Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Your argument is that Facebook was the de facto communications medium in the region, so it’s a fact that they contributed?

Did Boeing contribute to 911?



Here, Facebook was a medium designed for maximum dispersion of information among groups of people--remember the pious crusade, "connecting the world"?--which, when carried out to the point that waves of toxic, destructive information can propagate across that medium, is just an insane thing to unleash upon the world without some really rigorous safety measures. The problem is that Facebook intentionally optimized for virality and completely ignored, repeatedly and aggressively, critiques that not all information dissemination is inherently good.

I don't know if that is or is not corporate negligence, but we should consider it so. It is detrimental to humanity, and they have continued to try to ignore the immense responsibility that the world now finds them in hold of. If they cannot very quickly act as responsible stewards of this immense power, they should not be entrusted with it. That is how government has always worked, and guess what! Making infrastructure public so that it can be regulated, monitored and managed for the public good turns out to be a good thing. FB is social infrastructure and needs to either accept and act on their deep responsibilities or cease trying to be social infrastructure.


Yes they were in fact complicit. They provided and subsidized a platform and then didn't bother to enforce their own community standards on that platform.

Perhaps read the BSR Myanmar report[1] and then read FB's own blog post where they agree with many of those findings in the BSR report[2].

[1] https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/bsr-faceboo...

[2] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/

Your comparison of Boeing and 911 is beyond absurd even as a strawman.


That's an odd comparison to make; Boeing did not exert control over the passengers, crew, or flight path. Facebook exerts control over membership, access and exposure.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: