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Bringing people back to the open web

chrishardie.com

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#11
We did have a way. It was called a kill file.

Unfortunately, we don't have adults anymore. We have children that need to be protected from hearing anything they don't like to hear and must be giving the right to shutdown people's speech they disagree with ("heckler's veto").

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#12
post #6
post #2

This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…

Devs are not the problem, especially not the amount of them. Google has so many devs, sure, maybe that's why we now have 7 messaging app from them... The tools for the open web are present, just check https//indieweb.org Comformist, lazy people, our own friends, are the problem. I'd love to see how to make them care.

I'd start by not calling your own friends "conformist" and "lazy". And instead, try to understand where they come from.

We won't solve problems by shouting at each other.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#13
post #2

This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…

This same argument has been made countless times. "Linux has no chance in the corporate world. HP has thousands of paid devs working on HP-UX."

It turned out there were a greater number of devs NOT at HP... and today, there are more devs NOT at Facebook.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#14
What if the Internet itself is the problem?

We might be witnessing the Eternal September of the entire network.

    Humans + networked Turing machines = shit-show
Are we doomed? Can we have a fundamentally different relationship with these machines?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#15
post #10
post #3

>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…

The reason we're in the mess that we are is the shit show the open web was. People were delighted to have a walled garden where they only communicated with friends, instead of random drive-by trolls in the open. And frankly, it's understandable. A place that justifies bullying and hate speech as a good thing, with mumblings of "b.. b.. but free speech", is not a place where anybody wants to spend their time. (Except…

Sensible adults have long been a proponent of free speech. It’s the call to censorship for comfort that is new and seemingly coming from younger generations who don’t have experience with why that may be a bad idea.

The ACLU has long defended all speech: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/why-we-must-defend-fre...

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#16
post #3

>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…

> I am strongly against this appeal to censorship.

Why do you interpret "experiencing a web without harassment and bullying" as implying "censoring speech"? People may publish all the hatred and bullshit they want on the open web, but I don't need to be forced to watch it. Both things are not exclusive.

IM applications with limited groups (Telegram, Whatsapp) show us a way this can be done. If these tools were open, you could create groups to communicate anything you want; but only people subscribed to those groups will see them, and you won't reach people that isn't interested in that content, or which have blocked you after an awkward interaction.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#17
post #2

This is a good idea – but impossible. Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models. How do you compete with that? The only way your projects would ever be able to outcompete Google and Facebook on technology is if you’d somehow get a ton of engineers willing to work for a good cause. But t…

> Google and Facebook have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Google and Facebook have tons of userdata for training ML models.

and many of them are bent towards developing internal garbage, or services that you just don't need if you're not hoping to create huge monoliths. or, as others have pointed out, making the same service over and over.

> How do you compete with that?

having different goals reduces the extent to which you're competing, and different goals leads to different (possibly easier to satisfy) constraints.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#18
post #10
post #3

>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…

The reason we're in the mess that we are is the shit show the open web was. People were delighted to have a walled garden where they only communicated with friends, instead of random drive-by trolls in the open. And frankly, it's understandable. A place that justifies bullying and hate speech as a good thing, with mumblings of "b.. b.. but free speech", is not a place where anybody wants to spend their time. (Except…

Didn't really work either though. Trolls gonna troll no matter what.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#19
post #10
post #3

>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…

The reason we're in the mess that we are is the shit show the open web was. People were delighted to have a walled garden where they only communicated with friends, instead of random drive-by trolls in the open. And frankly, it's understandable. A place that justifies bullying and hate speech as a good thing, with mumblings of "b.. b.. but free speech", is not a place where anybody wants to spend their time. (Except…

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

Besides, censoring Nazis and other undesirable types (e.g. ISIS propaganda) is ineffective at shutting them up and endears potential recruits to them. It would likely be more effective to subtly mix their propaganda with counter-propaganda instead of playing whack-a-mole with their accounts.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#20
post #10
post #3

>If the closed web is a place where hate speech, harassment and bullying thrives, the open web can be, needs to be an experience where it does not. I am strongly against this appeal to censorship. Luckily in the real open web, where you host your own content the incentives and mechanisms for censorship are few and difficult to achieve. No, my dream of the open web is diverse. Full of things people hate and full of th…

The reason we're in the mess that we are is the shit show the open web was. People were delighted to have a walled garden where they only communicated with friends, instead of random drive-by trolls in the open. And frankly, it's understandable. A place that justifies bullying and hate speech as a good thing, with mumblings of "b.. b.. but free speech", is not a place where anybody wants to spend their time. (Except…

I am sorry, but who is actually giving voice to these groups. Sure there are trolls that co-opt this stupidity, but it is a fact that the number of people involved in hate-groups are going down.
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