Between 2016 and 2017, there was a wave of killings, rapes and looting in Myanmar. The mark of the attacks was Muslim Rohingja minorityand the attackers are Burmese nationalists. Hundreds of villages were burned, respective 1000 people killed. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the country – estimates say 700–800 1000 people.
Events in Burma have sparked 1 of the first large controversy around Facebook. What did Mark Zuckerberg's company gotta do with this?
The Burmese military utilized Facebook to spread propaganda against Rohingja's Muslim minority. It created false accounts and pages – allegedly about pop culture – where it published hateful content and disinformation. In 2017, the military fueled spiritual tensions, sending false warnings about jihadist attacks. The officers who participated in this action trained in Russia, learning manipulation and misinformation techniques.
Facebook admitted any work for events in Burma. “We agree that we can and should do more” – wrote in 2018 Alex Warofka, Facebook Product Policy Manager.
Favorite Play
I remind you of that, due to the fact that many people have forgotten the beginnings of the fight for a better moderation of Facebook and another social media. Especially due to the fact that the American right – and behind it besides Polish – tries to falsify their history.
The right-wing version reads something like this: the left and liberals entered into connections with social platforms to censor right-wing views.
You will not find out from the right hand that the platforms have mostly ignored calls to improve moderation, and they have only yielded under the top scandals, specified as the tragedy in Burma.
You will never know that the left, which allegedly started working with the platforms, was their biggest opponent. For example, in the United States, the only major effort to break down the monopolies of digital giants was made in Biden's administration by Lina Khan. In the European Union, it is left-wing formations that frequently study ideas of limiting the power of digital corporations.
The full American right-wing communicative is simply a lie. It is mainly repeated to justify Elon Musk's current exploits. As shortly as you pay attention to the fact that the richest man in the planet turned his platform into a propaganda device for the Republican organization and the European far right, you will get the answer: and how did the left and liberals work with digital giants, that was okay?
This is the favourite play of the far right – the claim that she truly is the victim here, and her aggression is just a consequence to the aggression that had previously met her from the left and liberal sides. If the right does something wrong, it's only due to the fact that others have done it more.
That's precisely how he tried to translate Republican relationships with Musk lately. Publicist Rafal Woś. He was ironic that the liberal-left camp only noticed problems with social platforms now – erstwhile Musk and Zuckerberg switched to Trump.
The question is: where has Woś been for the last 10 years? How could he have missed hundreds of articles in the largest newspapers, dozens of books, a multum of interrogations in the U.S. Congress, and respective crucial decisions of the European Union against digital giants? Even specified a commercialized organization as Netflix produced a loud documentary Social dilemma, which was rather a pardonless criticism of Facebook, Google and another large digital platforms.
Woś did not announcement this, due to the fact that if he had noticed, his full defence of Republicans and Muska would have collapsed. I am convinced that all country in Europe has its own Wosi – a political commentator who pretends that the left has entered into conchachts with digital platforms to justify the fact that the Trump right is entering specified conchachts.
Meet Michael Fanone
When Facebook and Twitter suspended Trump's account, I wrote The text in which I criticised this decision. Mainly for the deficiency of a clear explanation of the basis on which it was taken and why at this moment. I besides drew attention – like many, many others – to the power of social platforms over public debate.
Did social media act cynically by suspending Trump's account just erstwhile he lost real power? Of course. Just as cynically as now the owners of these platforms, subjugating to Trump erstwhile he regained that power.
But...
What is different is accusing digital platforms of excessive control over public debate, of deficiency of transparency, of utmost cynicism, and what is different is trying to convince people that Trump was treated highly harshly only due to the fact that he had right-wing views. Not to mention the absurd allegation that social media acted in collusion with the left anyway.
People forget besides easy the fear that everyone came after Trump supporters attack on Capitol January 6, 2021. This besides applies to Republican organization politicians who have regained their courage for a minute and said explicitly that Trump crossed the border. In particular, social media owners were panicking, fearing that they would become co-responsible for mass force again.
If these fears seem comic to you, it might be worth reminding you of what happened in Washington that day. This is the communicative of policeman Michael Fanone.
Fanone was not on work at the time, but rushed to the Capitol erstwhile he heard a call for backup. The attackers caught him, started dragging him down the stairs and beating him. They sprayed chemicals on his face and tased him repeatedly. The crowd shouted, “Kill him with his own weapon!” Fanone begged his attackers to spare him, shouting, “I have children!” He was not killed, but passed out, suffered a heart attack and brain injury. another officers rescued him, but serious injuries forced him to quit later that year.
This isn't over.
Fanone testified in court against the participants of the Capitol attack. Since then, his household has regularly received death threats from Trump fans. A period ago, Fanone’s 76-year-old parent was attacked in her own garden – individual threw human feces at her.
The man who repeatedly struck Fanone with a taser was Daniel Rodriguez. He arrived in Washington erstwhile he heard from Trump that the elections had been "stealed" by Democrats. Before attacking an officer, he attended a rally of support for Trump under the slogan "Stop the Steal" (Stop Robbery).
In June 2023, he was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison, but was released a period ago. He was pardoned by Trump. Like dozens of another people convicted of riots in Washington.
This is the “small one” that is missing in the stories of people breaking hands, that Trump was “censored” due to the fact that he preached views that did not like the left or liberals. These “views” are groundless accusations that he has been stolen from elections, and that people like Rodriguez are excited.
“We will no longer tolerate it, and that is it. To usage your favourite term, we will halt this theft.” Trump burned out. At 1 of the rallies just before the Capitol attack.
Social media had no problems with Trump's views. They had a problem with the fact that if he had led to an even greater tragedy, they would have had to explain for years that they had allowed him to lie with impunity and incite people.
I repeat: it was a completely cynical play by digital giants, geared towards protecting their own interests. It had nothing to do with supporting the left or liberal agenda.
Don't get pushed into the corner
How to respond to this effort to make an alternate social media history? First of all, don't let her get to you. Not only the full false series of events, but besides the individual elements of events – for example, not allowing the word "moderation" to be replaced by the word "censorship".
Each – each! – public space is someway moderated. I work at university, and I warrant you that if you came to the rector or dean's office, they would call them vulgarly, and then endanger to beat them, it would end in serious consequences. In the meantime, the utmost right wing imagined that it could unpunishedly challenge and endanger people, and if it was not allowed, it was “censorship”.
There is another reason why the utmost right does not like moderation so much and even the activity of fact-verifying organizations calls it "censorship".
Recently 2 researchers, Petter Törnberg and Julian Chueri, published results of extended metaanalysis about disinformation among politicians. They analysed a database of 32 million tweets from 8198 parliamentarians from 26 countries between 2017 and 2020. In summary of their investigation they write:
"Radical right-wing populism is the strongest origin determining the tendency to spread misinformation. Populism as such, including its left-wing variety, and its right-wing policy, do not show any crucial connection to the spread of false information. (...) The results propose that contemporary political disinformation is not primarily the effect of populism as such, but specifically of extremist right-wing populism.”
It is besides essential to exposure the fraud of PR treatments specified as Musk and Zuckerberg. Never adequate to remind you that “freedom of word” according to Musk means, among another things, arbitrary suspension of accounts of journalists with whom he disagrees, suppression of posts containing the word “cis” and more than 80 per cent of compliance demands that certain content be removed from the platform issued by state authorities, including the Governments of Turkey and the United arabian Emirates.
It is besides worth reminding that relaxing the moderation does not mean that Jan Kowalski will be able to have a free discussion. In fact, they will benefit most from this army of bots and troll farms, which, on request, will litter platforms with hateful content and disinformation. And if that's not enough, present it will besides be mass-generated by AI. In this sound No 1 can hear Kowalski..
And if Jan Kowalski is simply a associate of a number at the same time, there is simply a good chance that a constant stream of insults and threats will drive him off a given platform.
There are many liberals and centrists ready to take over the communicative of the right, due to the fact that it gives them an chance to pour their own regrets to the left. You can urge a past lesson to specified people. The effort to jump on the far right wave always ends the same – this wave sweeps on the same level as leftist, liberal and centrist. I can only quote Luke Skywalker's words from the movie to my central-liberal colleagues. Last Jedi: “This will not end as you think.”
