| > They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is great, but not if its used by your neighbours to stir up trouble. (the civil war was long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War) One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not the same as being able to criticise your government for doing a bad job/breaking the law/killing it's own citizens. Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division. > many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat Yup, because it is a threat. see Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia to name just a few. all have had large scale unrest transmitted and amplfied by facebook. Now are they nice governments? no. did facebook help bring democracy? also no, they helped pinpoint activists and let the government(s) kidnap them. The indian anti-muslim movement is properly being whipped up by the BJP and others, using facebook to get to the people that don't have TVs. Facebook is a big part in why they are still in power. |
I would feel better about this type of activity being regulated. There is quite a bit of room for facebook to live up to higher standards and regulation to prevent that sort of behavior with out banning.
Might also be more a of a hassle to write and enforce the laws though than out right banning though.
The result of that for a country with a small market though might be facebook/similar voluntarily leaving the country/market though.