[Edit 2: I think anyone commenting should identify how much they use Facebook in their comment lol]

On the list of people I describe in the subject, I place myself first. If you’re here to defend yourself by showing me your receipts, congratulations, you win, I just saved us who knows how much time. I’m typing this out in an attempt to describe phenomena, not persuade you of anything in particular, other than, this is a thing I see happening a lot; too much would be my take.

I’m just gonna grab [a] most egregious example, but I would like to talk about this, not as a horrific fail, but as an exemplar; at the moment I believe that most people categorize it as the former.

[edit: there really is no “most” egregious example, and I just thought of a much worse one, and unlike Facebook I am fully guilty of this one: I own and drive a car, a lot, and boy am I ignoring some real world consequences there.]

That example being, Facebook Acted As The Main Propaganda Outlet For A Genocide Of The Rohingya In Myanmar, and therefore, Anyone Who Uses Facebook Is Using A Tool That Has Bloodstains On It And Are Somehow Not Horrified.

To more easily conceptualize this, it’s much the same as me needing a shovel, and having a neighbour that I happen to know murdered someone with their shovel, but has not been arrested for it, and right when I need the shovel, they walk over with their bloodstained shovel and offer to let me use it for my non-murder task. And I just go “Wow how convenient that you happened to be here with that bright-red shovel just now, I think I’ll use this one one of yours with the little spatters of brain on it, instead of walking over to my shed and getting my own shovel out!”

We are talking about murder here, Facebook was used to foment mass murder and in a world that made sense, Zuckerberg would be handed over to the ICC years ago, along with Henry Kissinger and a number of others who instead hang out at the Nobel Peace Prize club where Barack makes a mean Mai Tai.

The problems that people use Facebook to constructively solve is connections to family and close friends, event and interest group organizing, the marketplace, and for the avid user it constitutes a daily journal.

These problems could each be solved using something else that is also just as gratis. It might be a small amount of effort more, but then you maybe don’t ever have to touch the remains of a human life that once existed and now does not, due to this particular device being used to end that life.

But it seems that it’s more convenient, easy, zero effort, to simply ignore the gore.

That’s what I see on the internet. I don’t think anyone has ever accepted a bloodstained shovel and set to digging a ditch with it who didn’t also feel that their life was next if they didn’t, but as long as there’s no visible bloodstains, as long as it’s just a few articles and podcasts from known radical leftists, eh, look at little Jimmy’s recital, isn’t he cute?

  • Anafroj
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    1 year ago

    requested info : I don’t use Facebook. I’ve had an account I opened in 2018 due to peer pressure, and I closed it in 2018.

    I’m not familiar with that story, so correct me if I’m wrong, but this looks like a classic case of shooting the messenger. Facebook is a communication tool. The fact that horrible people used it to do horrible things doesn’t sound like a problem with the tool, except of course if people from Facebook were aware of it while it was happening (I doubt so, for the simple reason that they would have nothing to gain from that, and much to lose ; but again, correct me if I’m wrong). Genocides have probably been organized using phone and paper mail systems, but nobody would say “stop using phones, it’s bloodstained”. At least, with Facebook, there’s a possibility of moderation that never existed with previous means of communication.

    … but fuck Facebook anyway. :P

    • JTode@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      if people from Facebook were aware of it while it was happening

      Narrator: They were, including Zuck.

      • Anafroj
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        1 year ago

        I’m sorry, I’m not taking your word for it, that’s not how it works. :) Do you have reliable sources on that?

        • JTode@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          I linked to a podcast at the end of the post, and if you follow the link, one of the first things you see is a list of links to articles and such.

          Consider yourself led to water, Mr. Ed.