You might as well blame this on Tim Berners-Lee. It's just absurd, a clueless way of thinking about moral responsibility.

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Before Facebook subsidised the internet in Myanmar via the internet.org initiative, only 1% of the population had internet.

The way Facebook chose to operate in the country made rumour indistinguishable from verified news by its users.

Myanmar's Facebook community was also nearly completely unmonitored by Facebook, who at the time only had two Burmese-speaking employees.

If TBL had managed to fund a huge rollout of the web, and convinced everyone that a random phpbb forum he made was filled with BBC reporters, and the defence was two full-time moderators, you can bet people would blame him if someone organised a literal genocide on that forum.

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slibhb 2 hours ago | parent [-]

"We shouldn't give Burma the internet because they might commit a genocide"

Do you hear yourself? Let's not give them electricity and fossil fuels either. Just keep them in dark age conditions so they don't hurt anyone.

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ben_w an hour ago | parent [-]

> Do you hear yourself?

Better than you heard me, given that's not what I said.

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solid_fuel an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This is an uphill battle, I'm afraid. As evidenced from their other comments, slibhb struggles a lot with basic moral concepts like "you are responsible for the things you do".

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slibhb an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's very fashionable for Westerners to evince belief in the idea that inhabitants of third-world countries have no free will and aren't responsible for their actions. We're told that everything bad that happens in those countries is due to large Western companies or a history of colonization.

This is all very silly. The genocide in Myanmar (it's a civil war last I checked) isn't Facebook's fault (legally or morally). Facebook has surely made mistakes, but that doesn't make them to blame for people killing each other on the other side of the world.

	▲	ben_w 44 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You're still shadow-boxing with what you want me to have written, not what I actually wrote.

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solid_fuel 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> You might as well blame this on Tim Berners-Lee.

You clearly don’t understand this, and maybe you never will (it seems beyond some people), but moral responsibility is assigned here because of the actions facebook and their employees took.

It is not assigned to Tim Berners-Lee because, again this is important, Tim Berners-Lee didn’t spend years spreading targeted genocidal propaganda in a country with a violent history and fragile peace.

Hope that helps. If you still can’t understand it, I can recommend some philosophy books on morality and our responsibilities to our fellow humans.

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slibhb 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Based on this garbage-level post I have a strong feeling I've read more moral philosophy than you.

	▲	solid_fuel 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Great counter argument, it really illustrates your thought process - or lack thereof. It’s really sad that you don’t comprehend basic morality, but unfortunately not much can be done in cases like this. The will for change must come from within, but if you ever do find yourself feeling empathy or even sympathy for other humans I promise there are lots of resources available to help you learn and understand more about living like a responsible human. All it takes is asking for help.