How Thai authorities use online doxxing to suppress dissent

Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian. The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to happen is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst.

As more governments slip into autocracies, similar scenarios are likely happening in other countries as well, and we just don't know about it. The fact that US social media platforms are operated by people supportive of an aspiring autocrat should be a red flag for anyone still using them. Especially for citizens of the US, where the line between the government and corporations gets thinner by the day.

These are truly bizarre and frightening times for anyone outside of this system.

> Think back to 2020 when just saying you have any misgivings about taking part in Pfizer's impromptu global human trials would get you … fully debanked and without a job

I don’t think I heard about this: is there a reliable place I can read more about it?

> The lack of oversight on social media platforms that allows this to happen is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst.

The social media platforms are supposed to what? Be a foil to the governments? Replace the government? Be a foil to the governments you don't like? It's unclear what you think the ideal here is.

Err.. be independent of governments.

The thinking of your post betrays an increasingly common totalitarian assumption behind the role of government -- perhaps covid has caused this.

In liberal democracies the government is always supposed to have only a minimal, enabling, role to civil society.

TFA mentions 4 recommendations that social media platforms can implement to prevent the abuse of their users. These aren't even political, but pertain to the practice of doxxing in general.

And like a sibling comment mentioned, companies should operate separately from governments. When that separation is blurred the checks and balances that are supposed to be in place in order to keep companies from abusing people, and from being an extension for governments to do the same, are just gone. At that point the country becomes a corporatocracy, serving the interests of companies rather than citizens.

The US has arguably functioned like this for decades, but when there are literal businessmen in power this is more evident than ever before. It's how you get scenarios of presidents manipulating the economy for their and their cronies' benefit. The next step is complete authoritarianism where companies are government puppets, where the spread of and access to information is tightly controlled and sprinkled with their own propaganda in order to keep megalomaniacs in power, and where any dissidence is squashed before it has the chance to spread. This is how you get China, Russia, and any government that aspires to that formula.

It's crazy that this needs explanation, or that it's a controversial line of thought.

Your "be independent" is what I was hinting at with my "replace". The GP suggests that social networks either need to have oversight or be the oversight. You assert that they should be the oversight, but how is that not the same totalitarianism?

To keep this on topic: the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms. This feels like a thin appeal to some higher authority that hopefully GP agrees with more, and definitely doesn't feel like a less totalitarian approach.

It was not that long ago that even I remember you had to be vaccinated even here in Eastern Europe to be able to keep your job, have doctor's visit, and basic functioning in general. Thankfully I escaped it, as I always have been a reclusive. What I did not escape is an autoimmune disease, unfortunately, but not caused by the vaccines.

I find it quite eye-rolling that people still talk like (1) Pfizer's is the only vaccine in the world, (2) that the various vaccines' rollout was itself the trial.

Not heard of anyone getting debanked for it — "u", sure, but not "a".

> the GP is suggesting that Meta/X put checks on what the Thai government is able to do on their platforms

No, that's not at all what I'm suggesting.[1]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749941

Those of us who want democracy want governments to regulate companies since a government at least has the potential of becoming democratic (companies don’t).

There are many others who want them to just “enable” society—perhaps because of their own financial incentives.

> Chilling. Governments weaponizing information they have on citizens is textbook dystopian

Welcome to government.

with all due respect, is it possible that because you havent heard about it, that is has happened? and PROVIDED it has happened, would you agree that this is atrocious to the level where anyone involved in ANY kind of government capacity would deserve to be thrown in jail forever for that crime?

> Elon Musk is probably the best thing to happen for free speech on social media

Ha. Please tell me more about this fantasy world you live in. The only thing Musk has done is tilt the needle towards his own biases[1]. Disinformation on X is still rampant[2], and Musk himself is one of the top spreaders of it. Those who benefit from spreading disinformation love to spout the idea that they're victims of censorship, and appeal to free speech absolutism. Yet when placed in positions of power, they're the same ones who censor opposing views for whatever reason they find convenient, while allowing the nonsense they believe in to spread.

There was a time when journalism followed a code of ethics. Its mission was to inform the public of world events, without putting a spin on facts. Once media companies became profit-driven corporations, and particularly once social media platforms took over and everyone was given a megaphone to spout their opinion as fact, ethics went out the window, disinformation was cheap to spread, and people were no longer in a position to distinguish fact from fiction.

So this is not about censorship. It's about promoting factual information about the world we live in, while demoting whatever someone thinks reality is, and especially when someone could benefit from that line of thinking. This is not a particularly hard problem to solve, but it won't happen on platforms that are driven by profits from engagement. Companies have no incentive to promote truth. Their only incentive is accumulating wealth, and they'll do that by any means necessary. Thinking that free speech will prosper and disinformation will wane on these platforms is delusional, especially now that we have autocrat sympathizers running them, and both companies and the government benefit from the status quo. If you think these people will give up power willingly, think again.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2024/01/09/elon-mus...

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wrong-claims-by-musk-us-ele...

Tell us please about the person who got de-banked for expressing skepticism about the Pfizer rollout online

It’s not practical to think that companies can operate separately from governments and indeed I think they should not. We want companies to be subject to the law. That means if governments bring something like a subpoena or other court order to the company, the company should comply.

Well for jurisdictions where the government weaponizes the justice system that means the company either has to choose not to do business there or to bend the knee..

> And like a sibling comment mentioned, companies should operate separately from governments.

Unless you are making the claim that the Thai government is giving special privilege to Meta/X or vice versa, then it already is this way. Since the doxxing/bullying happened anyways, this is irrelevant.

I think we both agree that what is happening in this article is bad. You made some assertion that “lack of oversight…is incompetence at best, and complicity at worst“, so who is supposed to provide this oversight? You are clearly saying “not a government”, but I think that social networks doing this “oversight” of what governments are doing is equally dangerous.

The main reason to value privacy and data protection is that a liberal government cannot be guaranteed to survive.

No liberal can guarantee that they won't be replaced with a genocidal authoritarian, so systems need to be designed with that possibility in mind.

Something as "innocent" as a census can be weaponized by a future authoritarian government.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/rearvision/the-dark-s...

You cannot be "independent" from the government on this planet.

>In liberal democracies the government is always supposed to have only a minimal, enabling, role to civil society.

Who actually believes this except for liberations who aren't just right wing hiding their true views.

Very interesting link!

Submitted!

answer my question please, IF this happened, would you consider it to be atrocious?

Sure, I am happy to status for the record that I don’t think people shouldn’t be debanked for simply expressing skepticism about a vaccine.