4 ms·

The previous parts do say that Facebook was not doing well even when it was just disorganized masses and some provocateurs, but I am the only one who feels it i

by jowea 3y ago

The previous parts do say that Facebook was not doing well even when it was just disorganized masses and some provocateurs, but I am the only one who feels it is weird that Facebook, a private company, is expect to "fight" state organizations? Is this consequence of free market capitalism really how the US should do things?

rakoo 3y ago
[flagged]
- logicchains 3y ago
  >without inciting a mass genocide The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. >capitalism should be abolished Pretty rich saying this while commenting on Myanmar. Myanmar did abolish capitalism, that's why they have a communist government, and nobody has the power to stand up to the government because no capitalism == no private property. Abolishing capitalism is essentially saying "only people in the government are allowed to own property", and on top of that constructing a violent state apparatus to destroy anyone who dares to acquire property of their own. You can't abolish capitalism without also having groups of armed men arresting or killing anyone who tries to open a shop, because violently intervening is the only way to stop two willing parties from trading with each other. And this is not exaggeration, it's literally what happened in China and Russia after the communist revolutions.
  - rakoo 3y ago
    > The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. It's not about who did the genocide, it's about what was the role of Facebook in the genocide > Abolishing capitalism is essentially saying "only people in the government are allowed to own property" As you said before, abolishing capitalism means abolishing private property. If the government has property, capitalism wasn't abolished; in fact, as what happened in USSR and China, capitalism wasn't abolished, it was only enabled for a different subset of the population. > and on top of that constructing a violent state apparatus to destroy anyone who dares to acquire property of their own. Surely you know about communist and socialist ideology and don't imply that a state is still necessary
    - g-b-r 3y ago
      Abolishing capitalism does NOT mean abolishing private property!!! Private property existed for thousand of years before capitalism, just as trade and an economy!!! Capitalism is only the belief (or supposed belief) that if everyone does everything he can to earn as much as possible, things will go in the best possible way!! If you take out capitalism you get simply an economy with less absurd axioms, NOT COMMUNISM!!!
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    > The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. There's a very good chance that it could not have happened without Facebook
    - jowea 3y ago
      I'm not sure about that, Facebook was used because that's where people were, but for the example Rwanda, they used the radio. But it seems Facebook actually was the introduction to mass communications for a lot of people according to the articles, so yes, very good chance in this case.
- jowea 3y ago
  My point is not to absolve Facebook really. If they're making the software, publishing it to the country, designing the algorithm for maximum profit, profiting when a fake news content farm posts hate speech, and making deals to zero-rate the service then yes they definitively share in the blame. It's more that we are expecting an US company with a goal profit and controlled by a single person to be the world moderator. We got used to it but to me it feels weird if I try to stop being a fish in the water. The US government is not really definitive on whether their large companies and media industry are an agent of state power or not. Sometimes they aren't, sometimes the government pushes a bit (like with the Hollywood military movies), sometimes Congress calls Zuckerberg to complain, sometimes it's American society that pushes American companies into pursuing goals in other countries. But then Facebook is expected to oppose state organizations from other countries. Sure they have the money but is that really in their purview and the best way to handle things? And in this case, the local government, which in an ideal world would be the proper "moderator" for when the national debate has gone beyond acceptable bounds is actually an hostile agent. So the foreign private organization is supposed to deal with that. In my opinion a situation where a profit-maximizing company is in this type of situation where profit and basic human rights are in conflict things already have gone wrong. I don't know how but avoiding a genocide shouldn't depend on some distant corporate officer paying attention to a country responsible for a tiny fraction of revenue and deciding to lower the company's profits! And one of the root problems IMHO is that like a few things in the tech world, this series makes obvious the issues with Myanmar like a lot of other Third World countries using tech developed in and for the West. So Facebook then throws its platform over the wall for some extra profit above what it gets in the First World, grabs nearly the entire market since it has lots of already invested capital in software and infrastructure and negotiating power for zero-rating, all without having to expend barely any money doing things like hiring moderators or adapting to local conditions. Sorry for rambling.

by jowea 3y ago

rakoo 3y ago

[flagged]

logicchains 3y ago
>without inciting a mass genocide The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. >capitalism should be abolished Pretty rich saying this while commenting on Myanmar. Myanmar did abolish capitalism, that's why they have a communist government, and nobody has the power to stand up to the government because no capitalism == no private property. Abolishing capitalism is essentially saying "only people in the government are allowed to own property", and on top of that constructing a violent state apparatus to destroy anyone who dares to acquire property of their own. You can't abolish capitalism without also having groups of armed men arresting or killing anyone who tries to open a shop, because violently intervening is the only way to stop two willing parties from trading with each other. And this is not exaggeration, it's literally what happened in China and Russia after the communist revolutions.
- rakoo 3y ago
  > The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. It's not about who did the genocide, it's about what was the role of Facebook in the genocide > Abolishing capitalism is essentially saying "only people in the government are allowed to own property" As you said before, abolishing capitalism means abolishing private property. If the government has property, capitalism wasn't abolished; in fact, as what happened in USSR and China, capitalism wasn't abolished, it was only enabled for a different subset of the population. > and on top of that constructing a violent state apparatus to destroy anyone who dares to acquire property of their own. Surely you know about communist and socialist ideology and don't imply that a state is still necessary
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    Abolishing capitalism does NOT mean abolishing private property!!! Private property existed for thousand of years before capitalism, just as trade and an economy!!! Capitalism is only the belief (or supposed belief) that if everyone does everything he can to earn as much as possible, things will go in the best possible way!! If you take out capitalism you get simply an economy with less absurd axioms, NOT COMMUNISM!!!
- g-b-r 3y ago
  > The Myanmar government incited a mass genocide, Facebook was just one of the communication mediums they used. There's a very good chance that it could not have happened without Facebook
  - jowea 3y ago
    I'm not sure about that, Facebook was used because that's where people were, but for the example Rwanda, they used the radio. But it seems Facebook actually was the introduction to mass communications for a lot of people according to the articles, so yes, very good chance in this case.
jowea 3y ago
My point is not to absolve Facebook really. If they're making the software, publishing it to the country, designing the algorithm for maximum profit, profiting when a fake news content farm posts hate speech, and making deals to zero-rate the service then yes they definitively share in the blame. It's more that we are expecting an US company with a goal profit and controlled by a single person to be the world moderator. We got used to it but to me it feels weird if I try to stop being a fish in the water. The US government is not really definitive on whether their large companies and media industry are an agent of state power or not. Sometimes they aren't, sometimes the government pushes a bit (like with the Hollywood military movies), sometimes Congress calls Zuckerberg to complain, sometimes it's American society that pushes American companies into pursuing goals in other countries. But then Facebook is expected to oppose state organizations from other countries. Sure they have the money but is that really in their purview and the best way to handle things? And in this case, the local government, which in an ideal world would be the proper "moderator" for when the national debate has gone beyond acceptable bounds is actually an hostile agent. So the foreign private organization is supposed to deal with that. In my opinion a situation where a profit-maximizing company is in this type of situation where profit and basic human rights are in conflict things already have gone wrong. I don't know how but avoiding a genocide shouldn't depend on some distant corporate officer paying attention to a country responsible for a tiny fraction of revenue and deciding to lower the company's profits! And one of the root problems IMHO is that like a few things in the tech world, this series makes obvious the issues with Myanmar like a lot of other Third World countries using tech developed in and for the West. So Facebook then throws its platform over the wall for some extra profit above what it gets in the First World, grabs nearly the entire market since it has lots of already invested capital in software and infrastructure and negotiating power for zero-rating, all without having to expend barely any money doing things like hiring moderators or adapting to local conditions. Sorry for rambling.