Facebook Wanted to Be a Force for Good in Myanmar. Now It Is Rejecting a Request to Help With a Genocide Investigation (time.com) 57
Just when it seemed like Facebook's controversies might have peaked, the company now appears to be obstructing a genocide investigation, and it's using U.S. law to do it. From a report: The West African nation The Gambia is seeking to hold Myanmar accountable for charges of genocide against the Rohingya people, an ethnic and religious minority. In 2016 and 2017, Myanmar soldiers and their civilian proxies massacred Rohingya men, women and children, raped women and girls and razed villages, forcing more than 800,000 to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. Facebook's role in these atrocities isn't news. In 2018, Facebook acknowledged it was used to "foment division and incite offline violence" in Myanmar, where the social media platform is so ubiquitous it's often synonymous with the internet. An independent report commissioned by the company documented the same, as did independent fact-finders appointed by the U.N. In response, Facebook took down the account of the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar military, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and other military officials and organizations. In 2018 alone it shut down numerous networks that sought to incite violence against Rohingya, removing 484 pages, 157 accounts, and 17 groups for "coordinated inauthentic behavior."
To its credit, Facebook preserved the data and content it took down, and the company committed to cleaning up its act. "We know we need to do more to ensure we are a force for good in Myanmar," a company representative said in an official statement in 2018. Now, two years later, the company is doing exactly the opposite. In June, The Gambia filed an application in U.S. federal court seeking information from Facebook that would help it hold Myanmar accountable at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Specifically, The Gambia is seeking documents and communications from Myanmar military officials as well as information from hundreds of other pages and accounts that Facebook took down and preserved. The Gambia is also seeking documents related to Facebook's internal investigations into the matter as well as a deposition of a relevant Facebook executive. All of this information could help to prove Myanmar's genocidal intent. Back in May, The Gambia filed a similar application in U.S. court against Twitter. The case disappeared quickly because The Gambia pulled its application shortly after submitting it, presumably because Twitter agreed to cooperate. Not Facebook. Earlier this month, the company filed its opposition to The Gambia's application. Facebook said the request is "extraordinarily broad," as well as "unduly intrusive or burdensome."
To its credit, Facebook preserved the data and content it took down, and the company committed to cleaning up its act. "We know we need to do more to ensure we are a force for good in Myanmar," a company representative said in an official statement in 2018. Now, two years later, the company is doing exactly the opposite. In June, The Gambia filed an application in U.S. federal court seeking information from Facebook that would help it hold Myanmar accountable at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Specifically, The Gambia is seeking documents and communications from Myanmar military officials as well as information from hundreds of other pages and accounts that Facebook took down and preserved. The Gambia is also seeking documents related to Facebook's internal investigations into the matter as well as a deposition of a relevant Facebook executive. All of this information could help to prove Myanmar's genocidal intent. Back in May, The Gambia filed a similar application in U.S. court against Twitter. The case disappeared quickly because The Gambia pulled its application shortly after submitting it, presumably because Twitter agreed to cooperate. Not Facebook. Earlier this month, the company filed its opposition to The Gambia's application. Facebook said the request is "extraordinarily broad," as well as "unduly intrusive or burdensome."
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Quite the hang-up you have there.
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So you come here with expectations of editorial excellence?
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(not just Gambia, but THE Gambia)
"The Gambia" is the correct idiomatic name of the country in English.
Unless Myanmar is somehow harming Gambia
No nation has a duty to ignore atrocities that cause them no direct harm.
The Rohingya are Muslim and The Gambia is a Muslim nation. The request is coming from the OIC as a whole. The Gambia is acting as the official complainant.
why would Facebook have any obligation to provide information about Myanmar to Gambia?
The information has been requested by the International Court in The Hague (which also has an idiomatic definite article in English).
So, will Aung San Suu Kyi be the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient to go to pris
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No nation has a duty to ignore atrocities that cause them no direct harm.
The Rohingya are Muslim and The Gambia is a Muslim nation. The request is coming from the OIC as a whole. The Gambia is acting as the official complainant.
No nation-state has the authority to do anything about any claimed atrocities in another nation-state, unless the second nation-state has voluntarily chosen to give that authority.
There's a practical argument that where there's something one can do nothing about, there's little point in concerning oneself with it
why would Facebook have any obligation to provide information about Myanmar to Gambia?
The information has been requested by the International Court in The Hague (which also has an idiomatic definite article in English).
The information has been requested under US law (hence the involvement of US courts)
The US has only granted the ICJ authority over the US and US entities on a discretionary basis, so the US (or US c
Re:THE Gambia (Score:5, Informative)
No nation-state has the authority to do anything about any claimed atrocities in another nation-state, unless the second nation-state has voluntarily chosen to give that authority.
There's a practical argument that where there's something one can do nothing about, there's little point in concerning oneself with it
The precedent of the Nurnberg Trials makes it 100% clear that, in the case of Genocide, all states have that authority and in fact the duty to interfere. This was codified into the Convention on Genocide [un.org] which means that states have an extraterritorial duty to not commit, to prevent and to punish Genocide.
This has nothing to do with the ICJ which is a much newer creation.
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The precedent of the Nurnberg Trials makes it 100% clear that, in the case of Genocide, all states have that authority and in fact the duty to interfere. This was codified into the Convention on Genocide [un.org] which means that states have an extraterritorial duty to not commit, to prevent and to punish Genocide.
The practical authority of the Nuremberg trials derived from victory in war (a war ultimately based in alliances and international aggression), despite flowery words about extraterritorial authority for atrocities. The derivation from military strength and power rather than morality has been borne out by the 75 odd years since.
In other words, a nice idea, but impractical and unenforceable.
This has nothing to do with the ICJ which is a much newer creation.
The ICJ was an attempt to codify the principle you refer to from the Nuremberg trials in terms of national treaties and
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You seem to have misunderstood me
The power has not been wielded before. Any example you could point to is ultimately going to be about power politics, finance, resource access, etc. Any covering statements about extraterritorial inherent jurisdiction regarding atrocities (outside treaties etc) is just posturing.
I contend that there is no actual power regarding extraterratorial jurisdiction over atrocities, just pretty platitudes
Re: RFC1918 (WAS: THE Gambia) (Score:2)
haha.
Okeydoke.
RFC1918 covers the network addresses allowed to be used for private computer networks, using the Internet Protocol address scheme - that is, addresses allowed to be used in computer networks that aren't directly able to communicate with the global internet, at least without some kind of translation/intermediate proxy.
The addresses fall into the ranges:
192.168.0.0->192.168.255.255
172.16.0.0->172.31.255.255
10.0.0.0->10.255.255.255
where each address component (between dots) is in
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I contend that there is no actual power regarding extraterratorial jurisdiction over atrocities, just pretty platitudes
And you are complete free to contend as you wish. For all we know maybe you are one of Radovan Karadzic's pen pals.
Fortunately better people than you try to hold despots to account. It's far from perfect, but better than nothing.
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better people than you
Ah, ad hominems, in support of moral violence, no less!
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Off the top of my head, the extradition of Pinochet from the UK to Spain to face extraterritorial charges of human rights abuses committed while he was president of Chile. The UK government intervened to prevent the extradition on medical grounds, but the UK's then supreme court (the House of Lords) had ruled it permissible.
There have also been a handful of convictions in the ICC. Regardless of your unsubstantiated claims about the motives behind the exercise of its auth
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The precedent of the Nurnberg Trials makes it 100% clear that, in the case of Genocide, all states have that authority and in fact the duty to interfere. This was codified into the Convention on Genocide [un.org] which means that states have an extraterritorial duty to not commit, to prevent and to punish Genocide.
Given that states have a duty to put a stop to genocide, and myanmar as a state is certainly not strong enough to resist a military intervention from many other countries, why has such an intervention not taken place? There was military intervention in rwanda, in yugoslavia etc...
The answer is that the governments powerful enough to stage such an intervention also have functional intelligence services that have access to a lot more information than what you see in the biased mainstream media.
The media claim
Re: THE Gambia (Score:3)
You are sick. You trust your own speculation over the actual evidence that exists. This is the result of a delusional paranoia about the media. Everyone should be discerning about their media consumption, but to deny a well documented genocide is despicable. I guess you can justify any slaughter as long as you call the victims terrorists.
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Not my own speculation, and there is plenty of evidence such as this article by amnesty international:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
The above research by amnesty international detailed the initial terrorist attacks carried out by a rohingya terrorist organisation known as ARSA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
ARSA is designated as a terrorist organisation not only by myanmar, but also by malaysia - a muslim country.
They publish propaganda online primarily in english rather than their own native language,
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Why The Gambia?
Bangladesh is also a muslim nation, and they are directly affected by this situation. If anyone has grounds to bring such a complaint it's Bangladesh. Why are they not doing so?
There are also significantly more powerful and influential muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia who are fellow members of ASEAN with Myanmar and yet they have not brought such complaints either.
So, will Aung San Suu Kyi be the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient to go to prison for genocidal mass murder? I certainly hope so.
If you knew anything about the political situation in Myanmar, you would know that the civilian government does
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You know I'm not much for the whole SJW thing (Score:3)
Re: Wait, Facebook responded to genocide.. (Score:2)
Well, now you know exactly how many people you have to kill for Facebook to actually delete a profile.
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This is not unique to Facebook. All corporations are the same in that regard.
Extraordinarily broad (Score:3)
Facebook: "No problem"
as well as information from hundreds of other pages and accounts that Facebook took down and preserved.
Facebook: "Happy to help!"
The Gambia is also seeking documents related to Facebook's internal investigations into the matter as well as a deposition of a relevant Facebook executive.
Facebook: "This is extraordinarily broad!"
Re:Extraordinarily broad (Score:4, Informative)
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I think the phrase is, "Facebook is not on trial here."
You gonna sue a witness to a crime for all his personal affects because they might be relevant? Sorry, if the investigation goes into Facebook's personal papers, it is overly broad.
Re: Extraordinarily broad (Score:3, Informative)
Facebook knew that they were being used to coordinate genocide and did nothing about it because they had become the de facto internet in Myanmar. They wanted to keep their monopoly intact and were willing to aid genocide if that was the coat of business. Facebook absolutely should be on trial here.
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If people plan a crime through the mail, the postal service is not held responsible.
Facebook should be treated (and should act) the same way.
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The mail doesn't usually have observable content. The USPS has no specific proof (or knowledge) of the mail content.
Facebook did/does AND acted on it, after the fact. They still hold the evidence, wherein the postal service would possibly have some metadata.
How is that remotely the same as mail through the Postal Service?
Re: Extraordinarily broad (Score:1)
If the postal service has a package they know contains something illegal and delivers it anyway, then, yeah. Your analogy works fine to support my argument when you extend it completely.
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If we want to make this analogy work, it's not that tough. If a postal worker happened to notice a postcard that clearly said, "here are the names and addresses of people I need you to kill for me," he would be under a legal and moral obligation to turn it in to the authorities and not deliver the postcard. Facebook looked at the postcard and delivered it anyway.
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And then a third party comes along and wants to rifle through the internal files of the post office...
Re: Extraordinarily broad (Score:3)
You appear to not know the facts of the case, so I do not see why you are arguing about it. Facebook did know and multiple human rights organizations and media outlets asked them to do something about it. Their response was wholly inadequate. It is basically what people suspect about IBM in WWII but we know it to be true in the case of Facebook.
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Facebook is a platform with limited moderation (occasionally, too much). It not only has no real duty to interfere with communications on its site, it should be legally prohibited from such interference.
It's not Facebook's job to enforce laws, it's the state's.
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Is facebook being charged with a crime?
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Seems proper to be charged with a crime first, even for complicity
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No, but it can cast a very wide net, beyond the scope of this particular trial. Somebody's name pops up, and the judge says, "Oh yeah, we've been looking for him, he's got 500 dollars in unpaid parking tickets..."
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The Gambia is seeking documents and communications from Myanmar military officials
Facebook: "No problem"
Did you read the article, or the summary? The response to the request for those documents was "no, the request is too broad."
I can see both sides of this. One the one hand, I see that it would be good to aid a genocide investigation. On the other hand, it's not clear that it's a good idea to say "Sure, here are the files" to every request that says "OMG, an awful crime, give us access to everything you have."
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The Gambia is seeking documents and communications from Myanmar military officials
Facebook: "I think you and I are on the same page. Lets nail those bas@#$%$ to the wall!"
as well as information from hundreds of other pages and accounts that Facebook took down and preserved.
Facebook: "I'm still with you. Together, we can be a force for good!"
The Gambia is also seeking documents r
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I was attempting to describe the thought process, not three separate decisions. Perhaps this revision would be more clear.
The Gambia is seeking documents and communications from Myanmar military officials
Facebook: "I think you and I are on the same page. Lets nail those bas@#$%$ to the wall!"
And I was pointing out that this is not what the article said.
FB's response was "Maybe you and I are on the same page about Myanmar, but nevertheless no, you can't have that. This request is extraordinarily broad."
Quick, do something nice! (Score:1)
... Occulus news not playing well!
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All in all, giving government the power of censorship is much worse than "too much free speech."
Helping with an investigation? (Score:1)
Or providing a justification to revenge genocide? These countries (or tribes) arenâ(TM)t well known to handle these things peaceful.
It wouldnâ(TM)t be the first time the UN watches on while neighbors exterminate each other based on UNâ(TM)s toothless judicial action/inaction.
Nope. (Score:2)