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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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?

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.

Facebook's signature feature is that it's viral. It amplifies ideas and emotions.

And it's most effective at amplifying negative ideas and emotions like rumor, gossip, fear and hate.

Of course the root cause is people. But before Facebook, the bad stuff was slow to spread, and geographically localized.

Facebook released an accelerant, a catalyst into the world. And Facebook has lost control of the monster it created.

Human beings can't be trusted with the power to communicate among themselves?

Dangerous human beings can't be trusted.

> Human beings can't be trusted with ...

Very few items could fill in this blank to make a true statement:

"Every human should be trusted with unrestricted and amplified _____________."

If you create a superhuman thing and release it into the world, you damn well better control it.

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.

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.

trouble is that social network helps misinformation spreading at a faster rate than "good" information.

Initial misinformation, is usually quite widespread before any correction is issued, and even then correction usually get less spread ( mostly because people who have been spreading misinformation would not admit that they are wrong ).

Also blocking, muting and bubble effect contribute to wrong information staying in the same sphere.

Its worth it when its gonna prevent deaths because of propaganda. In India, its a main source of misinformation and it has caused numerous deaths. For example in last month's deadly Pulwama attack which killed 40+ soldiers in an attack by a terrorist in Kashmir, Right wing Hindu extremist groups started spreading misinformation saying that "Kashmiris all over the country are celebrating the death of soldiers." They shared old photos of random kashmiris being happy. This let to multiple attacks on the kashmiris all over the country. This is exactly what needs to be prevented from ever happening again. I'm willing to give away social media for a few days if its gonna save some fellow countrymen's lives no matter if they're innocent or not. Please understand the context.

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

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