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Sri Lanka Accuses Facebook of Failing To Control Hate Speech That Contributed To Deadly Riots (theguardian.com)
The Sri Lankan government is accusing Facebook of failing to control rampant hate speech that it says contributed to anti-Muslim riots last week that left three people dead and the country under a state of emergency. The accusations come after the country blocked Facebook and several other platforms last week in an effort to prevent the spread of hate speech. The Guardian reports: On Thursday Fernando, along with the Sri Lankan prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and communications officials, will meet a Facebook team that has flown to Colombo. The Sri Lankans will demand a new, faster system for taking down posts flagged as a national security risk by agencies in the country. "Facebook is not reacting as fast as we have wanted it to react," Fernando said. "In the past it has taken various number of days to review [flagged posts] or even to take down the pages." On Tuesday he highlighted a tweet from a user who claimed to have reported a Facebook post in the Sinhala language that read "Kill all Muslims, don't even let an infant of the dogs escape." The user claimed he received a reply six days later saying the post did not contravene a specific Facebook community standard. The extremist leader Amith Weerasinghe, who was arrested last week in Kandy after being accused of helping to instigate the violence, had amassed nearly 150,000 followers on his Facebook page before it was taken down last week.
I believe I speak for everyone here when I say: "What... The... Hell?"
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Nah, you just speak for yourself. A sizeable group is singing along with Abba.
As much as facebook deserves all the hate it gets, and as amusing as it is that they are now being held accountable to censorship they never should have started dabbling in, how is a riot facebook's fault? The sri lanka government ought to blame themselves long before they blame facebook for their incompetence
Facebook has a horrible moderating problem. I was recently ban for posting there now exists a blood test for Down's syndrome that works at 12 weeks so we can rid the world of this horrible mental handicap. Guess someone at facebook wants more mentally handicapped people.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Have you asked folks with Down's syndrome if they'd prefer to be dead? Or to have never been born? Who are you to judge whether they should be given the chance to live, once conceived?
Now mind you, I don't think Facebook should have banned you for discussing this. Freedom of speech, the ability to discuss ideas (good or bad), and open dialog about even the hardest subjects is critical to having a free society. I may oppose your view, and I might after a while choose not to listen, but you absolutely should be able to voice it!
William George
I contest the idea that Downs Syndrome is a "horrible mental handicap". Sounds like IQ supremacy to me.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Its asinine that some people think they have a right to hate speech. You don't, and if you think you do then you have the right of my foot up your ass.
Conditional Like. Only if enhanced interrogation is involved.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
During the last decades, Sri Lanka didn't need facebook to have bloody riots.
bickerdyke
pretty much this 100% =/
"This is the bridge where they killed 200 of our folks" "Oh, Thats terrible! I must have missed the news, when did it happen? Your family is safe?". "247 years ago, In three years we are planning a 250th year revenge attacks".
Something going on for 1000 years or 600 years, and suddenly Facebook is to blame.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
... controlling speech. Period.
I hate that you're right.
..but what you are supposed to censor?
In case of Sri Lanka, do you sensor the things populus wants sensored or the government and then which part of the government?
furthermore, fuck sri lanka. even if facebook had asked the government if it's okay to bash muslims on facebook the government would have probably said hell yea. it's not that many years they were in an outright civil war with the tamils losing and getting stomped on by the government.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Always a good idea that solves the problem.
[/sarcasm]
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I contest the idea that Downs Syndrome is a "horrible mental handicap". Sounds like IQ supremacy to me.
Are you trolling, or did you drink literally all of the kool-aid? Of course it's a mental handicap. Horribleness, of course, is subjective.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Islam has become such a violent religion, and the moderates don't seem to be doing anything to stop the 10% who are violent, that it's hard to claim that hate speech against them *can* exist.
What? That's nonsense. It's one thing to hate Islam, and it's another thing to hate Muslims. Believe it or not, the two things are actually different. Islam is a sickness of which people can be cured with sufficient education over generations. Muslims are people who have contracted that particular illness.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Downs syndrome is a lot more than a mental handicap. Seizers and heart disease occur for about half of all Downs afflicted people, and there are lots of other complications as well. Your idea of somebody with downs is a reasonably lucky person, the unlucky ones don't live long enough, or spend much of their lives in the hospital. More over, do you have any idea what it's like to have a child with Downs? I fault no one who chooses to abort such a child.
If it's dead, you killed it.
I have looked around. I see no major attempt to say, rewrite the Koran to remove verses about Jihad like Thomas Jefferson did to the Bible.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm talking about the percentage that actually believe Jihad should be a pillar, or duty, of the religion. That includes some huge populations.
Still only about 10%.
As far as instigation of violence against population, you can't get much more hateful than believing all outsiders to your religion, including OTHER SECTS OF YOUR RELIGION, need to be exterminated.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I believe it. Interesting metaphor.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Need to add Pakistan, Iran, and many former USSR Republics that I can't spell off the top of my head to the list.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You are quite correct! I am opposed to abortion in all forms, save perhaps for when carrying the child is a direct threat to the life of the mother.
William George
I suspect I am just feeding a troll here, but where in my post (or the OP before it) did inbreeding come up? Also, I don't have a sister.
William George
You are correct that some people decide to take their own lives, but there is a difference between that and making the decision for them (taking someone's life without their consent).
As for the argument itself, the idea is not that avoiding conception is a problem. If they can screen people for whatever genes contribute to Downs, and inform those people, and they choose not to have kids because of that (to abstain from sex, take birth control, get a vasectomy, etc) then that is fine! The trouble I see is conceiving a child - a new human life, with its own unique DNA, identity, etc - and then choosing to kill it because it has a condition that someone else (society, the parents, or whomever) thinks makes the life not worth living. That choice shouldn't be anyone else's to make.
William George
Once conception has taken place, the newly formed human *is* a person. It has its own DNA, different from (but a combination of) its parents. If not killed in the womb, he or she will go on to live their own life - with their own thoughts, opinions, experiences, etc.
Is that new human life dependent on its mother for several months during development (before birth)? Yes - but it will still be dependent on other, older humans for many years after birth as well. We don't (and shouldn't) allow people to kill their young children just because they no longer want them, and neither should we allow that in the womb.
Many people say that "its a woman's body, let her decide" - but it isn't. As I pointed out, it is a unique human from the moment the egg and sperm join and combine their DNA. It is *attached* to the mother's body (via the umbilical cord), and resides inside her until birth, but it is not *part* of her body.
Also, no, I am not a Catholic... though I am a Christian. I have no problem (as Catholics do, I think) with any efforts to prevent conception / fertilization of the egg - condoms, spermicides, etc - so long as they would not interfere with normal development of a human after conception. If you don't want to potentially make a baby when having sex, there are numerous options available with varying degrees of reliability. Failure to use such a method, or the low chance of failure associated with the selected method, does not (in my opinion) give people the right to kill another human - regardless of how far along their physical development is.
William George