5 ms·

> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish. It is happening on our local platforms here. Meta, based

> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish. It is happening on our local platforms here. Meta, based in the US, is systematically censoring Palestinian content that would otherwise be available here in Canada. Details: * https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/... * https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palestine-censorship-sjp/ https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti... For a very recent example, one of the few remaining prominent Palestinian journalists, with a following of over 1M on Meta, was banned today: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jazeeras-anas-al-sharif-returns-to-instagram-despite-suppression https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jaze...

epolanski 2y ago
[flagged]
sattoshi 2y ago
Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook
- bhouston 2y ago
  > Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook You can still follow individual reporters posting their own content. For example I can access both https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ or https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/ https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/, etc. But I can not access the organization pages like https://www.instagram.com/cnn/ https://www.instagram.com/cnn/
- throw1230 2y ago
  Trudeau didn't ban news on FB, FB banned news posted to Canada because they don't want to pay publishers.
  - sattoshi 2y ago
    Surrounded by scandals, Trudeau passed a law that had an oh-so-unintentional side-effect of hiding news from many people’s primary news source. It’s hard to not be cynical about it.
    - wvenable 2y ago
      I can't say I miss it; Facebook is actually usable now and shouldn't be anyone's primary news source.
    - passwordoops 2y ago
      The dude lurches from one sound bite to another with policy so shallow it barely looks at first order effects. I'm sure the impact was fully unintentional. Very welcome after the fact. But still unintentional
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Expecting Facebook or Google to pay publishers is like going back in time to 1970 and saying that a newsstand should be paying newspaper publishers for the privilege of selling their papers.
    - mikehodgson 2y ago
      Google agreed to the terms. They're paying $100 million per year to the Canadian Journalism Collective.
- not2b 2y ago
  No. Canada passed a law requiring Facebook to pay news media for links. Meta said no, we aren't going to do that and banned news instead. You can argue that this was a predictable response by Meta or that it was a stupid law, but it was not a ban.
stickfigure 2y ago
The majority of Canadians share the majority of Americans' view of the Middle East. The majority of Canadians share the majority of Americans' view of China.
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  Which gives us a cyclical problem. Do they share those views because American media has so much influence in Canada? Or does American media have influence in Canada because they Americans and Canadians have shared views? Neighbors in Asia and Europe often have completely unaligned political politics due to a language and media barrier. Even the US and everything south of Texas don't align as much as the US and Canada.
  - lowdest 2y ago
    No. US and Canada share a language and have historically intermingled their populations significantly. We're the same because we have largely similar daily lives as individuals, we have similar problems, and we're populated by people of similar origins. If, for example, conditions caused our paths to diverge, an extreme example would be the split between East and West Germany, then you would expect differing views. Even prior to modern media we were very similar peoples.
    - Loic 2y ago
      Une partie du Canada ne parle pas Anglais.
      - infecto 2y ago
        Yes ~9% of the Canadian population is unable to hold a conversation in English. We are talking about the other 90%.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Which has nothing to do with censorship on social media. Censorship is okay if it matches what people want to see? Sounds like China justifications...
lazystar 2y ago
a non-zero amount of censorship is unavoidable in a social media platform. when nation state A is in control of the censorship of social media platform Z, and designs the censorship of that platform to intentionally hurt nation state B by causing division amongst the citizens of nation state B, then nation state B has every right to ban social media platform Z.
- logicchains 2y ago
  >designs the censorship of that platform to intentionally hurt nation state B by causing division amongst the citizens of nation state B If the division is a result of the platform exposing people in that nation to information that they previously didn't have access to, due to the government censoring it, then it's absolutely a good thing for the people of the nation. The government of the nation state can get fucked when its interests go against the interests of its people. A divided people is a much better thing than a people united by ignorance and belief in falsehood.
  - lazystar 2y ago
    but thats not what nation state A is doing - differing amounts of information is selectively made available to different groups of citizens in nation state B, purely to sow discord when those two groups of citizens interact.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      But it doesn't matter what the intent is. The intent behind many types of publishing and media can be malicious. The ability to publish that media and the ability of Americans to consume that media is protected free speech
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  So if the censorship on Facebook is designed to hurt China, they have every right to ban facebook?
  - 2y ago
seanvelasco 2y ago
can i have a dataset containing articles that were censored? these articles may be misinformation or openly sympathetic to terrorist organizations. i'm quite happy with Meta handling the moderation on the conflict.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  Being openly sympathetic to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is bad, so if your rule is being followed, we should expect to see an equally low amount of information from both sides of the conflict: the Israeli side and the Palestinian side.
  - seanvelasco 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      > there is no genocide of Palestinians in Gaza Sure, just like there is no terrorism in the middle east. We said it, so that makes it true. Honestly though, I believe the rising islamophobia and anti-Palestinian attitudes owe to the proliferation of such content online. There is simply no denying an extremely disproportionate amount of hate speech and misinformation coming from the pro-Israel movement, backed by Israel and Israeli media, and directed towards Palestinians and those who oppose the genocide of them. I say this as a jewish person. I'm just suggesting we remove the noise surrounding the conflict, by curbing the systemic spread of non-truths and hate speech by Israeli-backed disinformation campaigns. Just scroll through any social network or news post with comments. For every one mild post you see describing Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and The West Bank, you will find ten extremely islamophobic comments directed towards Palestinians who had nothing to do with the conflict.
      - seanvelasco 2y ago
        [flagged]
safety1st 2y ago
While one is certainly entitled to disagree with Meta's moderation policies, I feel like this muddies the issue. Specifically what happened in Canada is: * A national security review found Tiktok's operations in Canada to be a risk to national security * Tiktok's operations in Canada are being closed down but Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok * This type of review is pretty opaque by nature so more details are probably unavailable at this stage If Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok I'm not sure there is a speech/censorship issue here. Maybe Tiktok Canada was harboring spies or something, or maybe this is a roundabout way to push Tiktok out of the country later, but I don't think we have any solid public info.
- bryan_w 2y ago
  > If Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok I'm not sure there is a speech/censorship issue here. Maybe Tiktok Canada was harboring spies or something, If tiktok is allowed to do business in the country, then they can buy allegiance via the creator fund which makes it harder to get citizens to realize (and leave it) once they start deploying active measures.
- NooneAtAll3 2y ago
  > I feel like this muddies the issue. "instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole" "It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see" "it's not only China - we do it to ourselves to. Instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole" "this muddies the issue" you know what? instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole
exe34 2y ago
here in the UK, Facebook can't seem to get enough of assisting hamas in their propaganda war.
oort-cloud9 2y ago
[dead]
insane_dreamer 2y ago
For sure US companies do it too. But from a _national security perspective_ the US/Canada don’t care about local companies as much as foreign companies _controlled by a foreign (and in this case hostile) government_.

epolanski 2y ago

[flagged]

sattoshi 2y ago

Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook

bhouston 2y ago
> Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook You can still follow individual reporters posting their own content. For example I can access both https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ or https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/ https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/, etc. But I can not access the organization pages like https://www.instagram.com/cnn/ https://www.instagram.com/cnn/
throw1230 2y ago
Trudeau didn't ban news on FB, FB banned news posted to Canada because they don't want to pay publishers.
- sattoshi 2y ago
  Surrounded by scandals, Trudeau passed a law that had an oh-so-unintentional side-effect of hiding news from many people’s primary news source. It’s hard to not be cynical about it.
  - wvenable 2y ago
    I can't say I miss it; Facebook is actually usable now and shouldn't be anyone's primary news source.
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    The dude lurches from one sound bite to another with policy so shallow it barely looks at first order effects. I'm sure the impact was fully unintentional. Very welcome after the fact. But still unintentional
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Expecting Facebook or Google to pay publishers is like going back in time to 1970 and saying that a newsstand should be paying newspaper publishers for the privilege of selling their papers.
  - mikehodgson 2y ago
    Google agreed to the terms. They're paying $100 million per year to the Canadian Journalism Collective.
not2b 2y ago
No. Canada passed a law requiring Facebook to pay news media for links. Meta said no, we aren't going to do that and banned news instead. You can argue that this was a predictable response by Meta or that it was a stupid law, but it was not a ban.

stickfigure 2y ago

The majority of Canadians share the majority of Americans' view of the Middle East. The majority of Canadians share the majority of Americans' view of China.

forgotoldacc 2y ago
Which gives us a cyclical problem. Do they share those views because American media has so much influence in Canada? Or does American media have influence in Canada because they Americans and Canadians have shared views? Neighbors in Asia and Europe often have completely unaligned political politics due to a language and media barrier. Even the US and everything south of Texas don't align as much as the US and Canada.
- lowdest 2y ago
  No. US and Canada share a language and have historically intermingled their populations significantly. We're the same because we have largely similar daily lives as individuals, we have similar problems, and we're populated by people of similar origins. If, for example, conditions caused our paths to diverge, an extreme example would be the split between East and West Germany, then you would expect differing views. Even prior to modern media we were very similar peoples.
  - Loic 2y ago
    Une partie du Canada ne parle pas Anglais.
    - infecto 2y ago
      Yes ~9% of the Canadian population is unable to hold a conversation in English. We are talking about the other 90%.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
Which has nothing to do with censorship on social media. Censorship is okay if it matches what people want to see? Sounds like China justifications...

lazystar 2y ago

a non-zero amount of censorship is unavoidable in a social media platform. when nation state A is in control of the censorship of social media platform Z, and designs the censorship of that platform to intentionally hurt nation state B by causing division amongst the citizens of nation state B, then nation state B has every right to ban social media platform Z.

logicchains 2y ago
>designs the censorship of that platform to intentionally hurt nation state B by causing division amongst the citizens of nation state B If the division is a result of the platform exposing people in that nation to information that they previously didn't have access to, due to the government censoring it, then it's absolutely a good thing for the people of the nation. The government of the nation state can get fucked when its interests go against the interests of its people. A divided people is a much better thing than a people united by ignorance and belief in falsehood.
- lazystar 2y ago
  but thats not what nation state A is doing - differing amounts of information is selectively made available to different groups of citizens in nation state B, purely to sow discord when those two groups of citizens interact.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    But it doesn't matter what the intent is. The intent behind many types of publishing and media can be malicious. The ability to publish that media and the ability of Americans to consume that media is protected free speech
RobotToaster 2y ago
So if the censorship on Facebook is designed to hurt China, they have every right to ban facebook?
- 2y ago

seanvelasco 2y ago

can i have a dataset containing articles that were censored? these articles may be misinformation or openly sympathetic to terrorist organizations. i'm quite happy with Meta handling the moderation on the conflict.

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
Being openly sympathetic to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is bad, so if your rule is being followed, we should expect to see an equally low amount of information from both sides of the conflict: the Israeli side and the Palestinian side.
- seanvelasco 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    > there is no genocide of Palestinians in Gaza Sure, just like there is no terrorism in the middle east. We said it, so that makes it true. Honestly though, I believe the rising islamophobia and anti-Palestinian attitudes owe to the proliferation of such content online. There is simply no denying an extremely disproportionate amount of hate speech and misinformation coming from the pro-Israel movement, backed by Israel and Israeli media, and directed towards Palestinians and those who oppose the genocide of them. I say this as a jewish person. I'm just suggesting we remove the noise surrounding the conflict, by curbing the systemic spread of non-truths and hate speech by Israeli-backed disinformation campaigns. Just scroll through any social network or news post with comments. For every one mild post you see describing Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and The West Bank, you will find ten extremely islamophobic comments directed towards Palestinians who had nothing to do with the conflict.
    - seanvelasco 2y ago
      [flagged]

safety1st 2y ago

While one is certainly entitled to disagree with Meta's moderation policies, I feel like this muddies the issue. Specifically what happened in Canada is: * A national security review found Tiktok's operations in Canada to be a risk to national security * Tiktok's operations in Canada are being closed down but Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok * This type of review is pretty opaque by nature so more details are probably unavailable at this stage If Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok I'm not sure there is a speech/censorship issue here. Maybe Tiktok Canada was harboring spies or something, or maybe this is a roundabout way to push Tiktok out of the country later, but I don't think we have any solid public info.

bryan_w 2y ago
> If Canadians are still able to use and post on Tiktok I'm not sure there is a speech/censorship issue here. Maybe Tiktok Canada was harboring spies or something, If tiktok is allowed to do business in the country, then they can buy allegiance via the creator fund which makes it harder to get citizens to realize (and leave it) once they start deploying active measures.
NooneAtAll3 2y ago
> I feel like this muddies the issue. "instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole" "It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see" "it's not only China - we do it to ourselves to. Instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole" "this muddies the issue" you know what? instead of focusing on China, we should limit the issue as a whole

exe34 2y ago

here in the UK, Facebook can't seem to get enough of assisting hamas in their propaganda war.

oort-cloud9 2y ago

[dead]

insane_dreamer 2y ago

For sure US companies do it too. But from a _national security perspective_ the US/Canada don’t care about local companies as much as foreign companies _controlled by a foreign (and in this case hostile) government_.