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Comment by croissants | Hacker News Reader

I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross, so Facebook really should have deleted posts calling for some people to be burned more quickly.

On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little credit to the Ethiopian people or the ability of their government to maintain order. In that sense, it feels prejudiced and patronizing, like arguing that Facebook needs to police its Ethiopian presence because Ethiopia can't police itself.

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Perhaps the real issue is just that - you give people far too much credit. We're essentially animals.

I mean look around you. You could say "no we can't tax sugar, cigarettes, and alcohol, because that gives the people too little credit to make good healthy choices!" And yet 42% of Americans are obese. Anti-science and anti-vax culture is very relevant. People believe Bill Gates wants to track their every move, and yet they walk around with phones and are signed into facebook trading their photoshopped memes from Russian troll farms.

We give ourselves way too much credit.

I think the implication is more that Facebook massively under-moderates and is basically unable to moderate in vast parts of the world. I think you'd see equally disastrous results if they had barely any moderators who could speak English or knew American culture and current events.

IMO Facebook should be able to police its own platform, so if it has a large presence in Ethiopia then it needs to police that part of its platform (ideally using employees based in Ethiopia). If it feels it can't effectively police Ethiopian Facebook without amplifying hateful/violent messages then they shouldn't be operating there.

It makes sense to me that Facebook should attempt to follow the laws of the various countries in which it operates -- though obviously vague laws prohibiting "sedition" or "promoting unrest" make this hard.

But it seems quite difficult to navigate less codified cultural topics. For example, the problems in Ethiopia turn on old lines of ethnic division. It's tough for me to imagine that Facebook will somehow arrive at a way to manage a problem that's troubled Ethiopia for so long, even (especially?) if it uses local employees as moderators.

> I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross

but either way, according to most folks on this forum, Facebook doesn't have to allow free speech

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