Meta in Myanmar, Part II: The Crisis

by mpnagle • 3 years ago

55 2 3 years ago

dang• 3 years ago

Recent and related:

Meta in Myanmar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37709284 - Sept 2023 (169 comments)

kaycebasques• 3 years ago

OK, I think I can summarize the author's argument now:

* Facebook had a strategy to cement its role as the center of online life in Myanmar and it worked

* Facebook did not properly invest in Burmese [1] language content moderation and there was a proliferation of racist / genocidal memes [2]

* A lot of people tried to warn Facebook about the content moderation problem but Facebook did not adequately respond

* The timing of a terrible, full-blown genocide correlated strongly with Facebook's increased presence in Myanmar

* Facebook incentivized sensationalist content, and racist / genocidal content was an effective strategy for people responding to those incentives

[1] Not sure if I have the correct name for the language(s)

[2] "memes" in the Dawkins sense

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