[liberationtech] Revealed: Seven years later, how Facebook shuts down free speech in Egypt | Middle East Eye

[carlo von lynX]

I find it surreal and tragically amusing how articles still
speak of companies like people willing to do the right thing,
as if the people had any importance in a structure whose only
aim is to dominate a market.

So here we have yet another political failing from Facebook,
as if its influence in BREXIT and Trump wasn't enough. As if
it makes sense to expect anything else after the Malvinas
incident in 2009. Millions of dashboards optimized to change
the democratic will of the Argentinean population.

https://theintercept.com/2015/04/02/gchq-argentina-falklands/

Do we need any further proof than that? Centralization of
data produces the power to play golf with democracy as its
ball, not its green. And Facebook isn't to blame. It is
just the corp that got gov support at the right moment to
become the market leader in mind manipulation, which is a
naturally logical thing to do, if unregulated markets are
your logic.

Therefore, Cristina hits the spot when she says that Aryt's
benevolent appeal is utterly misunderstanding the game.

On 28/01/18 08:35, aryt alasti wrote:
> True though all of that is, if tens of thousands of people are relying
> on Facebook for their connectivity to activism and dissident
> viewpoints, then pressure should be put on Facebook to cease with its
> blatantly suppressive practices.

Just like last week's musings of the Facebook PR department
regarding its own market position in a race to the bottom
of humanoid ethics.

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 10:07:51AM -0300, Cristina wrote:
> This never worked and will never work.

> If even my close contacts (included "activists") refuse to
> use emails... what can i do? to remain alone or to adapt to the majority
> and to do what I know is not correct?

At least the Pirates were using their own infrastructure,
but now all the movements meet on Facebook, organize in
Slack and write their political documents in Google Docs.
And it's ridiculously easy to disrupt their social structure
even more than it was with the Pirates.

> I don't know. But to say "people is dumb" is not enough and will not
> stop them, specially those living under desperate situations.

If anybody in our parliaments cares to keep their jobs,
they should better listen to our regulation proposals.
Once they have been replaced by election winners created
by mass manipulation, things get hairy. This new
"leadership" may at best not be aware they got put in
power by manipulation. And even they are probably easy
to blackmail, or chosen on the criterion of being able
to exercise blackmail power.

> I think all the critic voices need to join on try to find an accessible
> solution for the ones that are in real harm because if it s just to
> criticize them it will not change anyway.

Si.

Liberationtech has essentially failed if it
only helped some people in some battles sometimes
while the war as a whole is being lost.


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