Bringing people back to the open web • Hacker News Board

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#61

Post by hackeraccount » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

throw7 wrote: post #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").

When I hear something I know to be untrue that knowledge is not enough. It's not enough to tell that speaker that what they said is untrue. It's not enough to tell any potential listener that what the speaker said is untrue. Nope, I need to make sure that there is no listener for that speaker. Nothing less will satisfy.

If necessary I'll use a public club i.e. the government. Everyone will rightfully shout "Free Speech!" Maybe I don't use the government though and just get the speakers platform to walk away by asking platform to do that, or yelling at them.

And the I'll sleep easy with the knowledge that no one will hear those lies. No one will think those lies.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#62

Post by ebiester » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #50

ebiester wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to explain why safe spaces are necessary, but I realize that "Muh safe spaces" isn't an argument. In a world where my rights are debated, my family is attacked, where I've been afraid for my life and well being in public spaces, where some of my acquaintances have been murdered in public spaces, and where some of my safe spaces have been bombed, I don't understand why my request for a place where I don't ha…

Nobody should have to deal with violence or threats of violence. But that's way different than trying to shut down a speaker who holds political views different from the students or professors doing the protesting. College should physically be a safe place as much as possible, but intellectually, it's fair to ask students (and professors) to be challenged by a variety of views.

That's a separate argument, however.

We can disambiguate the "Safe places are necessary for non-privileged groups to have an area where they are predominant members and the space is catered to them rather than the predominant culture" - examples would include a place like a gay bar or youth group, or a club that is only of one ethnicity - and "we should expect a college to be a safe space."

A college that is governed by the predominant culture cannot be a "safe space." The redefiniton, then, is that college spaces should be a place where one's group should be default be treated with respect. That is, we make it "more safe" to exist without prejudice.

If we want to argue that a college space isn't a place where people are by default treated with respect, that's an argument that can be made, but it's not germane to the original argument that people expect to have private, safe, spaces to communicate via the web. The "friends" or friends-subset restriction that Facebook makes is that private/semi-private "safe" space. The open web does not have a great equivalent. (Password-protecting is insufficient - we would need some sort of Mozilla Persona system and for various reasons, that never caught on.)

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#63

Post by jononor » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #53

throw7 wrote: post #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").

In a walled garden, like facebook, I have a private/public space. I can send out a message to a subset of my friends. The open web does not have these controls. Further, if one of the people I thought was trustworthy starts abusing that trust, I can kick them out. Because it's a walled garden. I don't have to worry about spam. I don't have to worry about hate speech. I don't have to worry about any of that shit. Face…

How are the ads that FB pushes into your feed not spam? Seems more or less indistinguishable too me

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#64

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

attalus wrote: post #20

groby_b wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#65

Post by bitwize » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

lwhsiao wrote: post #38

butterfi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux?

I believe the parent was intentionally mirroring the grandparent comment to make the argument that Linux is a good counterexample.

Not only that, but I was almost directly quoting the arguments that were routinely used against Linux back in the 90s.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#66

Post by bitwize » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #43

bitwize wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A free OS for PCs is a good idea -- but impossible. Microsoft and Apple have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Microsoft and Apple have research labs where they can subject their OS to hundreds of thousands of user-hours of testing for usability, scalability, and robustness. How do you compete with that?

With tenthousands of corporate developers from RedHat, Google, IBM? Do you seriously think Torvalds, Stallmann and a few dozen enthusiasts could maintain all of the Linux ecosystem?

Red Hat and Google got into their advantageous positions by building their businesses on top of Linux in the first place, back when people were saying it would never compete with Microsoft or big-iron Unix.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#67

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #10

superkuh wrote: 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 never had much exposure to nazis and other scum on the open web. It’s behavior not tolerated on a place like HN, and I don’t frequent places that welcome that conduct.

Facebook is a machine designed to generate reaction. I deactivated a long time ago, one of my catalysts for moving was when the platform kept trying to keep me away from things I cared about and towards things that would trigger the most base/id reaction.

Thanksgiving Dinner isn’t about trolling your drunk uncle.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#68

Post by amdavidson » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

jononor wrote: post #63

ebiester wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a walled garden, like facebook, I have a private/public space. I can send out a message to a subset of my friends. The open web does not have these controls. Further, if one of the people I thought was trustworthy starts abusing that trust, I can kick them out. Because it's a walled garden. I don't have to worry about spam. I don't have to worry about hate speech. I don't have to worry about any of that shit. Face…

How are the ads that FB pushes into your feed not spam? Seems more or less indistinguishable too me

Do you consider ads on cable TV to be spam? Likely not.

Like them or don't, but the ads on FB are not spam because they are not unsolicited and are targeted.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#69

Post by wwweston » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

sincerely wrote: post #59

prophesi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a book that uses national polls conducted over the past 40+ years, plus a little bit of anecdotal evidence to make the data tangible, I recommend iGen by Jean M. Twenge[0]. There's a noticeable trend that the kids of this upcoming generation are ill-prepared for college and expect the authorities to protect them. In highschool, they're less likely to go out without their parents or work a part-time job (A…

Why is less premarital sex a "positive note"?

It probably depends on whether you're focusing on the pleasures or consequences. Which probably correlates with your social/political bent. Since it seems to be conservatives who complain most frequently about the environment of college campuses, the frame of the discussion might be directed to conservatives, who are more likely to focus on the consequences and find that a positive note.

And yes, we're better as a society at statistically mitigating the some of the consequences of intercourse, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and that younger & unmarried folks are probably less prepared to deal with them, so there's a reasonable (although limited) general argument that less pre-marital sex among late adolescents is a turn towards more responsible or at least age-appropriate behavior.

There are other reasonable approaches to the topic as well.

Re: Bringing people back to the open web

#70

Post by jononor » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

amdavidson wrote: post #68

jononor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the ads that FB pushes into your feed not spam? Seems more or less indistinguishable too me

Do you consider ads on cable TV to be spam? Likely not. Like them or don't, but the ads on FB are not spam because they are not unsolicited and are targeted.

Of course I do. It is one of the reasons I do not have a TV.

If there was a plain choice between without ads and with (probably at different prices), I could accept them as a transaction I have accepted. But such choices are often not available, they are bundled in with a bunch of other choices.