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Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

nytimes.com

51–60 of 94 posts

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is one thing I wish I could beat into people's heads with a stick about online discourse, is that any place free of moderation is not going to be a free speech haven, but a cesspit where the people with the most free time will dominate and drive out others. It depends. One forum where I spend some of my time has very hands-off moderation and it does have a) some quality conversations b) diversity of opinio…

It can definitely work in certain cases, especially when there's a single very clear focus or purpose for the forum, or some sort of accountability for your opinions.

> single very clear focus or purpose for the forum

It's the case on that forum and the off-topic discussions (religion & politics) are accesible only to accounts older than 1 year, so it helps to limit shitposting in those discussions. Accountability for your opinions in that case just mean getting mocked by other people (I said free speech, not nice speech).

I just wanted to show an counter-example disagreeing with your (apparently) absolute position.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#52
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society is a groupthink censor. If your beliefs are too extreme in any number of directions, society will eventually shun you. Whether you think this behavior is wrong or not usually depends on how closely your beliefs match the beliefs that are currently being shunned.

Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?

LOL ...the hemlock folks are downvoting this

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, the freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and other amendments are valuable not just as restrictions on government power, but as restrictions on power. The more asymmetric the relationship between two parties, the more sensitive we become to exercises of power by the stronger party over the weaker one. I think that we do have a reasonable expectation that our employers and service providers won't…

The restrictions put on governmental power are proportional to the power we give the government. Your employer can't imprison you, collect taxes from you, send you off to war; pretending "social media add tech company" is in any way comparable doesn't add much to the conversation. You first have to give google the right to send you to jail, before you can demand due process from them (that's a dystopia I think no one…

Power doesn't have to be absolute in order to be asymmetric. In turn, the restrictions imposed on an employer or service provider should be proportional to their dominance.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#54
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society is a groupthink censor. If your beliefs are too extreme in any number of directions, society will eventually shun you. Whether you think this behavior is wrong or not usually depends on how closely your beliefs match the beliefs that are currently being shunned.

Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?

Sure, the standards change over time. You would likely be shunned 200 years ago if you said whites and blacks had equal intellect. You would likely be shunned today if you said the opposite. Society generally moves in the right direction. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

I was simply pointing out that this phenomena is not new or limited to the internet. It is inherently human. It also is neither completely negative or positive. It just is.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather enable users to moderate their own content by giving them better tools to do so. Reddit simply isn't built for this though, because they've already committed to the subreddit model. Ultimately though, I believe reddit's successor will find success going this route. So it's less about giving more power to minorities (which are still just groups) and more about giving power to individuals to manage their own…

> I'd rather enable users to moderate their own content by giving them better tools to do so. I hear where you're coming from, but I subscribe to a small amount of subreddits, and moderate one - and I am absolutely not willing to clean up after every troll, shill and bot that posts to all of them. As a specific example, I moderate a local meetup subreddit. We have fairly specific rules about what is and isn't allowed…

> At that point, what's our value-add?

You bring the premise?

But I agree that in your case, moderation is usefull and important.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#56

[flagged]

That's a drastic oversimplification of the situation. If you're going to read the Slate article, be sure to read this too: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t...

It's not an oversimplification. It's the best piece written about this controversy. The source material was raw, immature racism. Instead of reading Vox's protection of their employee, why don't you read her tweets directly (hint, there's nothing here worth defending):

https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#57
post #54
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?

Sure, the standards change over time. You would likely be shunned 200 years ago if you said whites and blacks had equal intellect. You would likely be shunned today if you said the opposite. Society generally moves in the right direction. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I was simply pointing out that this phenomena is not new or limited to the internet. It is inherently human. It…

> Society generally moves in the right direction.

Does it? Because it's currently ok to say that "white people suck" and various other overtly racist statements that would have been interpreted as such by society as little as 10 years ago.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.

Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).

When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating.

Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#59

[flagged]

That's a drastic oversimplification of the situation. If you're going to read the Slate article, be sure to read this too: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t...

Funny how the Vox article spent little time defending their ex-employee and more time on other people.
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