> If a user engages in trolling, criminal activity, or abuse, they will be identified and ostracized. Furthermore, they will incur a financial loss, as their reputation will be ruined. Thus content moderation problems are addressed without ill-fitting and abusable corporate or government interventions.
I'm sure that won't go wrong or impact certain groups at all.
There's a lot of content on the internet today that I just don't want to see. Coincidentally, while I had a conversation with people about the benefits of intersectionality a Robin DiAngelo follower joined. This person masked themselves as "just asking questions" and then proceeded to do the oddest form of theatrical racism and subsequent victim position seeking I've ever seen. As much as I'd love to "ostracize" this person and never hear of them again, as much as my day would've been far better without knowing people like this exist, I don't think it's right to ostracize people. That's how we got flat Earth to get so big. We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own. I'd rather flat Earthers and DiAngelo followers find their way back to rational society, not out from it forever.
> We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own.
They weren't pushed out, they walked out because their views weren't accepted. That's the problem with this line of thinking: people will only stick around if you're willing to accept their beliefs as reasonable to some extent. But nobody accepts that for ideas like Flat Earth or white supremacy, so they formed their own communities where they do.
There's no way around this. If you try to "keep them around", then you have to say that these are reasonable ideas. And if they are reasonable ideas, then why should they drop them? This is how they spread.
4chan predates all of them. And there were plenty of thriving forums where odd and extreme ideas of all sorts were discussed before 4chan.
What mass social media sites like Twitter and Facebook provided was an easier way for the less technologically literate to discover extremist forums (as well as extremist ideas generally) without having to know someone from those circles beforehand.
IMO, what happened is that Western culture over the past 60 years became increasingly cynical, including it's intellectual culture (e.g. post-structuralist, deconstructive ideas have come to dominate both the left and the right). So you have a mass of people who simply don't know what to believe, because everything is about "they" coming to get you or oppress you. Anti-corporatism, cultural wars, identity politics etc, etc. Then we take a massive population--educated and uneducated--which has internalized this notion that all "conventional" ideas are inherently suspect, and dumped them into cyberspace.
I'm reminded of this quote from Oliver Wendall Holmes,
> When the ignorant are taught to doubt they do not know what they safely may believe. And it seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.
Years ago I would have reflexively thought that sentiment oppressively paternalistic. Now not so much, partly because in reflection on my own life I can see how our culture effected how I processed ideas. I've learned (or relearned) to appreciate the fact that simply because Holmes often was oppressively paternalistic does not invalidate the central truths reflected in that sentiment.
I struggle hard to take this comment in good faith given how blatantly inaccurate it is. Still, I will assume poster is just ill-informed.
There were entire communities, who were effectively forced out of their respective online spots with arguments presented to them in order were: 'well find a different forum, website, cloudflare provider, isp'. Most recent such community was kiwifarms, but even before those there were multiple others than keep being 'moved'.
<<then you have to say that these are reasonable ideas.
No. A rational person can tell that 'sky is made of marshmallow' is bs. If they cannot, some thinning of the herd is clearly necessary. If a person struggles with basics of life and cannot comprehend basic language, I have little to offer.
edit: Seriously. If I tell you that all humans are in fact cappucino makers, do most people go into existential crisis? No, they don't. Do you know why? Me neither, but I don't see you serving me a cappucino either.
It is a ridiculously bad argument. Please rewrite.
edit: I apologize for the angry language. In retrospect, I would have written it differently. I decided not to remove as it would potentially change the flow of the argument ( and make it look like I am trying to hide it or something ). I admit that something about parent's post rubbed me the wrong way and I can't quite put a finger on it. It is a lesson for me of sorts.
> No. A rational person can tell that 'sky is made of marshmallow' is bs. If they cannot, some thinning of the herd is clearly necessary. If a person struggles with basics of life and cannot comprehend basic language, I have little to offer.
Not sure what point you're trying to make here. What in the world does "thinning of the herd" mean?! Are you advocating for eugenics?
> If I tell you that all humans are in fact cappucino makers, do most people go into existential crisis?
Who's going into an existential crisis? Flat Earthers are being told that their beliefs are garbage, and they are going into crisis and forming their own communities to reinforce their beliefs.
eugenics - the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable
I am advocating for taking off warning labels. Take it as you will.
<< Who's going into an existential crisis?
You are. You chase people with 'wrong ideas' away. You cannot co-exist with an idea that somehow is not one that you believe in, which is why you equate existence of an idea next to you with your passive acceptance of that idea, which is ridiculous. Ideas exist regardless of whether you accept them or not. It is both fascinating and scary to me that you think presentable ideas require your explicit permission to exist.
Hell. I am this close to arguing with you on behalf of flat earthers, because I am almost certain based on the conversation so far you are the type of person, who would have sent Gallileo to jail for heresy.
> I am advocating for taking off warning labels. Take it as you will.
What are the "warning labels" on believing that the Earth is flat?
> It is both fascinating and scary to me that you think presentable ideas require your explicit permission to exist.
Not sure where you're getting any of this. You seem to have built up quite a straw man that you are getting really upset about. Here it is put simply: I am under no obligation to entertain your beliefs. If you get offended by that and run away to form your own community, thats your problem. You can't force me to pretend as if Flat Earth is a reasonable idea. We're thousands of years past that point.
I really don't understand your position. You are simultaneously aggrieved that Flat Earthers are being ignored, but also seem to think they should die.
<<They weren't pushed out, they walked out because their views weren't accepted.
Your assertion is not valid. Your attempt at characterization and framing is misleading. They did not 'walk out'. They were either banned, shadow banned, or w/e current equivalent in a given community of removed is. As a result of said banning, they formed their own communities. Your entire premise is flawed from misrepresentation of that one key element.
<<I am under no obligation to entertain your beliefs.
We are in agreement. Note that the same applies to others. Others are under no obligation to entertain your beliefs and and yet they have every right to occupy same sphere.
<< You seem to have built up quite a straw man that you are getting really upset about.
It is not a straw man. You saying 'flat earthers' just picked up their toys and went away is, however, a lie. I am just calling it out.
<< I really don't understand your position.
I don't like misrepresentation of simple facts, but bold misstatements like those above require corrections.
<<You are simultaneously aggrieved that Flat Earthers are being ignored, but also seem to think they should die.
I will defend idiot's right to say stupid stuff. I have no problem with an idiot dying. It is not some sort of mystery.
> Others are under no obligation to entertain your beliefs and and yet they have every right to occupy same sphere.
No they don't, full stop. You don't own Twitter, you don't own YouTube, you don't own any of these platforms. Flat Earthers can say whatever the hell they want, but they don't have the "right" to force YouTube to carry their speech.
It is a simple fact that these bans are effective at preventing toxic behavior and fringe conspiracy theories from spreading.
Hey now.. are you saying they got kicked out from <platforms>?
Because that would put us halfway there.
I would still disagree with you on a host of other issues, but at least you would admit your initial statement was not accurate ( paraphrased as 'they left to form their own communities').
Also, who made you the authority of who gets to be toxic and who is not? I find you toxic. Do I get to ban you? I don't like your fringe theory on 'fringe conspiracy theories spreading' spreading any further..
Do you see how ridiculous it gets and how fast this argument ends up in absurd situation we are currently in? Do I really need to spell out why it is a really, really bad idea to go down the rabbit hole you suggest?
<< You don't own Twitter,
Musk does. Are you ok with with the toxic rules he imposes?
Again, do you really want to go down this rabbit hole?
late edit:
<< It is a simple fact that these bans are effective at preventing toxic behavior and fringe conspiracy theories from spreading.
It is, at best, an assertion. You don't believe me? Look at Biden's laptop saga. The downright moronic attempts to shut it down in this panicky fashion only reinforced the belief that it must be true, because it was being clamped down so hard and NOW, partially, thanks to your asserted, proclaimed and clearly enforced wisdom, we get to see at least two year show of House hearings on it. Great Job!
> Do I really need to spell out why it is a really, really bad idea to go down the rabbit hole you suggest?
You should! Where does the rabbit hole of "platforms get to choose what they ban" lead us? Are you suggesting that a YouTube channel is a human right now?
> You don't believe me? Look at Biden's laptop saga
Here's the problem: your thesis assumes that these groups are acting in good faith. They are not. The GOP has repeatedly stated that they will impeach the president over anything, regardless of if it's true or not. Remember Benghazi? Remember how Trump pressured Ukraine to open up any investigation into Biden? He didn't care if it was real, he needed the headlines and the political edge.
There is no universe in which they go "oh nevermind, we were wrong about the laptop." It is in their interest to ignore facts. And here you are, suggesting that the solution is simply to make it more public as if it has any credence. Should we also widely disseminate QAnon literature and talking points, simply because they exist?
<< And here you are, suggesting that the solution is simply to make it more public as if it has any credence.
My friend.
You have learned nothing. No. Worse than nothing. You have learned the wrong lesson and you will clearly repeat it again so allow me to spell it out for you. You somehow managed to learn that after you survive a Streisand effect, you clearly did not CLAMP down hard enough. You managed not to learn that it is a proper response to NOT encourage another such effect in the form of another round of censorship of public opinions, but to somehow double down on. Scratch that! Triple down!
And note that now the environment has really changed and people are actually paying attention to some of this. Do you really think censorship approach is the right approach?
<< Here's the problem: your thesis assumes that these groups are acting in good faith.
It literally does not matter. The action banning a piece of news MADE IT CREDIBLE in the eyes of the public. Whether Republicans released in good faith is meaningless here. Why is it so hard to understand? The public believed it, to an extent supported some candidates based on those and will now actively demand Biden's impeachment. This choice made it happen! Your advocated choice made it happen. Can you see what I am showing you? I simple cause and effect. And multiple ripples.
<< The GOP has repeatedly stated that they will impeach the president over anything, regardless of if it's true or not.
So what? Ever since Clinton impeachment meant nothing and became a political tool just like anything else. I will even let you on a little secret. Biden will be impeached too. It is pure luck ( just like Trump's ) that it won't get past senate. The only time it would matter is IF the president is removed from power. That is it. But now.. they have a reason for impeachment that a good portion of the population may actually side with ( and people were kinda split over Trump's impeachment ). So again, and I am beating a dead horse for a reason, great job making that laptop thing credible! This combined with Rs ability to actually make people dislike their targets ( Hillary comes to mind ) will be a wild spectacle.
<< Should we also widely disseminate QAnon literature and talking points, simply because they exist?
You sure as fuck should not treat it like it should be automatically removed from everywhere making it instantly credible.
<< There is no universe in which they go "oh nevermind, we were wrong about the laptop."
Why would they? They were right to bet on it! Not to mention, your endorsed approach surely did not help. They actually managed to monetize this! It is god damn impressive. And that is before we even get to the actual content of the thing, which will be a lot of fun for US population to watch. Can you imagine, crack addict in the white house bait articles already? That Chapelle was a prophet.
<< And here you are, suggesting that the solution is simply to make it more public as if it has any credence
I will tell you a little story from the old country. A really short one. Actually, it is not even a story. It is a saying. It goes: Don't touch shit for you may smear yourself.
All you had to do is nothing and it would have died on its own. But nope. Gotta intervene. Gotta tell people what they can think, what they can and cannot see for I AM THE ARBITER TRUTH. I don't think I exaggerate that much, but this is my impression of people on Twitter trying to make a decision on it.
<< Should we also widely disseminate QAnon literature and talking points, simply because they exist?
You don't have to disseminate shit, but the moment you stop others from doing it you are feeding the very thing you purport to fight.
<< Are you suggesting that a YouTube channel is a human right now?
Strawman, but I will bite anyway, but you raised an interesting point.
I am suggesting that at certain point, you can't effectively be a global square and claim not be one at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive states. You do not get to be a planet and claim you have no gravitational pull for purposes of physics. Which is basically the entire reason 230 comes into this discussion at all ( companies wanting to have two mutually exclusive states, which is one of the reasons for the mess we are in ).
Listen, if it was up to me ( say I am the emperor of the Earth ), social media would not exist. Period. They are clearly more hassle than they are worth. But since I am kinda not in a position of the supreme overlord, I would like to maybe just cut them to size just a little bit ( you know.. post clear rules of what is allowed and what is not..stuff like that.. none of that vague 'hate speech' ). Failing that. I am ok with guaranteed access.
<< Where does the rabbit hole of "platforms get to choose what they ban" lead us?
The platforms that are the size and reach of nation-states ( scratch that, globe ) can silence you at will. Today, it is a ban flat earth believers. Tomorrow, we are going to ban 88 so as not to offend China ( and simultaneously strike a blow against nazi sympathizers -- huzzah ). Day after that, we are going to ban 77, because 4chan and 8kun got together and figured out a way that to pass some obscenity filter is to say 'Canadian' instead of 'Boomer' ( which just became a slur ). You cannot win this arms race. You just can't.
And all this is before we get the final point. You. The rabbit hole always leads down to "you" or a person with zero self-preservation instinct. You think the tool in front of you will not touch you for you are the righteous, of the right mind ( and/or have 'gott mit uns' on your insignia ), but, well, things and mores change. Not that many decades ago gays were thought to be mentally ill. My not so subtle point is that what was kosher today, may not be kosher in the future. If I were you, I would think several times before I was ready to support 'ban everything foundation for it is the sovereign right of a platform to act as it pleaseath'.
Yes, you are a clean model citizen today. Tomorrow, we shall see, won't we. Oh, your face will be so red then.
> The action banning a piece of news MADE IT CREDIBLE in the eyes of the public.
No. If that worked, necrophilia would be credible in the eyes of the public. It's banned so completely it isn't even mentioned except as an extreme fetish for people who are, presumably, mentally ill in the eyes of the mainstream. Banning necrophilia does nothing for it: It only finds purchase among a tiny few, the ones predisposed to go for it. Idiocies like the imaginary laptop are similar: Only those predisposed to fall for such fallacies are swayed, as proven by Republicans losing elections of late.
Besides, the people who support the DON'T SAY GAY bill certainly think banning discussion of a thing makes it go away entirely. Reality refutes them.
<< No. If that worked, necrophilia would be credible in the eyes of the public.
It is a non-sequitur. It simply does not follow. If it was intended as an analogy, it fails at several levels.
Still, in the spirit of continuing this conversation, and extending this metaphor I will play along.
Has necrophilia been reported in NY post touting its discovery or its relationship to current WH occupant? Have other publications later confirmed that necrophilia was indeed present[1] and was not limited to just necrophilia[2,3 - note those havens of conservative thought like NYT ] despite initially recoiling from such revelations with horror?
Look, I get that you think you can wave me away by a distraction like a slogan 'don't say gay' and turn it into a political sparring match, but you can't. Gays exist. Laptop exists. Pictures exist. It would appear a crack addict exists. Facts are facts.
Personally, I would strap on man. It is going to be one crazy show. If you want my advice, just enjoy the ride.
<<as proven by Republicans losing elections of late.
Yep. Them crazy republicans losing all them seats in the house and senate barely held by democracts. Such a resounding loss it was. I am sorry but I have to chuckle a little at this statement coming from someone on the internet claiming to describe reality. It is just a little surreal.
> Has necrophilia been reported in NY post touting its discovery or its relationship to current WH occupant?
Not yet, but there's a long way to go until 2024.
Yes, I get that you believe in Hunter Biden's magic laptop. I think it's nonsense and that you've been duped, and you need to respect my beliefs, because trying to ban them will only make them more credible. Really, you're the one being unreasonable here.
No. I only need to tolerate them. And I do. The moment tables turn and your beliefs are on the chopping block, I will be the lone soul advocating for you on the same basis. I actually believe in right your to express those beliefs. I would not even consider banning you. Aren't I a chump?
However, in my admittedly simple world, there is no automatic respect. And as such, I have little respect for people, who do not look at what is front of them, or worse, pretend it is not there. It is a recipe for a disaster.
<< I think it's nonsense and that you've been duped
It is possible. I was wrong before. We will find out during the exciting finale of US 2024 election! Don't miss it!
<< there's a long way to go until 2024.
We are in agreement here. It is a long time in politics, but you have to admit that the pieces are in place now. I know that key power centers have stuff ready for release on known candidates ( and furiously research any challengers for any flaws that can be exploited ).
I'm pretty sure the constant repetition in trad media - especially for-profit noise machines like Fox and Infowars - had a lot more to do with that than any ban.
I read the Financial Times and there was a constant stream of obvious troll accounts trying to force the laptop narrative into threads, whether they fitted or not.
Moderation is a small element of a cultural immune system which exists to protect everyone from organised - actually industrialised - bad actors.
No one really cares if a few individuals believe something weird about UFOs or whatever. But when those beliefs are encouraged as part of a deliberate campaign to undermine scientific authority and replace it with irrational emotively charged authoritarian conformity, that's a very different game.
And that is exactly what's been happening with the anti-vax and anti-masking campaigns around Covid, and even more obviously with all things QAnon.
The latter has been incredibly toxic and destructive to families and individuals, and it only spreads because Q content is easily accessible on popular trad and social media channels.
The harder it is to spread and access this content, the less effective it is.
<< You saying 'flat earthers' just picked up their toys and went away is, however, a lie. I am just calling it out.
Do you have evidence of this? I'm not aware of any major deplatforming of flat earthers. There are still flat earth subreddits. Most people seem to think they're stupid and worthy of ridicule but ultimately not that harmful.
I can't point to specifics, but I do remember a lot of similarly bizarre beliefs on YouTube leading up to 2012, like people trying to prove that the sun is now orbiting north-to-south because we're in the middle of a pole shift. An enormous chunk of that historical record is now lost to all future historians because they said the wrong things when Covid came around.
> There's no way around this. If you try to "keep them around", then you have to say that these are reasonable ideas.
This works both ways. Queer and other minority groups identity weren’t always accepted as reasonable ideas so they made their own spaces until they were allowed back in.
It doesn’t work both ways, the same people being ostracized now are the ones that didn’t/don’t except queer and other minority groups. The ones that want people in prison or dead for having attributes beyond their control. Not wanting people like that around has always been considered a reasonable idea by reasonable people.
My point was that the “group X needs to be accepted or they’ll make their own space” is a universal behavior.
If we make it hard for outsiders to make their own space, it will impact queer and similarly marginalized groups. Queer people still need their own space today because they’re still not always accepted. While we should accept reasonable people and allow them into our space, we do need a society that allows people to make their own space.
Something like: This person gets put in my personal ignore filter, which over time will get better at predicting who and what I want ignored. I can always go back and review what's being ignored and make changes. Individuals and their content can be ignored separately, so "I don't like this topic" doesn't ban someone who I like to engage with on other topics.
I'll also tag this person as a flat-earther so my computer will learn to cluster similar content, so I can query "flat-earther" when I want a chuckle.
> If you try to "keep them around", then you have to say that these are reasonable ideas.
No, you don't.
Apologies for the terseness, but there are solutions here. It's a problem of signal-to-noise ratio, not an issue of principles and tolerance. Reddit has done a lot by looking at user behavior, as opposed to content, and it's the best system so far for any public, global social media with plenty of bad actors. They've also federated human moderation, which is a step in the right direction.
But your actions are doing that. You can say "I think these are unconscionable words" until you're blue in the face, but who are people going to believe, you, the person who lets people say those words, or someone else who bans people who say them?
Part of influencing user behavior is controlling which ideas can be discussed. Subreddits very aggressively do this by, like, having rules about what content can be discussed. More than a banlist of unacceptable topics and ideas, they only allow discussion of very particular topics. You can't post about politics on /r/pets. That is influencing user behavior by influencing content. What it feels acceptable to post (user behavior) is influenced by what you see (content). The two are inseparable. The difference between /r/science and /b/ is what content is allowed, because content creates community.
Yeah they do that too, but that's what I don't like, because I don't think opinions should be regulated by corporations. Also I can't tell if you're sarcastic. In case not, what is it effective at? Silencing people with bad opinions?
I've moderated a number of internet forums. And at the end of the day, you have a choice:
1. You can keep the deliberate assholes, the abusers, the white supremacists, the people with actual swastikas in their profile photos, etc. (Some of these people are much worse than others, obviously.)
2. Or you can keep the nice, pleasant people you want to hang out with.
If you choose to keep (1), you'll eventually lose a significant fraction of (2).
I have zero desire to participate in unmoderated internet communities. Social spaces require some basic norms of behavior, and there has to be some mechanism for kicking people out.
If you want to encourage successful communities, people need to have the freedom of association.
Banning hate groups has been provably effective at reducing toxicity on the platform, [1] so the idea that bans will just cause the toxicity to spread to other subreddits turned out to be false. Analogously, there's no obligation for us to bend over backwards to avoid ostracizing hate groups and fringe conspiracy theorists. They are not interested in good-faith debate.
> We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces
I think we must argue against bad and/or crazy ideas. If we don't soon people will attack the Capitol....
A good way to argue against crazy assumptions like flat Earth I think is to realize that while there are only a few consistent thus possibly true physical explanations of the world, there are an infinite number of crazy and untrue and inconsistent explanations.
So when someone proposes a crazy idea, we can ask why not these other 10 ideas which are just as crazy as flat Earth? Why not square Earth? Why not Dodecahedron Earth? Why not Triangular Earth? Why not Flat Sun?
> That's how we got flat Earth to get so big. We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own. I'd rather flat Earthers and DiAngelo followers find their way back to rational society, not out from it forever.
How are you going to bring irrational people back to rational society? If someone has signed on to some fantastically unrealistic position and made it a part of their personality the only way out is deprogramming. That takes so much effort. It's also not something most people are equipped to handle. It's also not something the general public should be expected to do.
There's no convincing people that have left rationality behind. All of these types of conspiracy theory movements operate the same way. They pull people away from rationality and convince them that rational discourse are attacks against them.
It's little different than how cults operate. They go after marginalized (or convince people they have been marginalized) and prey on their insecurities and desire for belonging.
> How are you going to bring irrational people back to rational society?
This is probably where our work needs to be, and I agree it's not everyone's burden to undertake. It's taxing and requires a lot of emotional energy that some might not have. My personal experience with people that believed in conspiracies is that with enough normal human contact they eventually adjust. Sometimes there's an underlying issue that leads to conspiratorial thinking; I'm not even necessarily talking about mental health. It could be financial or interpersonal.
I'm just saying that the alternative of banishment isn't great. It doesn't dissolve the things we don't want, generally.
DiAngelos book focuses on painting a monoculture out of white people with unilateral experiences. It also turns race into what closely mimicks a religion and amplifies the concept.
Intersectionality acknowledges race as a component of struggle but more aptly paints a picture of class issues. It's a far healthier way to look at the world.
I found "White Fragility" provided an interesting insight into a blind spot in my view of the world but I don't see how her abusive-sounding corporate seminars are supposed to help anything. Even as she described them in the book they sounded disastrous.
More flamebait, you should stop. The GOP already used their "groomer panic" card on gay people and failed, so it falls pretty flat today. Some people are trans, get over it.
I don't think it is that complicated. Either private groups can exist or they can't. Either I can choose my audience or I can't. Either I can say "No women." or I can't. In other words, internet becomes a set of private clubs or not.
Horrible people exist whether we are aware of them or not. If delineation is clear, enforceable it could work.
It would destroy current social media.
And that.. is not something I am ambivalent about.
I can create a private group that excludes people who wear purple, because purple wearing is not a protected class under law. I can do the same for people who program in APL, or who have ever ridden a tricycle, or listen to "Freebird".
However, I cannot create a private group that excludes on the basis of any protected status (e.g. sex, religion, ethnicity, age).
Worth noting that this is how you address the "tyranny of the majority" in a democracy, by enshrining a limited number of rights that even a simple majority cannot revoke, with the goal of protecting the fundamental rights of the minority.
I beg to differ. There are private groups in existence right now, who are excluding protected classes and everyone is perfectly fine with it ( sex ). I don't even have to troll 4chan. They are right there in the open[1]
I will admit to not understanding the scope of the "discrimination" against protected classes that is barred by law. It clearly has some significant extent, but I've never really been able to find a clear description of where the edges are.
Even if it started that way, who is to say life hasn't imitated art to the point that now people truly believe it because they can't tell the different between a straight-faced joke that's only detectable because of the ridiculous content when they don't understand enough to identify the content as obviously fake?
I googled Robin DiAngelo and expected to read about a far-right Jordan Peterson type. Instead I found that she's the person who created the term "white fragility". From her wiki page, I don't see any reason to compare her to a flat earther
Peterson is still well within the Overton window, isn't he? He's still very popular (and not banned) on youtube, and would have broadly been considered a social liberal 25 years ago.
Or is this me taking "far right" more literally than you meant it? Are you talking merely from your perspective, and not human history and all obscure corners of political thought?
She's socially accepted by some groups. If you want to understand why I dislike her book I'd suggest reading it. It's one of those that either makes you a follower or question whether you've traveled into a parallel dimension.
Farther up I provide a critique juxtaposed with what I generally follow (intersectionality).
Matrix and Urbit are the exact type of focus groups that would indicate gatekeeping and misrepresentation. The focus groups ran by people like SBF of FTX.
I’m don’t understanding the claim of Matrix being decentralised. In the end I host a server and you talk with me. I give you the choice of choosing the authentication. For that I need an account at the authentication provider like Microsoft.
So all authenticate with Microsoft.
I create a user for them at my server which is still be needed to have the at least the timeline saved.
At which point I have decentralisation here?
And because I can’t handle the traffic on my raspberry I host this on a PaaS/SaaS provider like AWS.
That would assume all web servers are decentralised web3 technologies.
No, you don't need a single authentication provider, you can use more or less what you want/need and there is nothing for it mandatory in the protocol.
What currently is kinda centralized is an identity matching service, but even that is completly optional and will bec replaced by something more federated at some point.
What is different about Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIN?
they all do social but Twitter has more abuse than the other two.
Is that due to the structure involved?
Or extend it further, is amplification bad because the ones doing the
amplification are somewhat flawed in coping mechanisms?
What I mean is we keep looking at social platforms as the problem, instead
of seeing that the are lenses into the society problems yet not
solved and handled.
I.E. based on networks and economics the ones that can amplify the worst economic decisions coupled with the least coping skills cause the most harm on
social networks. Caution, not a statement about individuals or politics just some deep way above things macro observations.
Yes, it's due to structure. If you view social media sites as games, you can see why certain behaviors emerge from each one depending on the platform's rules. If you want to discourage abuse, you need to develop mechanisms to disincentivize it.
For example: the way Twitter works, an individual's reach is proportional to the number of their followers. This means that individuals can influence thousands of people with a single tweet. That's a lot of power, but that's also a lot of attention focused on one person. So it ends up cutting both ways: we see prolific tweeters able to spread their ideas really easily, but we also see witch hunts where huge groups all gang up on one person with devastating effect.
YouTube sees this for the same reasons, but the scale is smaller because creating videos and response videos take significantly more effort. LinkedIn could, but it doesn't because it's really a website for making yourself appear attractive to employers.
When I say decentralization I really mean that, not federated. It works very differently than surfing the web for content because this application, in addition to being fully decentralized, is privacy focused and never anonymous. The web is extremely opposite on all 3 points.
> The courts had traditionally found that liability is determined by whether or not an entity was acting as a publisher actively vetting, producing, and editing content (liable), or a distributor merely selling the products offered by publishers (less-liable).
> The immediate impact of Section 230 was to halt the developing body of common law being forged through internet speech–related litigation.
I am a big believer in federated platforms, but I feel this article misunderstands them in fundamental ways. Particularly here:
> federated platforms—networking environments enabled by communally—agreed upon standards of computing and norms. These technologies can give users more control over their platform experience.
My server is not governed by any communally-agreed-upon norms, nor does it give users control. It's governed by _my_ norms, period (and users can either agree with me or find a different server). Incidentally these norms coincide well with communal norms because I'm a reasonably "well-adjusted" individual, but there's a reason I whitelist instead of using Fediblock: Fediblock is somebody else's list of servers that they personally find offensive. Looking at the list it seems to coincide well with what I find offensive, but I want to be the sole arbiter of who I give time to, and I think therein lies the real power of federated platforms: communities of consensus grow/split/merge/etc completely organically and in sync with the memetic evolution of the node administrators.
If you believe the earth is flat, go nuts. Or if you don't but you want to share the proof of why they're wrong, you can do that too. Or perhaps you don't want to have them in your life at all. You can have all of these experiences equally well on a federated platform. People can form the communities they want to be in and be responsible for the growth of those communities in ways that are impossible with a corporation calling the shots.
...or a centralized platform in general, regardless of commercialization. A friend and I were discussing the possibility of running a federated platform for our country. It sounded like a cool idea at first, but as I thought about it I realized: there are neo-Nazis in my country. I don't want to engage with them at all. But I do believe that if we ran a national platform that as citizens they would be entitled to participate, however stupid their views. Therefore I abandoned the project. I may believe they're entitled to public services as human beings and citizens, but I don't want to give them a platform to spread their message. As long as my server is governed purely by my personal norms, I can in good conscience refuse service to them with no other justification than I don't want to and it's my server.
Back to the the point of the article: AFAIK urbit (groups at least) still rely on central server in the sense that each group is hosted by a single server. Won't this server have the legal responsabilities of whichever jurisdiction they are hosted in?
Ie. If I host a group on an urbit server hosted on AWS and certain ilegal content is hosted on my server won't I have the responsability to take it down?
I still experience the same Matrix bugs as I did years ago... When you setup a new client, it can take 24h for the content to get decrypted after you verify that client...
Verification is nothing to do with decryption - verification is how you confirm that you're really speaking to the person you think you're speaking to.
What you're describing sounds like a plain old encryption bug, although I'm very surprised you're still hitting it, given encryption in Matrix is pretty stable these days. If you can file a bug on github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues (or element-ios or element-android, depending on what platform you're using) with the full details or reproduction steps, I'll take a look.
Also, there's 3 messages that I keep trying to request encryption key and nothing happens (it's been a week)... I can decrypt older and newer messages from the same user in the same "room" though.
If I can reproduce the bug consistently, I will file a bug report. It happens very often when you signin on a new device.
Holy crap is this a stupid backwards article. First and foremost, like so many online, IT HAS NO IDEA WHAT "FREE SPEECH" ACTUALLY IS.
>With this success came controversy. Critics of content moderation decisions came to view Section 230 liability protections as a de facto subsidy for censorious platforms to limit public speech or to be less than judicious in limiting speech
These "critics" are either ignorant or malicious or both. Free Speech is about keeping violence out of the search for truth. That's it. It's not some saccharine unicorn crap where all ideas are equally special and get a gold star, some ideas suck. But since we have no oracles it's dangerous to allow violence to solidify that in place, so instead the search is kept in the social and economic space. Saying something of course is free speech, but so necessarily is NOT saying something. Keeping things off your own soap box, not wanting to associate with people who say things you think are wrong enough, and so on are all themselves core free speech too. Those who you think are wrong and think you are wrong may put out their own soap boxes. There is no right to an audience or social approval or economic rewards, one must successfully argue and convince others for that. That's the whole point! "Censorous platforms" is pure propaganda. Moderation isn't censorship, it's free speech too.
And "platform" doesn't fucking mean anything either. Section 230 is as much about the tiniest sites as it is the largest.
>Now the internet is pushing towards decentralization that may make Section 230 and centralized content moderation moot.
No, that's completely backwards. Section 230 is a bedrock of decentralization! It's what means some rando individual or tiny startup or whatever can host something and allow anyone else to post. From comment sections in blogs to all those shiny new Mastodon services. Without it, only gigantic corporations could afford to carry the insurance and do the moderation to allow user content.
>Government agents must find and identify individuals involved with each incident.
Haha (on multiple grounds). First, the big threats are civil, not "government agents". It's anyone who feels like filing a defamation claim or whatever else. Suggesting that lots of tiny entities with zero in-house legal council or budget is hard to go after is like saying that the copyright cartels could never go after individual bittorrent users or sites back in the day, or patent trolls after tiny businesses. Ie., laughably at odds with observed actual reality. What would actually happen is what has, in fact, happened repeatedly: firms will come about that will send mass threat letters. Host some little fun forum for a niche tabletop game or ultralight planes or something? Somebody posts some comment that could maybe vaguely be construed as defamation. If your forum or channel or Mastodon or whatever is on a topic then you must be moderating which means you're not a common carrier, so without Section 230 you are liable. So you get a letter saying they'll take you to court or you can settle for a mere $2000-6000 or whatever it is (calibrated to what they think they can squeeze from you). Now what? There will be a profit incentive to develop ML systems to go hunting through whatever federated networks there are looking for anything that might be legally actionable. There will be profit motive for someone disgruntled at a given forum to call attention to anything actionable they can find. There will be a profit motive to try to post defamatory material from sock puppet accounts and then sue over it! Say goodbye to any sort of non-IRL ID verified accounts, except even that might not be good enough for small players given the stakes and how much even going to court at all costs when you have to go to discovery vs dealing with it via summary judgement at the earliest stage.
The growing drumbeat against one of the foundational parts of the net, which makes the very site here where all of us comment possible, is definitely worrying though.
No, free speech isn't just about keeping violence from search of truth it's about tolerating what you consider untruth. Rationalist philosophers that invented the concept were censored, excommunicated and their works were burned, would you say their censors were just expressing their own free speech?
Who are the rationalist free speech advocates of today? So far it seems like the free speech absolutist don't really value free speech but value their speech.
I'm here, I care about free speech in general, mine included. It seems pretty bad faith to consider people who just want to spread their specific message and would be glad to censor their opponents as free speech absolutists.
[…] the political establishment’s hostility towards the idea of Twitter being purchased and run by new free speech–friendly management.
It wasn’t (just) the „political establishment“ that considered it a bad idea. Even the buyer thought it was a terrible mistake just hours after making the deal. And they were all right!
Only the „free-speech friendly management“ has been most notable for firing a bunch of people for criticizing him or making fun of his advertisers.
They may be fired, but they still can post on Twitter. Big distinction.
You can't critize/one up your boss in public for internet/virtue signalling points and expect to keep your job. Try that in any _job_ and see what happens. The real danger is Twitter acting as the arbiter of truth, which was the case for the last few years.
Yep, Section 230 is built to protect big tech platforms. Unsurprisingly, everyone who writes articles claiming otherwise has a financial influence from a large tech firm.
A lot of the extremism, radical political shifts, and domestic terrorism can be placed squarely on 230 and it's defenders. Big tech platforms aren't worth this much damage.
But without it, you can't even safely run your own local server, if you allow others to post there. It protects HN just as much as it protects Twitter and Facebook.
This isn't meaningfully true, it's just a rhetoric used by big tech companies to protect their willfully harmful behavior.
Section 230 provides blanket immunity, but it's important to consider what actually happens without it: People doing their actual best to operate a site aren't going to be arbitrarily lined up and shot, judges and juries will side with them and establish clear precedent. But bad actors like Google and Facebook truly depend on 230, because if taken to court, they would be found guilty of willful actions based on profitability.
Good case law literally doesn't exist for Internet content in the US because 230 broke it in 1996, but the law isn't software, it's a human process with core concepts like intent and reasonableness which are circumvented by corporate immunity laws like 230.
> People doing their actual best to operate a site aren't going to be arbitrarily lined up and shot, judges and juries will side with them and establish clear precedent.
Yeah, there's one poor piece of case law from 1995, well before the modern Internet.
I understand people's fear of actually having to defend behavior on merits, but the literal death toll of Section 230 is a cost too high to avoid a couple court cases that will inevitably side with people doing the right thing.
I'm sure that won't go wrong or impact certain groups at all.
There's a lot of content on the internet today that I just don't want to see. Coincidentally, while I had a conversation with people about the benefits of intersectionality a Robin DiAngelo follower joined. This person masked themselves as "just asking questions" and then proceeded to do the oddest form of theatrical racism and subsequent victim position seeking I've ever seen. As much as I'd love to "ostracize" this person and never hear of them again, as much as my day would've been far better without knowing people like this exist, I don't think it's right to ostracize people. That's how we got flat Earth to get so big. We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own. I'd rather flat Earthers and DiAngelo followers find their way back to rational society, not out from it forever.