I've written the series because I think that if we plow ahead with attempts to make new and better social platforms and tools without understanding the industry's recent history in relatively granular detail, we run the risk of making the same mistakes—or of failing to recognize major threats.
The first post deals with Myanmar's ultra-optimistic crash entry to the internet—and outlines many warnings Meta received about its role in worsening ethnic tensions and violence in those years.
The second post, which is going up tomorrow unless my computer explodes, deals with the escalation into the 2016-2017 "ethnic cleansing" and genocide of the Rohingya and Meta's role in those events.
The third post is about how Facebook as a platform became both an active accelerator for violence-inciting messages and a host for a truly massive covert fake-page network built to manufacture support for genocide.
In the fourth post, I talk about what I think we should take from all of this.
Huge and heartfelt thanks to everyone reading along—these posts are very long and very dense and also just upsetting to read, as they have been to write.
@kissane Thanks to you for writing them. I have to set time aside and sometimes read them in more than one session (my broken brain is more at fault there than the topic). I really appreciate your work.
@eldang Thank you so much. These took months to write, partly for that reason, and I honestly wouldn't recommend that anyone read any of them in one sitting.
@kissane You know, if we were still working together, I’d tell you to go take a nap right now. But since we’re not, I’m still going to tell you go take a nap ffs.
@kissane thanks to the book Social Warming by @charlesarthur I have an idea of how this is going to go. All strength to you for writing this and I'll try to find a calm timespace to read through it.
@kissane I was watching this just before I saw your post. Some very chilling interviews with monks explaining why duty to country and faith comes before the “human rights” nonsense.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Oh weird, I fixed that one earlier and it's no longer showing here—hopefully it will resolve on a reload, but it might be cached client-side, I guess?
@kissane I think your posts are valuable to anyone who wants a look into the opacity of how fascism and approval of violence and far right positions are being manufactured. Not just to techpeople
@sahat I mean, mostly want to disclaim any pretense to being a historian or a scholar of Burmese politics and culture. This is a very western-tech-person perspective, no matter how many Burmese people I cite.
@kissane i get it. speaks to your integrity. But really. many people just wonder where all the hate comes from. Your research is very valuable in helping everyone understand what social media has become. Everyone needs to know that.
@kissane I’m only like half done with the first one but I’m already in love with the voice of your prose. It’s extremely comprehensive and well organized, too. I’m impressed so far
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