Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia, UAE
alqst.org879 points by giuliomagnifico 10 hours ago
879 points by giuliomagnifico 10 hours ago
Remember when they told us that social media would "spread democracy" ?
No, I don’t. I remember when the internet would (it did!) and Usenet would (it did!) and irc and open source and the web (they did!) but social media was always about entertainment and (one way or another) monetization of those technologies. It’s the cancer of our collective mind and achievements.
Here you go.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/08/the-twitter-devolution/
See also...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evalu...
And these lies, of course, were spread by the social media platforms themselves and their PR departments.
Why did you trust what The Atlantic and Foreign Policy had to say at the time? Anyone can tell you anything ; that's no reason to take them so seriously you're disappointed if events years later show their claims to be wrong.
It’s just an example that there exists a “they” that were making these claims.
Goalpost moving > No one said this > They said this > Ok but why did you believe them
Social media was about staying in touch. Whether that was about your friends and family (Facebook) or your city / neighborhood (Twitter). Algorithmic feeds are what poisoned the well.
Isn't that precisely why this is happening? Because it's doing exactly that, and the people in power in these countries don't like it?
At some point societies are going to have to reckon with the fact that democracy, free speech, and unrestricted capitalism simply aren't a sustainable mix. A system that allows people to amass incredible fortunes and use those fortunes to influence other people's beliefs and votes is simply a system that will eventually fall under the control of those ultrawealthy people.
Unrestricted capitalism doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
Neither does democracy nor free speech. It's interesting that you felt the need to quibble over only one of those three definitions.
I used those words in the context of the rise of companies like Meta and people like Zuckerberg. I trusted the people reading what I wrote to know that. A response telling me the US is a republic adds nothing to the conversation but allowing an individual to bask in their own pedantry.
Depending on your definition, it may actually exist in many places around the world. As long as criminal CEOs/executives/engineers are not prosecuted under the laws they break everyday, one could argue "unrestricted" is the norm here in France, or in the USA. Two small examples out of a widespread issue:
- tobacco company execs lied under oath in the USA and killed millions for profit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Berkshire
- fascist-owned CNews keeps spreading illegal (under french law) fake news yet noone is jailed, the fines barely make a dent in the profits, and their nationwide TV channel continues to receive license despite breaking all regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNews#Warnings_and_sanctions
That's just scratching the surface.
What’s your more effective, less flawed alternative with a proven track record?
High captial tax rates, strong labor protections, and banned stock buybacks as a start. So much hubub over "make america great again" but we seem very coy about looking at fiscal policy back in the "great" days.
And I don't even think these are the best ideas. But they have "a proven track record".
The "proven track record" part of your question is shortsighted. We shouldn't restrict future political thought by past political thoughts. We'd never see any progress that way.
If you're asking which one of the three I think we should focus our attention for change, I think the obvious answer from both a moral and logical standpoint is capitalism. The combination of democracy and free speech means money is political power. Allowing individuals to amass this much political power is both unjust and destabilizing. That goes for companies as well. If companies are going to be amorally motivated purely by money, we need to do a better job of pricing in externalities to put reins on that amorality.
Someone smarter than me can weight on this part, but I don't think it was/is capitalism per se. Moving off the gold standard, and allowing the Dodge Brothers to win the case saying stock holders were more important than paying workers were a 1-2 gut punch to capitalism. I don't believe our forefathers would be very proud of us if they saw this mess.
There were times when NASA went to space, not incredibly wealthy individuals…
NASA went and turned itself into a gigantic inefficient bureaucracy to the point that SpaceX considers NASA experience a negative.
I think Julius Caesar demands a word if we were only supposed to use systems with proven track records.
Are you seriously claiming that building an empire didn't have a proven track record by the time of Caesar? Interesting.
No, Caesar suggests that no founding father of a modern country accepted your requirement of a proven track record for republics.
It's not an either/or situation... we can improve on the capitalist system we have today (in the US) through government policy (taxes, whatever). I fear we're actually too late, and ceded too ,much influence to the billionaire class, but that's not totally proven out yet.
Marginal tax rates on income and wealth that make being a billionaire impossible? The US was prosperous with much higher marginal tax rates for instance.
We should treat existing fortunes as bugs and correct them.
I’m not sure if you are aware but there are ways for the rich and powerful to live, maintain and earn fortunes outside of the US.
The Islamic system does not permit uncontrolled capitalism, requires fair financial transactions, is pro rights for both rulers and the population, enforces Zakat (alms tax / a form of wealth tax).
The middle east has the largest concentration of billionaires outside of US/China and huge poverty alongside. It is so grotesque that the rich will often just kill people and casually pay blood money.
That certainly explains the flood of migrants from the West to the Middle East and North Africa.
Who told you that, the entire point was to talk to girls you lacked the courage to strike up a conversation with.
Saying ‘hi, I also like that band you have a shirt of’ was just too hard so we had to create trillion dollar monstrosities.
“Spread democracy” means “manipulate public opinion to submit to USA”.
That includes censoring content that threatens puppet governments.
I’ve never heard a single time social media companies say that social media would spread democracy. Sounds like a straw man to me
It was a fairly common narrative during the Arab Spring, when the technology was still relatively novel.
It can and does. The power of social media to spread ideas and accelerate political action is why fascists took it over and co-opted it. That's why we're fed the narrative that social media is evil and needs to be regulated or banned at all costs.
> That's why we're fed the narrative that social media is evil and needs to be regulated or banned at all costs.
Social media prioritizing algorithms that feed off division and anger is evil.
If Facebook & Twitter were still ways to simply keep in touch with friends, family, and interest groups, I don't think anyone would care (other than the ads).
I think Facebook is still that for most people. I think the narrative of widespread social addiction and "mind control" through social media is intentionally overstated to serve a political agenda. These problems to exist, social media can be addictive, misinformation does spread like wildfire, but I fear focusing on "algorithms" as a whole rather than the sources of misinformation or the companies running the big platforms is an attempt to make information and communication (and by extension political organization and action) more difficult in the long run.
Most people's proposed solutions seem counterproductive. Making social media illegal and banning it entirety removes a valuable means of communication and networking for people. Forcing all social media platforms with n> users to be nationalized means all platforms that might be useful for activism will be controlled by the government. Forcing them to only use strictly alphabetic or chronological listings makes access more difficult, but doesn't necessarily remove polarizing or false information. Repealing Section 230 would cripple speech across the internet and make it impossible for platform owners to police minsinformation and hate speech without taking on legal liability for themselves. All of these solutions at least implicitly serve the interests of authoritarians and all of them only seem reasonable because of the current moral panic around social media.
Do you remember cases in which it "accelerated political action" ?
also BLM, israel palestine
and the genocide in myanmar, that was definitely accelerated political action
There have been plenty. Surely you aren't arguing that social media has never done so. Arguably social media has been one of the most catalyzing political forces in human history. And bearing in mind that "political action" can be in any direction, I found some examples. I didn't work very hard because this could have literally been a Google search on your part.
Arab Spring
Nepalese Discord Protests
Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine
2009 Iranian presidential election protests
2011 Egyptian revolution
#BlackLivesMatter
#MeToo
Hong Kong protests
#NoKings protests
Yellow Vest protests (France)
Anti-Israel/Pro-Palestine protests
Anti-vaccine protests during COVID
Rohingya genocide
GamerGate
The case of Iran in 2009 is notoriously false. See for example what ForeignPolicy has to say about it.
More in general, Malcolm Gladwell is not convinced about the power of social media...
It's clear time and again that having short-term growth at all costs means you can't have principles.
I think you can have principles. They just need to be chiseled unambiguously into your articles of incorporation.
Do they have a choice? It’s either that or they are shown the door, in which case they will probably be replaced by worse local alternatives in terms of freedom of speech and gov influence
"Somebody's gonna profit from these authoritarian regimes, so it might as well be us!" -Zuck, probably
>Do they have a choice?
Yes, they absolutely have a choice. People can choose to not assist with transgressions against human rights in the year 2026 :)
Meta is not people, it's a publicly traded company that's practically legally required to make money and grow infinitely.
You however, as people, can choose not to patronize a Meta that assists with transgressions against human rights.
>Meta is not people, it's a publicly traded company that's practically legally required to make money and grow infinitely.
Has a company ever faced any sort of legal repercussions for sacrificing profit for moral reasons? That isn't rhetorical. I'm not aware of this ever happening, so I'm dubious of your claim.
No. The answer is no, and such spurious claims are parroted only by the privileged class.
And companies are legal fiction. Meta doesn't remove a post, a person does. Or maybe some software built by a person.
A person from a government told a person at Meta to block it, and that person did (probably by telling yet more people to do it).
this is a very poorly framed argument, a company is comprised of people who make executive decisions such as the very topic we're making right now. they have the discretion to choose strategies at generating shareholder value that aren't so short sighted as to be on the wrong ethical side of this.
Meta is a legal person in almost all jurisdictions it operates within
It is also operated by human individuals as employees and c-suite
“If I don’t sell drugs, guns etc at the street corner, someone else will. Might as well be me, I’d like to make a few hundred Billion while I am at it”
Is this a good justification though? I get what you’re saying, but the same argument you’re making for social media can also be applied to everything else, isn’t it?
If I don’t do human cloning, someone else will. If I don’t make bio weapons, someone else will. And so on
> Do they have a choice?
Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have extradition treaties with the United States. (On a practical level, they wouldn't be able to enforce one if they had it.)
Russia and China can do that, but I am not sure Saudi and UAE reasonably could. Too small and too enmeshed with the US empire
Saudi could - I think people accept Saudi is a religious oligarchy - but the UAE is a playground of international people avoiding tax and ostensibly a first world country, Facebook being banned would highlight how ridiculous the government that did that is.
It's an authoritarian autocracy. I'm not using that as a slur against them as it seems like quite a nice place to stay for a while, but it's simply what it is. An American spent the better part of a year in a max security prison there for the high crime of making a video mocking youth culture. [1] I'm rather surprised to find out that Facebook isn't already banned! In looking it up turns out you can get into legal trouble there for things as small as using suggestive emojis, and they are watching. Kind of funny in a way.
Anyhow, yeah - Facebook being banned in UAE would surprise exactly nobody that's familiar with their government. People are willing to tolerate a whole lot of nonsense for 0% taxes!
[1] - https://apnews.com/general-news-4c1f57ed465940659eeb79b41447...
Even disregarding the ability to criticize the government, Western expats seeking 0% tax want to be able to talk with their family, friends, and business partners elsewhere in the world. UAE banning Meta platforms reduces the country's appeal for foreigners
Yes, they have a choice. Profits are more important than values.
Right, but it should be acknowledged that this is likely an amoral decision on Facebook's part (or more charitably, a pragmatic decision) not an immoral one.
The governments that forced these changes in the first place are of course acting immorally, that's not in dispute.
I don’t think that’s what amoral means. It’s not malicious but doing something that hurts others just because you gain money from it isn’t amoral just because you’re not doing it just to inflict pain.
Hyperbolic example: If your boss tells you to kill the next customer or you won’t get paid, doing the killing isn’t amoral.
Good point. Even if Facebook is being threatened they're still ultimately responsible for their actions. Maybe amoral isn't the right word to describe this.
I guess it just feels like a lot to me to expect a company to break the law on purpose, even in the service of a greater moral duty. But maybe it shouldn't. Obviously if they did pull out of the UAE and Saudi Arabia over this rather than comply that would be a laudable stand.
Facebook acquiscing to dictatorships that block human rights organizations is immoral.
It is.
It’s not as bas as the time they helped organise a genocide though, so there is that.
People here all complain about social American social media companies defying the law when they refuse to cooperate with EU censorship, then they complain about them not defying the law with Saudi censorship, it's a double standard.
Yes of course, clearly the EU and Saudia Arabia both have equal censorship initiatives and human rights track records.
Apologies for the sarcasm. But I think it’d be helpful for you to expand a little on what you mean by EU “censorship” in this case.
Social media companies post record earnings year after year from their ads business while increasingly proving to be harmful to society. They do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots while priming the algorithms to maximize revenue. The good ol' privatized profits, socialized harm model.
In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? Maybe we'll be left with small federated platforms without algorithms and ads.
> In a just world
In a just world what Zuckerberg and his cronies are doing - the sheer unrelenting tidal wave of destabilising societal damage (nationally, internationally, globally), not to mention the negative consequences of bullying and the exacerbation of mental health issues at individual and group levels over the course of, now, decades - would be considered crimes, and they would all be put on trial, held to account, and appropriately sanctioned for them.
What he's done to individuals, to marginalised and oppressed groups, to societies, and to global stability is far worse than any damage that, for example, Sam Bankman-Fried managed to do and yet somehow SBF is in prison for 25 years and Zuck walks free.
Not OK.
(Not to say SBF doesn't deserve his criminal penalty but to highlight the disconnect where we're not seeing similar treatment of these social media moguls who, at very best, are completely indifferent to the harm they cause but whom, one starts to suspect, are actually gunning for that harm in order to cement their own power and positions.)
In a just world Zuckerberg would already be talked of only in past tense. This reality will get flagged/killed without a single Meta employee/astroturfer who does the flagging providing a justification as to why this isn't true.
SBF took money from rich people and nearly lost it.
Zuck made money for rich people.
Criminal culpability must always filter through this lens.
I think what social media companies are doing is both immoral and criminal. In a just world this behavior would count as a crime against humanity and the people responsible would be tried in a court of law accordingly. In a just world we would have strong consumer protection laws which would protect users against the behavior your parent described. And consumer protection agencies would shut these companies down before they were able to cause this much harm, The worst offenders like Zuckerberg would be criminally charged and go to prison.
I’m taking it as a given that any sufficiently large social network is a gigantic propaganda machine of interest to domestic and foreign nation-state actors.
Entertaining the thought experiment where all the normies join the fediverse: now you’ve got a big juicy target maintained by hobbyists.
When it’s Lazarus Group vs Randall, the over-worked sys admin who stood up a node in his spare time, who do you think wins?
Social networks are cancer. Just ban the lot of them and move on.
You are worrying about domestic nation state actors, and you are calling social media to be banned by whom? Some mysterious administrative entity that is surely not a part of the domestic nation state doing the very propaganda you are railing against?
Surely the people with the power to ban the lot of social media don't have their own propaganda to shove down your throat. Surely they will only ban the bad ones where foreign agents spread dangerous ideas and keep the good ones where only upright citizens of their own country can talk about how great everything is.
Shhh if you say too much you’re gonna rattle their “the government will save us if we vote hard enough” worldview
They should be rattled. The US didn’t vote its way to independence from the England. Freedom never comes without a cost paid in blood, but people don’t want to admit that anymore.
>Just ban the lot of them and move on.
How do you define social network, though? Is Facebook a social network, even though it includes a marketplace? Is HN a social network? Is Newgrounds a social network....? Seems difficult to stomp out effectively
We can come up with a definition and refine it. Maybe something like: algorithmic content suggestions trying to maximize engagement and time on app (leave out chronological + explicit follow).
Banning is not the way to go about things. India is always ban happy -> a competitive exam in a state? Take down internet in the whole state to curb cheating. Outright banning hard to deal with stuff sets a bad precedent.
You don't ban the users or the internet, you make it illegal to do shitty psyops on the public. They were making plenty of money on chronological friend feeds.
How do you ban psyops? Require every user register with a gov ID so there’s someone to go after? What’s a psyop vs a grassroots contrarian movement like LGBT used to be?
Anonymity online seems the ultimate double edge sword. I prefer privacy over government prescribed safety.
I know I'm in the crazy minority but I'm over anonymity at this point. I want to know who's a real person and sincerely who they claim to be. The harms of trolling, scamming and societal mis/disinformation, for me, outweigh whatever benefit exists in anonymity. I've never assumed I was anonymous from the government anyway so really, we're just anonymous from one-another. Seems like a classic method of divide and conquer now that I think about it. All that said, I have no idea how to safely enforce ID'ing without some kind of authority (goverment or ideally something else).
I'm willing to violate laws in order to facilitate people you claim are disinformation-spreading anonymous trolls being able to speak online anyway.
You investigate and punish groups found to be running psyops, simple as. No need to automate the whole process with ID checks, these organizations make and spend money so the tracks are there to find. If suspected drag them into discovery and gather evidence like you would for financial fraud or criminal conspiracy.
They are often in other countries, and there are much worse crimes to focus attention on with a limited budget. This does happen and should more often, but it’s far from a full solution.
Sure, let's just give the state a pretext to jail anyone espousing opinions they don't like for running a psyop. Surely no government will abuse this power and brand anyone in their opposition as a psyop bot army that needs to be removed from the internet.
If they want to they'll do that under any pretense they can get away with. See the current administration declaring intent to treat pro-LGBT speech or anti-fascist speech as indicative of participation in terrorist groups.
You just can't let a government get this bad, and the set of rules and procedures you need to reign in a tyrant are pretty different from the ones you need to keep a system stable and functioning under normal operation.