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Facebook Has Turned Into a Beast in Myanmar, UN Says (bbc.com) 96

UN investigators have accused Facebook of playing a "determining role" in stirring up hatred against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. From a report: One of the team probing possible acts of genocide said Facebook had "turned into a beast." About 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar's military launched an operation in August against "insurgents" in Rakhine state. Facebook has said there is "no place for hate speech" on its platform. "We take this incredibly seriously and have worked with experts in Myanmar for several years to develop safety resources and counter-speech campaigns," a Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC.

The UN's Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar announced the interim findings of its investigation on Monday. During a press conference the chairman of the mission, Marzuki Darusman, said that social media had "substantively contributed to the level of acrimony" amongst the wider public, against Rohingya Muslims. "Hate speech is certainly, of course, a part of that," he added.

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Facebook Has Turned Into a Beast in Myanmar, UN Says

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  • Looks like a space has opened up for a social platform offering Unlimited Free Speech.

    • This also includes unlimited fake news and propaganda though.
      I don't know how this got so bad on facebook. Problems for sure are the filter bubble effect due to peers. From my experience the worst were the recommended news though, which always came from totally unreliable sources. I don't know anyone who recommended such rubbish personally. The quality seems slightly better now, but more importantly I only get articles on non-political topics now.
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        People can believe anything, some people literally anything what so ever. How ever people will also tend to believe what ever serves their own personal interest or in a twisty way, what they believe is their own personal interest. Did facebook trigger the crisis, probably but likely just triggered earlier, rather than a little latter. People struggling in that environment simply seized upon the opportunity for a competitive advantage within their society and collectively aligned their beliefs to assuage the

    • That might last a week or even a month before it's just Troll Central. That's a fate Facebook has to avoid to remain something close to profitable.

  • The now famous line about the potential perils of democracy is what comes to mind in this most certainly not isolated incident.

    When a majority of the people agree it is socially acceptable to hatemonger upon a targeted minority, the rule of law is rendered mute by the cacophony of voices willing to suspend decency for the brief ecstasy of a social like or two or thirty.

  • And it's the same everywhere.

    It helped Russians violate US election law. It helps landlords illegally advertise based on race, religion, age, and gender.

    How many laws does it have to break before we admit it is a criminal enterprise?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Sigh.

      You think your election laws apply anywhere outside of the US?

      Guess what, cupcake, it doesn't. Russia doesn't give a shit and neither does the US when it comes to interfering in other sovereign states.

      What's pissing off Hilary Clinton's mindless drones is that - for whatever reason - that evil witch didn't get "Her Turn."

      For all of us outside the US, it's just fucking hilarious. And btw, just two political parties? That's no democracy.

      • The election occur in the US, so guess what CUPCAKE, the US law does apply to US elections.

        It is a crime to do publicly advertise or contribute to a candidate without obeying the US election laws.

    • The question is not whether it can be used to commit crimes, the question is whether it has substantial non-criminal uses or perhaps whether there's criminal intent. In the cases you mentioned, Facebook didn't commit a crime, but rather criminals used it.

  • by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @06:56PM (#56255741)

    ... and it's not other social media.

    It's people who take that sit seriously.

    You'd think that, by now, people would know that social media is a game room.

    It was intended for entertainment purposes only.

    It's not Facebook.

    It's us.

  • ... the only way to win is not to play.

    Ignore the baiting and keep scrolling until you get to the cat video.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Islam has been a genocidial cult for the last 1400 years: how is that Facebook's fault?

  • by Prien715 ( 251944 ) <agnosticpope@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @07:04PM (#56255795) Journal

    What's terribly insidious about Facebook as a platform is not the speech it allows, but the speech it promotes.

    Here on /., you have numerous ways about how to order the comments on the site, which ones to show/not show, etc. Facebook does not. Instead, it orders your feed based on what it thinks you will interact with -- this happens to be things which we strongly disagree with. Instead of a society where reasonable people have discussions about solutions to problems, Facebook has created a platform where it literally promotes posts that troll to increase "user engagement" -- and thus their ad revenue. Online discussions have literally become worse since Facebook has existed -- and you see it here too.

    In Soviet Valley, Facebook uses you.

    • I don't see how that's different to every other media platform including this one. Controversy attracts eyeballs. Eyeballs attract ads. Ads attract money. etc. Look at the recent CNN controversy where they basically admitted the Russia scandal they've been promoting is fake news.

      • Of course controversy attracts eyeballs, but who's voices do I hear in the discussion?

        If I want to hear from trolls on this site, I just broswse at -1 -- really easy -- I'm choosing who to read.

        If I want to avoid trolls on Facebook? To begin with, there's no way to "down mod" anything on Facebook -- you have your choice of love/like/angry/funny -- where as /. has a few options to downmod -- flamebait and troll. To make matters worse, their ranking algorithm picks out the stories with said reactions to feed

      • You basically admitted you eat up all the fake news you agree with.
  • by DatbeDank ( 4580343 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @07:29PM (#56255907)

    The Rohingyan Muslims have for years been a constant thorn in the side of Burmese people and government. The Rohingyans have been attacking and killing the Buddhists in the region for well over a century now.

    This so-called "Genocide" is the response to constant acts of violent Jihad against otherwise peaceful Buddhists that have been going on for years. Shame that the media has been ignoring the plight of these peaceful Buddhists finally snapping and defending themselves against this onslaught of Arabic barbarism.

    Make no mistake, the Rohingyans brought it upon themselves for their inability to peacefully live alongside Buddhists.

    • Appauling Lies (Score:2, Interesting)

      by aberglas ( 991072 )

      There is nothing peaceful about the Burmese Buddhists that that are murdering and raping *thousands* of Rohingyans. The evidence is overwhelming that the Rohingya are the victims. And their plight is severe.

      It is Genocide, and due to apathy by Australia and others likely to be successful.

      I do not know how you can live with yourself promoting such lies. I suppose you think that the Jews also brought the Holocaust upon themselves. And that Pol Pot was a kind man misunderstood by western media.

      I have seen

    • The British must bear the responsibility on the racial / religious conflict

      It was the British who promised the Rohingya migrants a muslim state inside the Buddhist Burma (the Brits had/have no right to do that, but they did) and gave weapons to the Rohingya which they used to slaughter the Buddhists

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arakan_massacres_in_1942

      During World War II in Burma (present-day Myanmar), Rohingya Muslims (allied with the British and promised a Muslim state in return) fought against local Ra

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 )

      Make no mistake, the Rohingyans brought it upon themselves for their inability to peacefully live alongside Buddhists.

      Citation needed. Why the hell was this modded up when there is no concrete information? Whats next, +5 insightful for "9-11 was done by the jews?"

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Because it's a well documented historic fact. Look up what happened in 1942 for example. Bangladeshi Muslims were basically the British weapon of conquest against native Burmese Buddhists supported by Japanese.

        And then Brits pulled out as Japanese defeated them at the time

        Current mess is geopolitically likely an anti-Chinese move. OBOR needs exits to the maritime lanes that bypass potential naval blockade of Straight of Malacca. Rakhine is one of these exits. Pumping up the Muslim insurgency against Buddhis

      • A citation, really? Do you habitually stick your head in the sand?

        A specific example of attempted genocide by Islamic invaders. [wikipedia.org] ...with the Muslim camps being described as building "towers of skulls of the infidels" on hillocks.

        Here's another reference for your citation list. [wikipedia.org]

        another one. [thereligionofpeace.com]

        • You know, if I search history back centuries, I can find horrors from any religion you'd care to name (and also horrors not supported by religion). As for your second link, while I abhor the Muslim penalties for apostasy, they don't apply to non-Muslims, and I can find lots of death penalties in the past for relatively small crimes. As far as a biased web site goes, that's not going to convince anybody.

          Look, I don't like Islam, and I don't like current Muslim governments, but Islam is not nearly as bad

          • You know, if I search history back centuries, I can find horrors from any religion you'd care to name (and also horrors not supported by religion). As for your second link, while I abhor the Muslim penalties for apostasy, they don't apply to non-Muslims, and I can find lots of death penalties in the past for relatively small crimes. As far as a biased web site goes, that's not going to convince anybody.

            Look, I don't like Islam, and I don't like current Muslim governments, but Islam is not nearly as bad as some people claim.

            Every religion has had its horrors.

            However, the only religion out there that enshrines violence and utter depravity against non-believers in its own f*cking holy books is Islam. There is nothing you can do to write off what is claimed in their own books. Islam is a violent death cult that converts others by the sword. When it fails to do so, it takes pot shots.

            The best part about Christianity and Hinduism is the golden rule. In case you've forgotten it, it's simply: "Treat others the way you want to be trea

            • Holy books don't make a religion. They're easily distorted to suit the views of the people who should be paying attention to them. You can see this by looking at some variations of Christianity and comparing them to the Bible, or to what Jesus said. To understand adherents of a religion, we need to study a lot more than just their holy books.

              I'm not advocating not defending ourselves from people who attack us. However, most Muslims aren't going to attack us. They have their own lives, and can't be a

          • by DanDD ( 1857066 )

            As for your second link, while I abhor the Muslim penalties for apostasy, they don't apply to non-Muslims, and I can find lots of death penalties in the past for relatively small crimes. As far as a biased web site goes, that's not going to convince anybody.

            Look, I don't like Islam, and governments, but Islam is not nearly as bad as some people claim.

            Please provide a reference for your claim that apostasy doesn't apply to non-Muslims. Include historical references of such interpretations, please.

            Perhaps Muslims twist their own guiding documents to justify whatever horrors they committed in the past. So what in their guiding documents steer them away from such creative interpretation? What is their current social trajectory? What will appeasement achieve?

            Perhaps Islam is far worse than most realize, along with most other -isms.

      • http://www.vedicupasanapeeth.o... [vedicupasanapeeth.org]
    • Whoever is right or wrong in this shit fest, the west should take note that multiculturalism ends in genocide.

  • You let one large company control most of the mainstream media people read GLOBALLY, some fucked up shit is going to go down. Imagine how bad it would be if Facebook would have been allowed by the Indian government to offer 'their brand of internet' to the poor masses.
  • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @03:19AM (#56257459)
    If the Rohingya hadn't come to Myanmar and started demanding privileges, killing and raping it would not have happened. We can see that they are up to the same tricks in Sri Lanka too. We should not criticise, in a generation's time or sooner we will have to do the same in the West or become sharia hell holes.
  • 700,000 people show up unannounced in your country and Facebook is the problem? The 700,000 people are the problem! It doesn't help that a lot of their cultural practices are EXTREMELY disapproved of by the rest of the world.
    • The problems reported are in the country they came from, not where they fled to. In other words, the Facebook problem is what forced them to cross the border.

  • And how it created so much strife by facilitating communication.
  • (I reserve the right to amend that in the future if a previous genocide gets blamed on Facebook).

    First, who is saying to ban free speech? Knock it off with that stupid strawman.

    It's all about attention. Zeynep Tufekci writes and speaks very well about this.

    There's a difference between allowing hate speech on the internet, and promoting it as the top item in your newsfeeds. The first is not the issue--it's the second. Combine that with many poor people around the world cannot access the internet, but onl

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