Fearing More Violence, Sri Lanka Silences Social Media

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-social-media.html

by panarky • 7 years ago

134 101 7 years ago

panarky4• 7 years ago

Sri Lanka’s action “is a damning indictment” of companies that once portrayed the platforms as vehicles for liberation...

Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings.

Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence.

Company officials largely failed to respond until the government shut down access, after which they promised to hire more moderators and improve communication.

And from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/world/asia/sri-lanka-expl...

Rather than trusting in Facebook and other companies to police their networks for hate speech or incitement that could arise as a result of Sunday’s attacks, the government was treating the platforms as too dangerous to remain online.

Mirioron2• 7 years ago

It just goes to show that governments are going to censor when they feel like it. If your only contact with someone is through social media then you'd have no way to contact them to find out if they're okay.

On the other hand, I can understand short term temporary shutdowns to try to stop further violence, but that's not what Sri Lanka is doing in this case.

save_ferris• 7 years ago

"Last year, the government briefly blocked social networks after viral rumors and calls to violence, circulating largely on Facebook, appeared to provoke a wave of anti-Muslim riots and lynchings.

Government officials had repeatedly warned Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence."

Sri Lanka isn't trying prevent people from communicating with each other or censorship. Sounds like they've been bitten by social media-driven violence in the past, which wouldn't be the first country to see this phenomenon (Myanmar).

It's so easy to assume a corrupt government motive here, but we've seen ethnic violence perpetuated on social media in the past. What's a government supposed to do when that happens?

galimaufry• 7 years ago

Myanmar is not a typical example: social media drove violence, but social media was being manipulated by the army:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Mirioron2• 7 years ago

What's a government supposed to do when that happens?

If people perpetuate ethnic violence through cell phones, does the government ban phones? If people perpetuate ethnic violence through speaking, will the government ban speaking?

malwarebytess• 7 years ago

A growing body of research has linked social media to religious and racial violence.
Social media platforms build their businesses on sophisticated algorithms that serve up content that will keep users engaged. This favors posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger and fear, studies suggest.

I think governments, and researchers, are going to find that censoring social media doesn't have as large an effect as they imagine. Most of it is noise anyway. Buzz buzz.

mlinksva• 7 years ago

The article does link to a couple papers which I have not read yet, but have added to my list.

I'd love a link to the most current review of evidence on social media and crime.

Surely there are some decent natural experiments by now. Is any jurisdiction doing RCTs?

pugworthy• 7 years ago

It is noise, but the noise is fuel on a fire sometimes.

HenryBemis2• 7 years ago

I read all so far comments, I don't think that blocking social media is to silence voices and block freedom of speech. I strongly believe (from a crowd-control/security standpoint) that eliminating social media, whatsapp, signal, etc, the hidden communication channels are removed.

So if the government knows that e.g. Henry Bemis is a known trouble-maker, it is easier to monitor his phonecalls, emails, SMS and find out what are his next steps of this bomber/terrorist/whatever. If Henry Bemis is using Signal, WhatsApp, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, etc. it is easier to coordinate the next steps of an attack, awaken sleepers etc. without the government's security forces to be able to react equally fast.

Typical counter-terrorism stuff (or I just have a wild imagination).

kevas• 7 years ago

I’m not for what they did, but this comment is to expand your idea.

You forgot to think about the people they don’t know about right now. I’m presuming they’re freaking the F out right now and are worried about unknown cells and their communications.

So... in the moment, decision was to make unknown cells communications more difficult by disabling low hanging fruit.

zzzcpan3• 7 years ago

Terrorism doesn't require hidden communication channels. But it is actually propaganda, usually foreign, so governments feel threatened by it and naturally want to block it. If they can't, they can decide to block the next best thing, i.e. uncontrollable mass communication channels. Censorship in its pure form, not counter terrorism.

HenryBemis2• 7 years ago

In the cases of events, e.g. bombing a church, paramedics, firemen are easy targets/sitting ducks. Being able to block coordination of further attacks is important. The hidden channels is not to silence the propaganda. That will never happen. But communicating to a vast network of perpetrators that "I just saw the army driving to location ABC, therefore we do the round 2 attack in location XYZ".

I am never in favor of censorship. I am merely stating that I understand a potential use under these circumstances. I don't agree. I just undertand the reasoning.

ATsch• 7 years ago

This might apply to "traditional" terrorism, that is centrally organized and coordinated. This is however not how most terrorism seems to work these days. Instead, we have something that's been called "stochastic terrorism". Messages calling for violence are spread by people, perhaps deliberately in the hope of someone acting upon them. Given a large enough reach of the message and enough people willing to commit these acts, this quickly becomes something incredibly hard to fight. I'm not sure about it's efficacy, but turning off social media is certainly not a completely invalid way to attempt to prevent more of that happening.

tanseydavid• 7 years ago

The multiple bombings that occurred in Sri Lanka hardly seem "stochastic".

identity-haver2• 7 years ago

If preventing "stochastic terrorism" was the reason they turned off social media, shouldn't they have done it before the bombs exploded, possibly even before any of the terrorists used it, and not afterwards?

manfredo2• 7 years ago

I'm not sure how well one can justify the claim that blocking social media is an effective means to prevent violence. As one example, people highlight the role that social media has played in religiously motivated violence in India. But violence has been worse without social media, no one can pin the blame for the 2002 Gujarat riots (perhaps better called a pogrom) on social media.

So if the government knows that e.g. Henry Bemis is a known trouble-maker, it is easier to monitor his phonecalls, emails, SMS and find out what are his next steps of this bomber/terrorist/whatever. If Henry Bemis is using Signal, WhatsApp, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages, etc. it is easier to coordinate the next steps of an attack, awaken sleepers etc. without the government's security forces to be able to react equally fast.

So in other words, the elimination of social media's primary value lies not in the fact that it stops speech that calls for violence, but in the fact that it enhances the government's ability to conduct population-wide surveillance. So your underlying point is that better government surveillance is what stops violence, and elimination of social media serves to enhance government surveillance.

johnisgood3• 7 years ago

So should we, say, ban encryption or at the very least online messaging applications that offer end-to-end encryption because someone might use it for "something bad", or to hide something from the government, all this in the name of fighting against terrorism?

speeq• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has a long history of violence even before the age of social media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

_emacsomancer_• 7 years ago

And sporadic community-based strife prior to that, beginning certainly no later than the first millennium AD.

matchagaucho• 7 years ago

I've been travelling in foreign countries where it felt like political tensions could be cut with a knife.

And in those moments, "everyone" is heads down into their smartphones. Just thumb scrolling and looking for anything that reinforces their beliefs.

meowface2• 7 years ago

Sounds like you just accurately described the United States in 2019, as well. Any country undergoing political turmoil is in a similar boat, and sadly probably always will be. The technological means will just continue to evolve.

jammygit• 7 years ago

Or 2016...

jopsen3• 7 years ago

Wow, are we know so scared of mob mentality that we don't condemn brazen free speech interference?

I know social media platforms can create mobs, but since when are we all scared that:

That digital rights and press freedom advocates might now sympathize, if not agree, with Sri Lanka’s action.

This seems questionable to me, and problematic for people trying to find each other.

danharaj• 7 years ago

"I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death (of other people) your right to say it."

manfredo2• 7 years ago

There's a reason why we set the bar for prioritizing safety over speech at credible, immediate threat rather than an abstract threat. Effectively every movement or political group has committed acts of violence. Whether its Islamists blowing up marathons or shooting up nightclubs, or right wingers shooting up churches and mosques, or liberals trying to assassinate congressmen at a baseball game. If you look hard enough you can point to deaths or criminality caused by most political speech, and use that as justification for bans.

lambdasquirrel3• 7 years ago

I'm sure this isn't going to be a popular opinion here, but for most of the people in the world, "free speech" isn't as important as the safety of their loved ones. If most people in the world wanted "democracy" as it is in the United States, they would have chosen it. Or as the Chinese put it, people are much less likely to choose "freedom" if you instead frame it as a responsibility. Are we speaking responsibly?

everdev• 7 years ago

If most people in the world wanted "democracy" as it is in the United States, they would have chosen it.

Taking power from a non-democratic leadership is incredibly difficult, risky and almost always violent. And non-democratic leadership very rarely self-democratize. Unfortunately, we don't know if much of the world wants democracy as it's aggressively stamped out in many places and illegal to pursue it.

andrepd• 7 years ago

If most people in the world wanted "democracy" they would have chosen it.

What the heck is this supposed to mean? What, I suppose that if people in China wanted democracy they could just go and get it? Oh wait, not really, they get silenced, arrested, and massacred... Is there even a place on Earth where a democratic transition was achieved not by force against the holders of power?

qbaqbaqba• 7 years ago

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

soulofmischief• 7 years ago

If most people in the world wanted "democracy" as it is in the United States, they would have chosen it.

And if most poor people didn't want to be poor, they would have chosen to be rich. And if most homeless people wanted to live in homes, they would have chosen it.

mikeash• 7 years ago

I’m a firm believer in free speech and think this is a bad move.

However, there’s a vast difference between targeted censorship of forbidden topics and a temporary blanket ban on certain forms of communication. This isn’t good, but it’s pretty mild. Temporary limits on fundamental freedoms during an emergency are pretty common, even in the good old USA.

zzzcpan3• 7 years ago

It's not that mild. Still an attempt to stop information government doesn't like from spreading. Still targeted, more broadly, but targeted. Still requires internet censorship infrastructure to even be able to order ISPs to block websites and power, so much power to get there, pretty much dictatorship level power. China, the anti freedom villain, does this kind of thing regularly.

I get why people are making excuses though. Pretty much no political systems in the world can actually exist with truly free speech, because they all rely on controlling free speech to function. And now that actual free speech got out of their control it threatens them and makes them push against it, promoting restrictions to free speech.

code_sloth2• 7 years ago

Free speech is about the right to __articulate__ opinions and ideas. To articulate ideas and opinions, you have to think and formulate your thoughts.

What Facebook enables and optimizes for can hardly be called free speech. Articulation is not encouraged, merely the spreading of thoughts (both good and bad). Engagement has been optimized for advertising purposes. It led to banal agreement in the form of likes and reshares. There is hardly any discourse, people get silo-ed in echo chambers, and the extreme ends of the spectrum get magnified. Confirmation bias rules, and bad ideas aren't defeated by good ideas because they hardly come into contact.

So no, Facebook isn't enabling free speech, as much as they'd like to claim they are. At best they are a communication tool, nothing more.

lambdasquirrel3• 7 years ago

There's also the contrarian viewpoint that Facebook is a danger to civilization, and not only ideas that are valued by democracy. The whole thing was built by hijacking the limbic system. And aren't ads much the same? So you can say then, that it was monetized by likewise hijacking the limbic system. Anyway, this is not a good recipe for discourse.

Now they can finagle around with it as much as they like, try to machine-learning this, machine-learning that, but it isn't going to get around that it fundamentally operates by hijacking people's limbic system. And people are ultimately more clever and dastardly than whatever machine-learning they are going to throw at it to try to sanitize the discourse.

It's probably easier to teach yoga/tai chi/meditation/whatever to all of Facebook's users than to fix Facebook.

hliyan2• 7 years ago

Sri Lankan here. I have to agree with this. I'm absolutely against censorship and suppression of free speech, but in this particular instance, it's more like a government grounding all flights because it's a vector for a spreading pandemic. Social media right now is such a vector. I'm certain we prevented a lot of retaliatory bloodshed with the social media blackout and the curfew.

username2232• 7 years ago

Temporary limits on fundamental freedoms during an emergency are pretty common, even in the good old USA.

Exactly. If people are rioting, for example because their football team won the Super Bowl (http://fortune.com/2018/02/05/eagles-win-super-bowl-riot-psy...), the city may impose a curfew to give everyone a chance to cool off. This just sounds like the digital equivalent to me, and while it's unfortunate, it seems like the best solution to the problem.

screye• 7 years ago

A big part of why social media websites/apps (FB and WhatsApp) are banned is because they are the central means of communication and agglomeration.

Forcing people to slow down in their ability to react to a massive amount of information/emotion, by letting them sit on for a while may not be a bad idea.

All too often a flurry of incomplete information leads only to a large degree of noise that organically sorts itself out inside of a couple of days.

DenseComet• 7 years ago

See: 9/11 Trading Halt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_the_Septem...

Giving people time to think and force them to slow down is a proven method to prevent all out chaos.

chriselles2• 7 years ago

Agreed that a social media ban makes contacting people more difficult, but not impossible(voice,txt,email,forums).

Recent amplification of fake news and violence(30+ deaths attributed) on social media in India probably plays a big factor, as does last year’s anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka.

mirimir2• 7 years ago

I don't know about "we", but the Sri Lankan government clearly are. I certainly sympathize.

What would happen if a US president were assassinated now? Several cities burned after Martin Luther King was killed. Lots of LA burned after officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted. And now, with social media? It'd be total chaos.

jopsen3• 7 years ago

Not really, social media was there during many of the BLM demonstrations.

People have become less violent over the years and with social media responsible organizers have a better shot at preventing violence.

wisty• 7 years ago

I'm very pro free speech, but having the ability to discuss ideas on a public platform being temporarily curtailed is only worrying if it's overused.

johnisgood3• 7 years ago

Does it mean that you are OK with censorship for an arbitrary length of time, as long as it does not reach whatever your definition of "overused" is? It seems like you are OK with censorship as long as it is done at the right time, with the right length. Right being arbitrary and whatever you personally prefer, i.e. it is censorship in my favor, therefore it is good. Please correct me if I am wrong, but to me it reads as: "as long as it is in my favor".

ww520• 7 years ago

I might be wrong but I believe U.S. is the only country has the right to free speech enshrined in the laws. Most countries, including European's, don't have free speech. I'm a firm believer in free speech but it's hard to talk to other countries about it when no one else values it as much as us.

Tomte• 7 years ago

Most European countries (would have said "all", but am not sure how to categorize the Vatican and Belorussia) have Free Speech. Just not the extremist version that America favors.

Germany tempers it with the legal doctrine of "practical concordance", where a global maximum over all Basic Rights is sought, not just a local maximum for Free Speech, and all other rights lose.

jopsen3• 7 years ago

The Danish constitution (or foundational law) has it.

It's also in the Human Rights convention.

In Europe a few counties has minor limitations on a few sensitive subjects. Don't confuse that for censorship, or free speech restrictions.

Throwway32• 7 years ago

I’ve made this point before: the US government has killed at least one citizen in a drone strike because he was making terrorist propaganda. Free speech, even within the loose limits set in US law is not as clearly guaranteed as you may believe it to be.

buyx• 7 years ago

South Africa’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and that right has generally been interpreted very liberally.

vishnugupta• 7 years ago

Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India guarantees to all its citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. The law states that, “all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression”.

(Copy pasted from web)

arc192• 7 years ago

The most commonly used social platform is whatsapp in Sri Lanka, they have only blocked media, It is possible to exchange messages but not download photos or videos without a VPN.

hliyan2• 7 years ago

This seems questionable to me, and problematic for people trying to find each other.

People here are finding each other through traditional point-to-point comms -- SMS and phone calls. The social media blackout probably saved lives today and prevented a lot of retaliatory bloodshed.

biql• 7 years ago

This seems more like a failure of those platforms to be honest. If they could actually moderate the content and not allow incitement, which is illegal in some jurisdictions, I don't think there would be any problems. After all, they do moderate it to some extent since there is no CP, drug markets, etc.

apo• 7 years ago

Disappointing to see that this is one of the first tools a government reaches for in a crisis. It's one of the worst possible responses because of how well censorship plays into the hands of skilled extremists.

HNthrow22• 7 years ago

"The extraordinary step reflects growing global concern, particularly among governments, about the capacity of American-owned networks to spin up violence."

"Officials blocked the platforms, he said, out of fear that misinformation about the attacks and hate speech could spread, provoking more violence."

Good, a step in the right direction and finally officials are connecting the dots on this. I know HN hates to hear this but this is long overdue. It's my view that the executives in charge of these social networks should face criminal prosecution for their supreme negligence and wildly irresponsible behavior, allowing extremism to spread and hateful ideologies to flourish in the name of increasing quarterly engagement metrics. Free speech has little to do with this.

Social media is a fertile breeding ground for hate and a powerful recruitment tool for extremists. I doubt we're able to sort through all the FUD and misinformation, concerted and successful efforts to dictate public opinion and change narratives to suit whatever special interests or political agendas. We're truly in the post-truth era, with the power in the hands of a few SV elite and billionaire aristocrats. From everything I've seen I don't see mankind sorting this out before it's too late for all of us. Social media is the great filter.

chriselles2• 7 years ago

I’m happy to defer to others with more relevant regional cultural ground truth.

But it’s my understanding that social media, specifically WhatsApp, has been accused of amplifying fake news and violence in India, resulting in reduced sharing limits to mitigate against malignant virility.

14 months ago there were anti Muslim riots in Sri Lanka and more recently major Bangladesh/Myanmar Muslim refugee crisis.

If I was running security in Sri Lanka I would also consider a temporary shut down or throttling of social media to mitigate the amplification of sectarian violence.

This is a real tragedy, especially when looked at in perspective with the incredibly violent, costly, and lengthy Sri Lankan Civil War.

When looked at thru the lens of having followed the Sri Lankan Civil War at a distance, the extreme violence(suicide bomber was “invented there) and urban terrorism was a near constant.

This is a horrible tragedy that I hope Sri Lankan can contain and prevent viral escalation.

anigbrowl3• 7 years ago

If you are following the Indian election I found an interesting article yesterday about how bots are being deployed on social media to influence that contest.

https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-bots-on-both-sides-i...

rdl2• 7 years ago

This seems like a bad move for both moral and practical reasons.

Morally, free communication is a basic human right.

Practically, having a bunch of churches/hotels attacked by an easily-identifiable group, followed by shutting off communications tools, would probably turn people from "death squad curious" into hardcore whatever the local version of hacking your enemies apart with a machete is (parang?). A reasonable but scared person might assume the attacks are of a larger scale, or supported or condoned by the government, or otherwise an ongoing event, rather than a tragic event which happened and is now over and could be left to policy solutions. I know if 9/11 or something like that had happened and then the USG had immediately tried to institute a communications blackout (except for state controlled broadcast media), a lot of people I know would be very on-edge.

vijaybritto2• 7 years ago

Preventing rapid spread of misinformation is important in some extreme scenarios. Especially when social media platforms amplify sensation over facts. Also the same rules as the developed world don't apply elsewhere in the developing world.

rdl2• 7 years ago

Preventing spread of misinformation is good, but preventing the spread of "information" in a context where people are already sensitized could be worse. It depends on whether people will assume censorship/blackout means something negative, and whether the communications tool is actually needed to organize the responsive violence. It depends on the specific culture/society.

panarky4• 7 years ago

Sri Lanka has a history of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp amplifying racial hatred, riots and lynchings.

They don't trust that Facebook has effectively neutralized a force that is tearing their civilization apart.

If Facebook created a monster that they can no longer control, what else should governments do to protect their citizens?

pertymcpert• 7 years ago

The monster exists in their people, not Facebook. I’m no fan of the company but it’s not reasonable to say it’s something wrong they’ve done.

Who the hell advocatea violence? Let alone in such large numbers?! Sri Lanka has a deeper problem.

arc192• 7 years ago

Not all media is state owned, not blocking social media could lead to more fake news being spread by the extremist groups to incite violence. News broadcasted on TV comes later than the updates on social media but its due to the validating the sources. The news media havent held back on reporting information where its proven to be true, even showing documents that are clearly against the government

username2232• 7 years ago

I wonder what would happen if they went back to a strictly chronological feed, instead of one optimized for "engagement"? Sure, it wouldn't eliminate any of the hate, but it also wouldn't deliberately concentrate it at the top of the page. People would still see "KILL THEM ALL," but the selfies and cat memes mixed in might put things in perspective.

village-idiot• 7 years ago

It says a lot about Facebook’s low standing that a lot of people, myself included, are generally OK with it being blocked during emergencies.

identity-haver2• 7 years ago

One part of me hopes that governments keep doing this every time there's as much as a bad mugging, so that people will stop relying on the ability of their government-controlled ISP and a US-controlled cloud platform to communicate with each other and maybe try some new P2P technology, or possibly just talk to each other in person instead.

Then again, this is wishful thinking. The only reason the Sri Lankan government has to resort to such a drastic and ham-fisted measure is that they don't yet have the clout or connection to call their friends at Google, Facebook, & Twitter and say "immediately shadowban this set of keywords" like the US and EU can.

narrator• 7 years ago

While they're at it, they might want to ban whatever the people who committed the acts of violence against the churches were using.

Kim_Bruning• 7 years ago

I just wish people used this flash-mob-forming capability for good more often than evil. :-/

I don't think it's hardly exploited enough!

csense• 7 years ago

How does the block work on a technical level?

Did they just nicely ask Facebook to geo-IP block their whole country, and Facebook agreed voluntarily?

Is there some legal process, where Facebook's under threat of having money/property in the country seized and/or employees in the country arrested if they don't comply?

Or are they doing it without Facebook's assistance? Do they have government-controlled routers that can blackhole specific DNS queries or IP address ranges? Or put their ISP's under threat of some legal process to implement the same?

How do we make the Internet more robust against the specific attack launched by the government? Or should governments always be able to shut down sites they don't like, when they judge it necessary?

Fearing More Violence, Sri Lanka Silences Social Media

Related Stories