Affairs Minister [2] - that they held on to during the Genocide. That said, the issues in Rakhine were further exacerbated by the India-China rivalry, as both countries turned a blind eye to the Tatmadaw and would arm ethnic militias within Rakhine and across Myanmar in general, as Myanmar is a buffer between the two countries, ethnic issues in Myanmar blowback across Southwest China (eg. Kokang Chinese * ) and Northeast India (eg. Manipur Ethnic Violence **), and both India and China have competing defense and infrastructure projects within Myanmar [3] A lot of this could have been avoided if Jinnah annexed the Rohingya majority regions of Rakhine into Pakistan like Rohingya asked in 1946 [4]. It's sadly another forgotten chapter of Partition and decolonization of the British Raj * If you live in San Francisco, most ethnic Chinese in Chinatown are now Kokang. They own most of those trendy Burmese restaurants like Burma Love and Manadaly ** The Myanmar subgroup of the Kukis (Chin/Zo) have a significant presence in SF and Daly City as well. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arakan_National_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arakan_National_Party [3] - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how-china-india-bangladesh-could-be-drawn-myanmar-s-conflict https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how-china-indi... [4] - https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/rohingyas-and-the-unfinished-business-of-partition/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/rohingyas-and-the-unfinished...
roenxi 3y ago
The attack on Meta here isn't really justified for the reasons Kissane seems to be providing. Take this paragraph, for example: > By that point in 2018, Myanmar’s military had murdered thousands of Rohingya people, including babies and children, and beaten, raped, tortured, starved, and imprisoned thousands more. About three-quarters of a million Rohingya had fled Myanmar to live in huge, disease-infested refugee camps in Bangladesh. That is the situation on the ground. The country is a powder keg, and there is evil afoot. Maybe there is more context here to come in part II, but it seems unreasonable to lay this at Facebook's feet from an external perspective. Facebook does not call for beatings, rape or killings. I can certainly see Facebook's leadership caring about the PR and doing something. But that raises alternative problems - what exactly is the standard Facebook is meant to enforce? Should it ban everyone who is responsible for pointless killing? That includes the US leadership apparatus - should it ban everyone who voted Aye for the Iraq war? Afghanistan? Wars like Vietnam? (yes, the people who voted for it knew better). They won't do that. We'll have a large, powerful company applying uneven and subjective standards. There is an issue there, but I think the specifics of why she is calling out Facebook are actually dangerously missing the point. The problem is the same no matter what influence Facebook tries to have - the problem is that the will of the people and the will of Facebook's leadership are radically different. In this case, the will of the people is unusually evil - but the problem is the clash and Facebook's position of influence, not which side is wrong on any particular day. Eventually, Facebook will be on the evil side.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  I have seen discussion of this problem by anti-tech writers become "Facebook caused these atrocities". I agree with you that it's overstating Facebook's role. However, I don't think that places Facebook's conduct beyond criticism. I'm very interested to see part 2, as it sounds like there are more positive acts by Facebook at that time. Rather than just the passive inaction which characterises part 1. But, "refusing to enforce your own policies" is action, and it sounds like Facebook is very guilty of this.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    I stress that I'm waiting for Part II, because I don't think she's really gotten to the meat of it. But so far we've got Case 1: Facebook doesn't enforce their policies. There is a genocide. Plausible Case 2: Facebook enforces their policies. There is a genocide. Plausible Case 3: Facebook enforces their policies, shapes the future of a country and learns they are bigger than the people. They start actively influencing elections worldwide to shape a pro-Facebook political consensus. Case 2 is better than 1, but given 3 there is a strong argument that the conversation is being misframed focusing on Facebook's policies. The case where they act and succeed is just as worrying as when they do nothing. Possibly more so, given that there is no evidence at all that Facebook pushing political opinions will result in good outcomes. The mass media have traditionally been cheerleaders for any number of atrocities and help shield corrupt people.
anoy8888 3y ago
I have friends who live in Myanmar and can confirm the ground situation was a lot worse. When all your see are hate speech posts ( about beheading or at best driving away these low lives), it normalizes the hate and dehumanize the victims. History was full of atrocities like this . Free speech is great to have . But violence propaganda is a real problem. You see some of that in America too. Edit : to give people who don’t bother to read the article some idea, many villages were burned down and before that happened , women got raped and killed , the entire village were looted and then killed and then they burned down the villages. The goal was to create fear so that the victims would have no choice but flee their own country. It worked .
- agmyintmyatoo 3y ago
  All of things you said are happening again after the coup, and the world wouldn't even notice, again.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    It was happening since before the coup, and has been happening since independence. Kachin, Saigang, Rakhine, Shan, and Chin States have all been facing violence insurgencies since independence.
    - v3ss0n 3y ago
      and btw , the person you replying to lives in myanmar.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        Oh dang!I didn't realize that!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- aragonite 3y ago
  You have to ask yourself why are we obsessed with free speech but you never hear anyone preaching free act? Why the arbitrary restriction to speech/expression? Ah, acts can cause harm to others; people can't just be allowed to do whatever they want, though they should be allowed to say whatever they want, because you can't harm other people by what you say, according to ... the "sticks and stones" principle. The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle!
blackoil 3y ago
Don't know anything about Myanmar. But I would like to add that we should not confuse/bias role of medium, the message and participants. In India, I see maximum no. of toxic messages flowing on WhatsApp groups. These are personal have not ranking or recommendations algorithm, just people forwarding the messages which is primarily because of the increased radicalization of the underlying society.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  I am from Myanmar and i agree.
- maronato 3y ago
  The problem is the scale. WhatsApp groups of colleagues or friends have a very limited reach and exposure. People don’t suddenly wake up radicalized. They are introduced and brainwashed into it by other people via some communication medium. Facebook just happens to not only be the largest but to also boost and promote inflammatory content via its recommendation algorithm.
vachina 3y ago
If people can understand this article but why can’t they understand China banning western social media? In this case Facebook’s intention was to drive engagement, who’s to say it won’t be used by adversaries to selectively drive narratives?
- computerfriend 3y ago
  China's motives for blocking access to the broader internet are very well understood.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
imgabe 3y ago
How about we blame genocides on, I don’t know, the people committing the genocide? Meta didn’t burn down villages or shoot anyone. People did that. Are we supposed to believe those people have no agency and aren’t responsible for their actions? Like if you see a Facebook post you just have to mindlessly do whatever it says?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > How about we blame genocides on, I don’t know, the people committing the genocide We are, yet FB's failure to moderate as well as their failure to provide a legitimate method to escalate to HQ during an active genocide show a severe form of negligence.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    Also not all cultures / societies are at the same level and educated about these things. Letting something like FB loose in a world where people don’t understand algorithms and targeted information campaigns should’ve have obvious consequences to those building these platforms.
  - v3ss0n 3y ago
    Facebook is nothing . Its about 300k strong military and Criminal organized by military killing burning , scotching earth around the country .
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      I 100% agree, but FB needs to face some punishment for not moderating sooner, simply so they can make sure not to enable stuff like this again.
      - v3ss0n 3y ago
        well, current complain in Myanmar community is facebook randomly banning posts that not related to any kind of voilence. many had moved to telegram because facebook very strict moderation
zmmmmm 3y ago
I feel awful saying this about an article about a genocide, but can someone tldr it? What is the substance of the issue?
- harmmonica 3y ago
  There was a pre-existing prejudice towards muslims/rohinyga in Burma/myanmar by the dominant Buddhist population. As technology developed, specifically mobile phones, it became easier for anti-muslim voices in Myanmar to spread their message. Specific violent acts against Buddhists, such as rape/murder, were, without proper evidence, attributed to the Muslim minority, further stoking prejudice and hate toward the Muslim population. Facebook was warned on many occasions that users attributing the violence against Buddhists to Muslims was leading to calls for violence against the Muslim minority, with multiple meetings/discussions by Myanmar and western sources at Facebook hq itself, only for Facebook to not take any action but instead focus on increasing engagement in Myanmar regardless of the situation on the ground. Slippery slope ensues contributing to the death/genocide of potentially hundreds of thousands of Rohingya/Muslims in Myanmar. More evidence in part 2 which seems like hasn’t been posted yet.
  - v3ss0n 3y ago
    - There was a pre-existing prejudice towards muslims/rohinyga in Burma/myanmar by the dominant Buddhist population. No , i am 40 years old and before Rohingya crisis we have no hate towards muslim but have to admit we don't even know Rohingya race exist at all . The general populace is very peaceful towards muslim . - it became easier for anti-muslim voices in Myanmar to spread their message. The anti-muslim voice are not from civlians , they are from Junta and Hardline Junta who lost power due to democratic transition and the Hardline Party called USDP . So it is political as evident now as their failure and lead to coup. - Facebook was warned on many occasions that users attributing the violence against Buddhists to Muslims was leading to calls for violence against the Muslim minority, with multiple meetings/discussions by Myanmar and western sources at Facebook hq itself, only for Facebook to not take any action but instead focus on increasing engagement . Deaths and killing are done by military junta , with and without uniform - to look like civilians and their sponsored grouped called MaBaTha .
computerfriend 3y ago
Facebook's first crime here was to incentivise the violation of net neutrality.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  This is an important overlooked point. Several commenters are saying "social media just reflects human behavior." And we can get into lots of philosophical arguments about free speech, recommendations algorithms, UX patterns, etc. But a key piece here is that there was not a free market for social media or news apps; Facebook was subsidized by the major telecom company so it had a privileged position. A platform with privileged monopoly position should therefore be expected to bear greater responsibility. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
v3ss0n 3y ago
I live in Myanmar. I started my software company at 2010 , as soon as we gained democracy and here are my take as a citizen and a founder who had gone through various stages of the country. The article is more about bashing Facebook and its algorithms but the ground situation is not much due to Facebook at all. The main problem is political players are using Racism , Nationalism , Brainwash , Multimedia as a tool to induce instability so they can go back to non-democratic country , just to take back our freedom. The violence aren't real cause by hatespeech on the Facebook. Sure it increased Racism by a lot but also it leads to find out about truth fast.The actual genocide ware done by the Junta military and Junta assigned thugs who are infused within riots are by a group known as Ma Ba Tha , which was known before as Swan Arr Shin ( Meaning Super Heros) - which ironically used to kill peacefully protesting monks back in 2007 (Saffron Revolution), Now they are known as Pyu Saw Htee who are killing innocent people now regardless of Race or Ethnicity in suspicion of supporting Spring Revolution. They are Ex Junta , Prisoners , low ranking members from the Rival Hardline Military Party lead by extremist nationalists . They are the one who raze and displaced millions of Rohingyas. The start of Rohingya crisis : - At first when the news breakout that innocent girl was raped and killed , the uncensored mutilated body of the underage girl along with caught preps had been posted online who are identified as rohingyas, that is the first time many people had seen violence on the Facebook and it was spread like wild fire , and there was a lot of hate online. - And then. The MaBaTha movement started ( the group i mentioned above) , goes on ground , spreading the image of the post , they organize and formed other nationalists , and then they started using monks , most of them are military spies robed and planted into there since after Saffron Revolution - as a tool for political play. - Soon after they started using monks many real Buddhist are shunning away and stop following as soon as they started using Buddhism as a tool for violence which is totally against buddha's ways and it become appearant that is a political play. - But the riots were organized by military , in Meikhtila case , polices guards the people who burned the whole town to ashes - who are Later Identified as MaBaTha . So here is take away - The crisis is totally fuled by junta nad organized by Junta Swann Arr Shin group ( MaBaTha , and now Pyu Saw Htee) (The organized criminal group , members existed since 1988, used again and again in 1988 , De Pe Yin massacre , Saffron Revolution) . - If there were no Facebook , the Junta would use state owned media and journal outlets and would have the same effect but because of Facebook we have a chance to speak-out , we have a chance to find out truth, report massacres . - Free Speech is very important for us , for a country who had lost freedom for 70+ Years - Free Speech and Facebook has to do very little on Rohingya crisis since it is mostly done by the on-ground , organized criminal . - Facebook Algorithms boost controversial topics that is undeniable - Rohingya genocide was a military sponsored terrorism it was fueled by Military Junta and hard liners and organized criminal group founded by junta. - When the crisis had been controlled by Democratic government , the military start to lose power so they stage a coup in 2021 Now situation is a lot worse The Junta who organized the Rohingya crisis , stage a coup and killed over 5000 innocent civilians of all races and genders , and that had lead to people arming up and fighting against Junta . Details of which i couldn't say much here , because of safety reasons. Please contact me if you want to know more.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
v3ss0n 3y ago
Those hate freespeech , let me say this. I live there and you will never know how valuable and important is free speech when You and your family could get killed , detained, tortured by - just doing a HungerGames `3 finger salute` . - just posting a photo of empty city , to share the truth to the world. - just answering to a BBC Reporter.
habibur 3y ago
As bad as it is in Myanmar -- replace s/Meta/The Internet/g and then check if that makes any difference. Control your population, not the tools they use. Stop the use of one, they will find an alternative that serves the same purpose.
- dagmx 3y ago
  Unfortunately, this sort of glibness misses the fact that Meta’s algorithms push topic engagement and in doing so, amplify high-emotion content. A passive user of the general internet is not as likely to encounter the same concentration of singular topics as they would on Facebook. Your comment would largely apply only to active seekers of said content.
  - spongebobstoes 3y ago
    I don't think it's that simple. "The algorithm" historically favoured engaging posts, which basically means "what people care about". This same algorithm pushes all the good things that someone like Wirathu was doing (for the Buddhist population) as well as the horrific things (promoting genocide). So let's talk about the obvious -- disabling "the algorithm". With no algorithm the problem might be even worse! If someone like Wirathu runs 20 accounts which each post 10+ times per day, his genocidal speech might be even more over-represented to the general populace. Timeline order rewards spammers, which rewards people with resources to simply scale output to more of the same. Well ok, why not improve the algorithm then? It's easy to say "just promote the good stuff", but it's very difficult to do in practice at scale. Let's examine why. Since it's all happening in Burmese, any ML models for sentiment or radicalization or hate speech will hugely lag behind English in effectiveness. A poorly trained auto-moderator is often worse than none at all, because it acts at random. It is also a cat and mouse game -- simple models are stymied by basic (for humans) techniques like misspelling, swapping letters for symbols, inventing new slang words, dogwhistles, appropriating benign words, etc. Ok, so why not scale up moderation? Well, they need to find sufficient Burmese speakers who can be in person in their offices. (In person because of data protection and resources like mental health support.) It's not a popular language, so finding any candidates is already difficult, let alone people who are willing to wade through the horrors of humanity day after day for a paycheck.
lacker 3y ago
To me, the key part of this article comes about 100 paragraphs in. Describing the situation in 2014: Facebook has a single Burmese-speaking moderator—a contractor based in Dublin—to review everything that comes in. Burmese is the 43rd most popular language in the world, so perhaps it isn't surprising that Facebook was having trouble recruiting moderators. http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/clt/cltclt/top100.html http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/clt/cltc... It's a sad story. As much as I like "free speech" to be the answer, this is a pretty chilling downstream result of a platform not being able to do heavy human moderation.
- baby 3y ago
  I don't get this though, even in the US how can you perform moderation at such a large scale? Should we moderate the whole internet as well? Internet was always moderated within each communities. If you have a forum, or a page, or a group chat, or whatever, then it's on you to moderate your community. The same is true for a church, or a volleyball club, or a school, etc.
  - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
    How do you handle moderating your church that grew fairly rapidly to over a billion parishioners?
- exodust 3y ago
  > downstream result You're suggesting a lack of heavy moderation results in genocide? I can point you to a million examples where that hasn't happened. If the warehouse full of moderators don't show up to work one day, genocide doesn't therefore happen. The answer isn't slash 'n burn moderation at scale. A far better idea is good old transparency, raw information. No censorship, only improved contextual information, up and down screens, with accurate helpful facts and related info. It's proven to be useful and does actually balance false information right when it happens. That's what you do to respect people, even those in need of educating and correcting from violent ways. They have internet phones, if it's not Meta/FB, it's something else.
spongebobstoes 3y ago
The article claims that "Arturo Bejar" was "head of engineering at Facebook", which is simply false. He appears to have been a Director, which is a manager title overseeing (typically) less than 100 people. That isn't remotely close to "head of engineering". I point this out because I think it calls into question some of the accuracy of how clearly the problem was communicated to relevant people at Facebook. It isn't enough for someone to tell random engineers or Communications VPs about a complex social problem. Those people are not trained in identifying or responding to a genocide, nor do they have the organizational power or professional experience to initiate a serious reaponse. It is saddening but not surprising to me that there was a communication breakdown.
rambambram 3y ago
[flagged]
tiahura 3y ago
[flagged]

Meta in Myanmar

345 points by tim_sw 3y ago

et-al 3y ago

Did anyone else struggle to read this because of its choppiness?

ShamelessC 3y ago
What does choppiness mean in this context?
- fritzo 3y ago
  lack of flow, as if it were a concatenated collection of notes that were not worked together in a final pass

charcircuit 3y ago

Free speech is important. People don't get mad at air because it allows people to transmit their thoughts. People don't get mad at pencils because it doesn't censor what people write. Internet companies transmitting people's ideas is no different and wanting to censor people is against the principles of a free society.

crabmusket 3y ago
This is juvenile. Facebook is not free speech, nor does it merely "transmit" speech. It is a machine for algorithmically amplifying speech. Facebook is not a pencil. Notice the article does not criticise mobile phone vendors for including keyboards in their phones. Who do you think was pushing to subsidise data usage for Facebook? And to what end? Air doesn't do that. I completely agree that free speech is important. I'm sure the people of Myanmar agree with that too after decades of regime rule. But it's irrelevant to this discussion.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  I am on the ground and let me say this. I am Burmese , I am from Myanmar . I born there. Genocide is done by the organized criminal group sponsored by military junta. I totally disagree with freespeech cause the crisis.Junta is the one responsible for mass killing and genocide.Freespeech is helping us to fight junta . I am risking too much my self to say this already. Freespeech is what they afraid a lot. Even with algorithm , Facebook is platform to deliver our words. I wish there are non-algorithmic , un-mainipulatble , non-moderated platform that can be reached out to the world.
  - crabmusket 3y ago
    My heart goes out to you. I can't imagine what you and your country are going through. I pray that your words will win out over those of hate and ignorance, over force and violence.
  - anon84873628 3y ago
    I've seen all your replies in this thread and appreciate you sharing your viewpoints. I understand your points and there is one thing that needs to be said in response: All of the stories and citations in this article also come from Burmese people and international monitors on the ground in the country. So parallel to your claims that Facebook is irrelevant, there are other people working in this space with equally valid claims that Facebook does bear some responsibility. People who saw the situation developing and tried to warn Facebook, only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. Thanks again and best of luck to you.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lnxg33k1 3y ago
Liberty is not an absolute, positive liberty is one thing, negative liberty can't be accepted, we mean for positive liberty the ability to act within the boundaries of the liberty possessed by the rest of society, the ability for libertarian to be idiots affect themselves only, but until their idiocy doesn't become negative liberty, and for negative liberty we mean that set of liberties that go to affect the liberties of the rest of the society, saying that we should fucilate all libertarians is a negative liberty, because it spreads hate and put someone else in the society in danger and so my liberty directly limits the liberty of someone else
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >and put someone else in the society in danger Words can't put someone in danger. Sharing people's words doesn't limit other's liberty.
  - Avshalom 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    It's the safest thing we can do to let some violent "ideas"/"ideals" spread, and then acting when they're acting on it only no? We've seen it with Nazi on Africans, Gays and Jews (alphabetically ordered), it ended up so well. I'd say, the freedom of speech can't contain concept that put third party in danger, or that could limit the liberties of others, because bad ideas have always become sufference
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      >It's the safest thing I am not arguing about what is the safest thing. A free society should be free to make themselves unsafe if they so wish. >the freedom of speech can't contain concept that put third party in danger, or that could limit the liberties of others If a free society is not capable of relinquishing their freedom, then are they truly free?
dwrodri 3y ago
I respect agree with your belief that freedom of speech is important, but I disagree with your conclusion that "Internet companies transmitting people's ideas" is no different. The key idea here is that freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach: Facebook might give everyone the same text box to write posts or upload content, but they need to answer for HOW and WHY they recommend certain content over other types of content. The comparison pencils or air isn't fair because they aren't being boosted by a recommender system, powering the application layer of the content delivery platform for 90% of a country's people. If I write a message on paper containing a call to action which incites violence (e.g. "We should round up all people with six toes on each foot and shoot them") and hand it to one person, the message has reached one person. I would say, the digital equivalent to "pencil and paper" or "talking in a public square" more like "Writing a message in an HTML file and putting that HTML on a web server you own." I think it would be much more difficult for your average user in Myanmar to reach millions, even if they were given a web server and the means to write HTML. Comparing it to "getting mad at air because it allows people to transmit their thoughts" equates Facebook the Internet, when one is an organization of people who provide technology and the other is technology. There are data scientists and engineers who created the models which learned how to optimize for engagement, and there are product managers who help set the KPIs for those engineers (i.e. encouraged them to solve for engagement) and there are execs who benefit from all of the above. While no single person is solely to blame for what happened in Myanmar, it's wrong to claim that we can't at least reason and discuss the products still created, maintained and own by company (made of people). My opinion on this is heavily formed by the training I received when I wanted to DJ for my university's radio station. Even in the US, where freedom of speech is protected in the Amendments to the Consitution, there were very specific things you could and could not say on the air (while being classified as a non-profit radio station). You could receive massive fines for profanity, obscenity, inciting violence, hate speech, with a large general emphasis on calls to action. Generally, I think this training was good and it encouraged everyone who learned to DJ to be more intentional with their language. I really think that if Facebook is gonna enable users to reach millions, there absolutely should be some caveats to that. People should be able to say whatever they want if they are capable of providing the means by which their own speech is amplified--and even then there are clear cases where the megaphone needs to be taken away. Facebook is giving megaphones to people and some people use it to dispense hate speech. While I might've been willing to give Facebook a pass in their early years, it is clear that between Cambridge Analytica and this that governments around the world need to do better when it comes to working with Facebook to better identify content on their platform which incites violence or calls to action which present a clear and present danger to other people if acted upon. Facebook isn't some amorphous inanimate entity that we can't negotiate/regulate/punish. If someone uploads a hateful message which has a 0.00001% of encouraging a hate crime in Burma, Burma can expect around 5 hate crimes as a result of this message. With great power comes great responsibility.
brg 3y ago
While air is a passive requirement, I would suggest that writing, the printing press, speakers, radio, television, and the web are all more similar. They are intentionally used to increase engagement of content intentionally created.
v3ss0n 3y ago
I agree 100% , freespeech is very important for us.

yoz 3y ago

Read this. Once I started, I couldn't stop. It's a far quicker read than it looks (though this is just part 1) and utterly essential. Kissane has put together a concise, readable, and horrifying account of both the background of the Rohingya genocide and how Meta actively fanned the flames. Her argument for Meta's culpability is simple and effective. Meta faced two problems in Myanmar: (1) not enough Facebook users, and (2) increasing incitement and hate speech that was clearly and repeatedly stoking anti-Rohingya violence. The company repeatedly showed that it was only interested in growing the user base, even though they were clearly aware of how that growth fed a genocide.

fallingknife 3y ago
[flagged]
- shwaj 3y ago
  Facebook isn’t a dumb pipe. It is an algorithm which preferentially selects content which will increase engagement, in this case apparently sparking a genocide. Your analogy falls flat.
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    And the algorithm that maximizes engagement is the algorithm that gives the user exactly the content he most wants to engage with. In other words, with iteration, it will converge on an algorithm whose output is entirely driven by the user, not the developer. In this way it is basically a dumb pipe just like a phone that lets the user say exactly what he wants when he wants.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - dr_kiszonka 3y ago
      You are assuming users visit Facebook to engage with content and that Facebook's definition of engagement is consistent with the users' understanding of it. (One example, merely viewing my brother's photo is not considered engagement but sharing or liking it is.) I think many people would agree that a dumb pipe in this context would mean FB not ranking and filtering content. I am not saying all users want unfiltered content. I am just arguing against calling FB a dumb pipe. If anything, it is a smart pipe, or a pipe bomb.

zebomon 3y ago

This is artfully researched. A great read and a valuable take on events that we'll need as a society to learn from, as the algorithm-powered platforms are not going anywhere. Very strange to hear any "free speech" arguments in this thread. I can only assume those commenters haven't read the article, which enumerates multiple examples of speech that are equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theater.

dannyobrien 3y ago
I not only read the article (which was great), but I was in the same space at this time: one of the civil society groups constantly trying to raise issues with Facebook. It all rings very true to me: I think one thing to note is that not only did Facebook lack Burmese speakers internally, but so did the human rights groups with the best access to Facebook. As Kissane notes, Myanmar came online very quickly after the reforms, and -- unlike many countries in the Middle East or even China, because the story there was not one of authoritarian oppression, but a /release/ from authoritarian pressure, it did not fit easily into the template that tech companies were slowly learning to respond to. A few years before this, Facebook and Twitter had been shaken into some kind of recognition of their responsibilities in the Arab Spring and Iranian protests, but the result of that had been a very, shall we say, US-centric view of how repression plays out globally. Bluntly, the violent genocide of muslims by buddhists, in a country led by Nobel Peace Prize winner and defender of democracy Aung Sang Suu Shi, was a story that had to cut across many political and cultural presumptions of the US and Europe before it would be listened to. I guess that brings me to your comment about "free speech". It seems a little petty to point you to the usual put-downs about how the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has historically been deployed to /silence/ people trying to /stop/ mass violence (because they are seen to be trouble-makers). I'll note though that the failures of Facebook and others at this time came about because people claimed to be able to moderate and provide a forum where only civil discussion and "the truth" would be discussed -- and could be swayed to stop it, if you could just get through to the right people. Many of us, both in "free speech" organizations and on-the-ground humanitarian groups, argued that this was a role that Facebook was not, and could not play: and the more it claimed it could take on this responsibility, the more terrible the consequences would be.

dan-robertson 3y ago

The whole situation is awful. I do wonder what the internal discussions in Facebook at the time were like. How did all the human-rights groups find themselves talking with the department of fobbing people off instead of the one that would do something. Maybe the department of fobbing people off were trying to do something but had insufficient political power within Facebook. Though I guess those discussions/emails would be very unlikely to come out except in a court case and I’m not sure what case that would be. If you look at the things Facebook work on, it does seem that they do care a lot about not wanting various kinds of bad behaviour on their platform. I don’t know if the scope was materially narrower in the past or if this was a problem of being too disconnected from the users in Myanmar (ie language barriers or applying policies designed for the US). I have a hard time thinking about the counterfactuals. Could this have happened with Twitter for example? It feels to me like the biggest advantage facebook had was being subsidised and if it didn’t have the advantage (and maybe if prices had gone down a bit over a few years) the same thing could have happened over Twitter. It’s not clear to me how much the government wanted the genocide to happen. Presumably the big advantage to them to it happening over Facebook is some kind of deniability and if they didn’t care about that and were sufficiently competent they could have put the hate preachers on the radio instead of letting them find their audience on the internet.

alephnerd 3y ago
> Could this have happened with Twitter for example? It did - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/09/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-accused-of-ignoring-plight-of-rohingya-in-tweets-promoting-myanmar https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/09/twitter-c... FB was much more destructive simply because it was part of FB's Internet.org initiative [1] which drove FB adoption. > It’s not clear to me how much the government wanted the genocide to happen. The Arakan National Party, the primary party in Rakhine/Arakan, is anti-Rohingya and its leadership participated in the 2012 riots along with the 969 movement. They entered a coalition with the National League for Democracy (Aung Sang Syu Ki's party) and even got an Ethnic Affairs Minister [2] - that they held on to during the Genocide. That said, the issues in Rakhine were further exacerbated by the India-China rivalry, as both countries turned a blind eye to the Tatmadaw and would arm ethnic militias within Rakhine and across Myanmar in general, as Myanmar is a buffer between the two countries, ethnic issues in Myanmar blowback across Southwest China (eg. Kokang Chinese * ) and Northeast India (eg. Manipur Ethnic Violence **), and both India and China have competing defense and infrastructure projects within Myanmar [3] A lot of this could have been avoided if Jinnah annexed the Rohingya majority regions of Rakhine into Pakistan like Rohingya asked in 1946 [4]. It's sadly another forgotten chapter of Partition and decolonization of the British Raj * If you live in San Francisco, most ethnic Chinese in Chinatown are now Kokang. They own most of those trendy Burmese restaurants like Burma Love and Manadaly ** The Myanmar subgroup of the Kukis (Chin/Zo) have a significant presence in SF and Daly City as well. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arakan_National_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arakan_National_Party [3] - https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how-china-india-bangladesh-could-be-drawn-myanmar-s-conflict https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how-china-indi... [4] - https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/rohingyas-and-the-unfinished-business-of-partition/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/rohingyas-and-the-unfinished...

roenxi 3y ago

The attack on Meta here isn't really justified for the reasons Kissane seems to be providing. Take this paragraph, for example: > By that point in 2018, Myanmar’s military had murdered thousands of Rohingya people, including babies and children, and beaten, raped, tortured, starved, and imprisoned thousands more. About three-quarters of a million Rohingya had fled Myanmar to live in huge, disease-infested refugee camps in Bangladesh. That is the situation on the ground. The country is a powder keg, and there is evil afoot. Maybe there is more context here to come in part II, but it seems unreasonable to lay this at Facebook's feet from an external perspective. Facebook does not call for beatings, rape or killings. I can certainly see Facebook's leadership caring about the PR and doing something. But that raises alternative problems - what exactly is the standard Facebook is meant to enforce? Should it ban everyone who is responsible for pointless killing? That includes the US leadership apparatus - should it ban everyone who voted Aye for the Iraq war? Afghanistan? Wars like Vietnam? (yes, the people who voted for it knew better). They won't do that. We'll have a large, powerful company applying uneven and subjective standards. There is an issue there, but I think the specifics of why she is calling out Facebook are actually dangerously missing the point. The problem is the same no matter what influence Facebook tries to have - the problem is that the will of the people and the will of Facebook's leadership are radically different. In this case, the will of the people is unusually evil - but the problem is the clash and Facebook's position of influence, not which side is wrong on any particular day. Eventually, Facebook will be on the evil side.

crabmusket 3y ago
I have seen discussion of this problem by anti-tech writers become "Facebook caused these atrocities". I agree with you that it's overstating Facebook's role. However, I don't think that places Facebook's conduct beyond criticism. I'm very interested to see part 2, as it sounds like there are more positive acts by Facebook at that time. Rather than just the passive inaction which characterises part 1. But, "refusing to enforce your own policies" is action, and it sounds like Facebook is very guilty of this.
- roenxi 3y ago
  I stress that I'm waiting for Part II, because I don't think she's really gotten to the meat of it. But so far we've got Case 1: Facebook doesn't enforce their policies. There is a genocide. Plausible Case 2: Facebook enforces their policies. There is a genocide. Plausible Case 3: Facebook enforces their policies, shapes the future of a country and learns they are bigger than the people. They start actively influencing elections worldwide to shape a pro-Facebook political consensus. Case 2 is better than 1, but given 3 there is a strong argument that the conversation is being misframed focusing on Facebook's policies. The case where they act and succeed is just as worrying as when they do nothing. Possibly more so, given that there is no evidence at all that Facebook pushing political opinions will result in good outcomes. The mass media have traditionally been cheerleaders for any number of atrocities and help shield corrupt people.

anoy8888 3y ago

I have friends who live in Myanmar and can confirm the ground situation was a lot worse. When all your see are hate speech posts ( about beheading or at best driving away these low lives), it normalizes the hate and dehumanize the victims. History was full of atrocities like this . Free speech is great to have . But violence propaganda is a real problem. You see some of that in America too. Edit : to give people who don’t bother to read the article some idea, many villages were burned down and before that happened , women got raped and killed , the entire village were looted and then killed and then they burned down the villages. The goal was to create fear so that the victims would have no choice but flee their own country. It worked .

agmyintmyatoo 3y ago
All of things you said are happening again after the coup, and the world wouldn't even notice, again.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  It was happening since before the coup, and has been happening since independence. Kachin, Saigang, Rakhine, Shan, and Chin States have all been facing violence insurgencies since independence.
  - v3ss0n 3y ago
    and btw , the person you replying to lives in myanmar.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Oh dang!I didn't realize that!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
aragonite 3y ago
You have to ask yourself why are we obsessed with free speech but you never hear anyone preaching free act? Why the arbitrary restriction to speech/expression? Ah, acts can cause harm to others; people can't just be allowed to do whatever they want, though they should be allowed to say whatever they want, because you can't harm other people by what you say, according to ... the "sticks and stones" principle. The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle!

blackoil 3y ago

Don't know anything about Myanmar. But I would like to add that we should not confuse/bias role of medium, the message and participants. In India, I see maximum no. of toxic messages flowing on WhatsApp groups. These are personal have not ranking or recommendations algorithm, just people forwarding the messages which is primarily because of the increased radicalization of the underlying society.

v3ss0n 3y ago
I am from Myanmar and i agree.
maronato 3y ago
The problem is the scale. WhatsApp groups of colleagues or friends have a very limited reach and exposure. People don’t suddenly wake up radicalized. They are introduced and brainwashed into it by other people via some communication medium. Facebook just happens to not only be the largest but to also boost and promote inflammatory content via its recommendation algorithm.

vachina 3y ago

If people can understand this article but why can’t they understand China banning western social media? In this case Facebook’s intention was to drive engagement, who’s to say it won’t be used by adversaries to selectively drive narratives?

computerfriend 3y ago
China's motives for blocking access to the broader internet are very well understood.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

imgabe 3y ago

How about we blame genocides on, I don’t know, the people committing the genocide? Meta didn’t burn down villages or shoot anyone. People did that. Are we supposed to believe those people have no agency and aren’t responsible for their actions? Like if you see a Facebook post you just have to mindlessly do whatever it says?

alephnerd 3y ago
> How about we blame genocides on, I don’t know, the people committing the genocide We are, yet FB's failure to moderate as well as their failure to provide a legitimate method to escalate to HQ during an active genocide show a severe form of negligence.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Also not all cultures / societies are at the same level and educated about these things. Letting something like FB loose in a world where people don’t understand algorithms and targeted information campaigns should’ve have obvious consequences to those building these platforms.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  Facebook is nothing . Its about 300k strong military and Criminal organized by military killing burning , scotching earth around the country .
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    I 100% agree, but FB needs to face some punishment for not moderating sooner, simply so they can make sure not to enable stuff like this again.
    - v3ss0n 3y ago
      well, current complain in Myanmar community is facebook randomly banning posts that not related to any kind of voilence. many had moved to telegram because facebook very strict moderation

zmmmmm 3y ago

I feel awful saying this about an article about a genocide, but can someone tldr it? What is the substance of the issue?

harmmonica 3y ago
There was a pre-existing prejudice towards muslims/rohinyga in Burma/myanmar by the dominant Buddhist population. As technology developed, specifically mobile phones, it became easier for anti-muslim voices in Myanmar to spread their message. Specific violent acts against Buddhists, such as rape/murder, were, without proper evidence, attributed to the Muslim minority, further stoking prejudice and hate toward the Muslim population. Facebook was warned on many occasions that users attributing the violence against Buddhists to Muslims was leading to calls for violence against the Muslim minority, with multiple meetings/discussions by Myanmar and western sources at Facebook hq itself, only for Facebook to not take any action but instead focus on increasing engagement in Myanmar regardless of the situation on the ground. Slippery slope ensues contributing to the death/genocide of potentially hundreds of thousands of Rohingya/Muslims in Myanmar. More evidence in part 2 which seems like hasn’t been posted yet.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  - There was a pre-existing prejudice towards muslims/rohinyga in Burma/myanmar by the dominant Buddhist population. No , i am 40 years old and before Rohingya crisis we have no hate towards muslim but have to admit we don't even know Rohingya race exist at all . The general populace is very peaceful towards muslim . - it became easier for anti-muslim voices in Myanmar to spread their message. The anti-muslim voice are not from civlians , they are from Junta and Hardline Junta who lost power due to democratic transition and the Hardline Party called USDP . So it is political as evident now as their failure and lead to coup. - Facebook was warned on many occasions that users attributing the violence against Buddhists to Muslims was leading to calls for violence against the Muslim minority, with multiple meetings/discussions by Myanmar and western sources at Facebook hq itself, only for Facebook to not take any action but instead focus on increasing engagement . Deaths and killing are done by military junta , with and without uniform - to look like civilians and their sponsored grouped called MaBaTha .

computerfriend 3y ago

Facebook's first crime here was to incentivise the violation of net neutrality.

anon84873628 3y ago
This is an important overlooked point. Several commenters are saying "social media just reflects human behavior." And we can get into lots of philosophical arguments about free speech, recommendations algorithms, UX patterns, etc. But a key piece here is that there was not a free market for social media or news apps; Facebook was subsidized by the major telecom company so it had a privileged position. A platform with privileged monopoly position should therefore be expected to bear greater responsibility. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

v3ss0n 3y ago

I live in Myanmar. I started my software company at 2010 , as soon as we gained democracy and here are my take as a citizen and a founder who had gone through various stages of the country. The article is more about bashing Facebook and its algorithms but the ground situation is not much due to Facebook at all. The main problem is political players are using Racism , Nationalism , Brainwash , Multimedia as a tool to induce instability so they can go back to non-democratic country , just to take back our freedom. The violence aren't real cause by hatespeech on the Facebook. Sure it increased Racism by a lot but also it leads to find out about truth fast.The actual genocide ware done by the Junta military and Junta assigned thugs who are infused within riots are by a group known as Ma Ba Tha , which was known before as Swan Arr Shin ( Meaning Super Heros) - which ironically used to kill peacefully protesting monks back in 2007 (Saffron Revolution), Now they are known as Pyu Saw Htee who are killing innocent people now regardless of Race or Ethnicity in suspicion of supporting Spring Revolution. They are Ex Junta , Prisoners , low ranking members from the Rival Hardline Military Party lead by extremist nationalists . They are the one who raze and displaced millions of Rohingyas. The start of Rohingya crisis : - At first when the news breakout that innocent girl was raped and killed , the uncensored mutilated body of the underage girl along with caught preps had been posted online who are identified as rohingyas, that is the first time many people had seen violence on the Facebook and it was spread like wild fire , and there was a lot of hate online. - And then. The MaBaTha movement started ( the group i mentioned above) , goes on ground , spreading the image of the post , they organize and formed other nationalists , and then they started using monks , most of them are military spies robed and planted into there since after Saffron Revolution - as a tool for political play. - Soon after they started using monks many real Buddhist are shunning away and stop following as soon as they started using Buddhism as a tool for violence which is totally against buddha's ways and it become appearant that is a political play. - But the riots were organized by military , in Meikhtila case , polices guards the people who burned the whole town to ashes - who are Later Identified as MaBaTha . So here is take away - The crisis is totally fuled by junta nad organized by Junta Swann Arr Shin group ( MaBaTha , and now Pyu Saw Htee) (The organized criminal group , members existed since 1988, used again and again in 1988 , De Pe Yin massacre , Saffron Revolution) . - If there were no Facebook , the Junta would use state owned media and journal outlets and would have the same effect but because of Facebook we have a chance to speak-out , we have a chance to find out truth, report massacres . - Free Speech is very important for us , for a country who had lost freedom for 70+ Years - Free Speech and Facebook has to do very little on Rohingya crisis since it is mostly done by the on-ground , organized criminal . - Facebook Algorithms boost controversial topics that is undeniable - Rohingya genocide was a military sponsored terrorism it was fueled by Military Junta and hard liners and organized criminal group founded by junta. - When the crisis had been controlled by Democratic government , the military start to lose power so they stage a coup in 2021 Now situation is a lot worse The Junta who organized the Rohingya crisis , stage a coup and killed over 5000 innocent civilians of all races and genders , and that had lead to people arming up and fighting against Junta . Details of which i couldn't say much here , because of safety reasons. Please contact me if you want to know more.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

v3ss0n 3y ago

Those hate freespeech , let me say this. I live there and you will never know how valuable and important is free speech when You and your family could get killed , detained, tortured by - just doing a HungerGames `3 finger salute` . - just posting a photo of empty city , to share the truth to the world. - just answering to a BBC Reporter.

habibur 3y ago

As bad as it is in Myanmar -- replace s/Meta/The Internet/g and then check if that makes any difference. Control your population, not the tools they use. Stop the use of one, they will find an alternative that serves the same purpose.

dagmx 3y ago
Unfortunately, this sort of glibness misses the fact that Meta’s algorithms push topic engagement and in doing so, amplify high-emotion content. A passive user of the general internet is not as likely to encounter the same concentration of singular topics as they would on Facebook. Your comment would largely apply only to active seekers of said content.
- spongebobstoes 3y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. "The algorithm" historically favoured engaging posts, which basically means "what people care about". This same algorithm pushes all the good things that someone like Wirathu was doing (for the Buddhist population) as well as the horrific things (promoting genocide). So let's talk about the obvious -- disabling "the algorithm". With no algorithm the problem might be even worse! If someone like Wirathu runs 20 accounts which each post 10+ times per day, his genocidal speech might be even more over-represented to the general populace. Timeline order rewards spammers, which rewards people with resources to simply scale output to more of the same. Well ok, why not improve the algorithm then? It's easy to say "just promote the good stuff", but it's very difficult to do in practice at scale. Let's examine why. Since it's all happening in Burmese, any ML models for sentiment or radicalization or hate speech will hugely lag behind English in effectiveness. A poorly trained auto-moderator is often worse than none at all, because it acts at random. It is also a cat and mouse game -- simple models are stymied by basic (for humans) techniques like misspelling, swapping letters for symbols, inventing new slang words, dogwhistles, appropriating benign words, etc. Ok, so why not scale up moderation? Well, they need to find sufficient Burmese speakers who can be in person in their offices. (In person because of data protection and resources like mental health support.) It's not a popular language, so finding any candidates is already difficult, let alone people who are willing to wade through the horrors of humanity day after day for a paycheck.

lacker 3y ago

To me, the key part of this article comes about 100 paragraphs in. Describing the situation in 2014: Facebook has a single Burmese-speaking moderator—a contractor based in Dublin—to review everything that comes in. Burmese is the 43rd most popular language in the world, so perhaps it isn't surprising that Facebook was having trouble recruiting moderators. http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/clt/cltclt/top100.html http://www2.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/clt/cltc... It's a sad story. As much as I like "free speech" to be the answer, this is a pretty chilling downstream result of a platform not being able to do heavy human moderation.

baby 3y ago
I don't get this though, even in the US how can you perform moderation at such a large scale? Should we moderate the whole internet as well? Internet was always moderated within each communities. If you have a forum, or a page, or a group chat, or whatever, then it's on you to moderate your community. The same is true for a church, or a volleyball club, or a school, etc.
- TheHappyOddish 3y ago
  How do you handle moderating your church that grew fairly rapidly to over a billion parishioners?
exodust 3y ago
> downstream result You're suggesting a lack of heavy moderation results in genocide? I can point you to a million examples where that hasn't happened. If the warehouse full of moderators don't show up to work one day, genocide doesn't therefore happen. The answer isn't slash 'n burn moderation at scale. A far better idea is good old transparency, raw information. No censorship, only improved contextual information, up and down screens, with accurate helpful facts and related info. It's proven to be useful and does actually balance false information right when it happens. That's what you do to respect people, even those in need of educating and correcting from violent ways. They have internet phones, if it's not Meta/FB, it's something else.

spongebobstoes 3y ago

The article claims that "Arturo Bejar" was "head of engineering at Facebook", which is simply false. He appears to have been a Director, which is a manager title overseeing (typically) less than 100 people. That isn't remotely close to "head of engineering". I point this out because I think it calls into question some of the accuracy of how clearly the problem was communicated to relevant people at Facebook. It isn't enough for someone to tell random engineers or Communications VPs about a complex social problem. Those people are not trained in identifying or responding to a genocide, nor do they have the organizational power or professional experience to initiate a serious reaponse. It is saddening but not surprising to me that there was a communication breakdown.

rambambram 3y ago

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tiahura 3y ago

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