Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#181

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 10:58 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #128

int_19h wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most social media platforms don't censor far-left thoughts anyway. They do, though. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/09/google-censors-block...

google results are a social media platform? And i said "most".

Well, there are all the people who point out that Twitter will take ages to respond to a report of a conservative-leaning account making threats and will usually end up saying "that doesn't violate our guidelines". But somehow quickly suspends left-leaning accounts which say similar things. Especially if you say them in the direction of a blue-checkmark conservative-leaning account.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#182

Post by fvdessen » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 10:58 PM UTC

mxfh wrote: post #174

tinalumfoil wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are better off hearing a bad idea and hearing it refuted then never hearing a bad idea. You could say, "well then detractors of the idea will have to keep refuting it" and you'd be right. That's how public forums work, and I hope you don't take everything your parent's believed for granted just because their detractors have already been "refuted".

It's too easy to come up with, spam and spread bad ideas, but actual work to refute them. As long as people are not paid to refute bad actors with an agenda, bad views will eventually stand unchallenged and make life worse for everyone for the profit an amusement of a view. As said refuting partially worked in small communities, but not on a global audience scale where the is no effective way of social sanctions, tha…

I remember national TV talking about UFOs, proofs of WMD in Irak, Homosexuality being a disease, conspiracy magazines in every gas station shop, and no easy way to verify anything.

I have the impression that the general quality of available information has only gone up.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#183

Post by Endy » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

I have an alternate solution especially for Gab and Voat. Rather than allowing them to become known cesspits, advertise them to people and say, "see how others' opinions exist" - people will sign up for curiosity, they'll sign up to argue, etc. But most importantly, they'll be there on that platform and perhaps some people will actually learn to communicate openly with people they disagree with or whose views they despise.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#184

Post by zaat » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #31

A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…

That isn't necessary supported by evidence nor is it the most sophisticated view in contemporary philosophy.

Good evidence can't be trusted to cause change in mind, see for example the classic paper "Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence (https://www.unc.edu/~fbaum/teaching/articles/jpsp-1979-Lord-...).

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#185

Post by bitwize » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

inevitable2 wrote: post #44

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore Lately this is getting absurd. I believe this quote is still true, but the amount of 'I don't like what is being said so therefore you should be silenced' is going too far. I don't agree with what this guy said (or even know who he is aside from what was said in the article), but I'm alarmed that Microsoft would go after Gab for a user on G…

Lately we're sort of learning that absolute freedom to express any opinion you like is kind of a bad idea, especially at web scale. The example of Germany, which is freer and more democratic than the USA despite having strict laws forbidding expressing any sort of Nazi-like opinion, supports this.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#186

Post by reader5000 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

The letter is encouraging in that it at least softly implies Microsoft applies a First Amendment analysis to take down issues. A First Amendment analysis is much superior and more just compared to the injustice applied to Alex Jones and any number of 10000s of removed youtube videos and so on. At the end of the day, tech companies need to realize they are just common carrier pipes and do not have authority to police the bits on their servers anymore than a city bus has the authority to police the politics of its passengers.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#187

Post by reader5000 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:08 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #178

mxfh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too easy to come up with, spam and spread bad ideas, but actual work to refute them. As long as people are not paid to refute bad actors with an agenda, bad views will eventually stand unchallenged and make life worse for everyone for the profit an amusement of a view. As said refuting partially worked in small communities, but not on a global audience scale where the is no effective way of social sanctions, tha…

Yes. Also, you can refute all you want, but if the bad ideas are better clickbait than your refutations, they will spread faster.

Maybe there's a reason a "bad idea" is clickbait.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#188

Post by DanAndersen » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

Endy wrote: post #183

I have an alternate solution especially for Gab and Voat. Rather than allowing them to become known cesspits, advertise them to people and say, "see how others' opinions exist" - people will sign up for curiosity, they'll sign up to argue, etc. But most importantly, they'll be there on that platform and perhaps some people will actually learn to communicate openly with people they disagree with or whose views they de…

That would honestly be a pretty good pivot. The trouble with Gab and Voat is that if you only bill yourself as a "free speech alternative," you get almost-exclusively populated with the sorts of people who have to worry about that (i.e. fringe characters). The community becomes strongly influenced by the "founder effect" of the digital refugees that made up its founding stock.

It would be interesting to have a sort of two-column format, where one column is who you normally follow, and the other column is an auto-generated list of people in the most opposite social-graph cluster.

The lifeblood of places like Twitter is the ability for people to get into loud arguments that people feel matter more than they actually do. If Twitter ever actually did a full purge of one side of the ideological spectrum they'd find a massive decrease in interest. People want to fight deep down and so need the other around.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#189

Post by che_shirecat » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

MoveConstructor wrote: post #72

It's disconcerting to see how many tech and free speech people are clamoring for the censorship of dissenting opinion and are jubilant when it happens. Free speech has always been a very counter-intuitive process. Opinions that directly oppose yours or even your very person will rub you the wrong way, and to be intent on defending the right of your opponent to voice his opinion seems paradoxical, but we nevertheless…

The right to free speech shouldn't supersede all other fundamental human rights. Why should we afford modern day nazis a platform to call for the extermination of jews, when they so obviously do not respect the right to life or freedom of the people they hate? How can you engage in rational discussion with someone who does not believe you have a right to live?

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#190

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

MoveConstructor wrote: post #72

It's disconcerting to see how many tech and free speech people are clamoring for the censorship of dissenting opinion and are jubilant when it happens. Free speech has always been a very counter-intuitive process. Opinions that directly oppose yours or even your very person will rub you the wrong way, and to be intent on defending the right of your opponent to voice his opinion seems paradoxical, but we nevertheless…

[deleted]