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Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

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Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#211

Post by raxxorrax »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #67

Slide 66 is particularly interesting, and articulates an observation that I've made: > Tech firms are performing a balancing act between two incompatible positions > 100% commit to the American tradition that prioritises free speech for democracy, not civility > 100% commit to the European tradition that favors dignity over liberty, and civility over freedom It is a very American view that unrestricted freedom of spe…

As a European I have to admit that the American model is vastly superior. Europe had laws to protect "civilty" even before the great wars. American democracy is also more successful in general.

Europe just had the "luck" that censorship didn't become very necessary. In some places it was used extensively and those places are no more today.

And lastly, stripping someones voice implicates directly stripping someones dignity.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#212

Post by hirsin »

adventured wrote: post #108
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, now let's apply your example to something a bit more violent. People that believe black people are sub-human and deserve less rights. At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders? At a certain point we deemed as a society that those sort of views are considered bad. Do yo…

Nobody has to tolerate such opinions. Facebook, Twitter, etc. have block / unfriend options. It's extremely easy to avoid sites like Daily Stormer (or whatever the infamous white supremacist site is called?). I intentionally don't hang out with racists, bigots, etc. It's the exact same manner of avoidance. You have to do it in real life, I don't see why the same premise wouldn't hold online. Don't spend time in such…

If you want to be a member of many of these platforms, and you're a target of that offensive material, you do have to tolerate it. The racists use the platforms tools to find you and hurl it at you, and then the platform gives you little to no recourse to even ignore them outside of not using the platform.

Your advice only works when you're not the target - when you just need to walk past and avert your eyes from what's being said to someone else.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#213

Post by sparkie »

fzeroracer wrote: post #185
gnarbarian wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the supremely ironic thing in this case is they are calling us the fascists while silencing us with a straight face.

Who is this 'they' you're referring to, exactly? And what opinions do you hold that would warrant this 'they' calling you fascist?

https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/07/05/rap-shee...

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#214

Post by sparkie »

fzeroracer wrote: post #185
gnarbarian wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the supremely ironic thing in this case is they are calling us the fascists while silencing us with a straight face.

Who is this 'they' you're referring to, exactly? And what opinions do you hold that would warrant this 'they' calling you fascist?

I've been called fascist for suggesting that:

Hiring decisions should not be based on skin color.

Hiring decisions should not be based on gender.

The irony is that these were all celebrated by the left previously. Now they are seen as fascist if you aren't discriminating against white men.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#215

Post by raxxorrax »

0xBA5ED wrote: post #208

Censorship alone is not evil. The problem is, once you have infrastructure in place to make it easy, it will be abused. And if that infrastructure is centralized, the stakes for abuse are much higher. It's the same old problem of "who regulates the regulators". Rather than the issue being about "censorship bad / free speech good", I think the heart of it is: There's simply a lack of confidence that tech giants like G…

> Censorship alone is not evil.

Restricting access to information generally is until a good reason is given. That could be the protection of personal information for example. But without justification I would heavily disagree with that statement.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#216

Post by mkeyhani »

etchalon wrote: post #179
mkeyhani wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook, unlike say a subreddit, is not a a community formed around a certain topic. There is no 'we' in particular.

Isn’t the “we” whoever developed and hosts the service? The idea that you can only limit a community if it’s dedicated to a specific topic is non-sensical.

I am not sure if I understand your argument.

If whoever develops and hosts the service gets to limit what is allowed, then why Google shouldn’t censor its search results?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#217

Post by hef19898 »

In a nutshell: Google, Twitter and Facebook followed a very liberal definiton of what they are, created a platform to promote free speech to get free content from users. Being a platform, they did nopt have to edit content like print media has to. This created traffic and drove ad revenue. And everything was fine.

Then some bad stuff happened, advertisers, not users, complained by withdrawing money. And who would have guessed, that was an issue. The situation these companies re now in sucks, either they start editing (which is not censorship) and risk being treated like traditional media eliminating their competitive advantage. Or they don't and risk loosing ad revenue.

IMHO the underlying reason is that free speech and free press offline is lot easier because there are a ton of different outlet, all with a somwhet limited reach. People like Rupper Murdoch already put these limitations to a serious test. Online it's much worse with a couple of global de-facto oligopols. I wouldn't be surprised if societies and governments are moving to regulate that one day.

That being said, the fact that all these companies, leaning apparently heavy on " 100% commit to the American tradition that prioritises free speech for democracy, not civility", are at the same time more than happy to ignore that stance in certain countries to maintain a global foot print (p.47 of the Google doc comes to mind). It seems, after all, that money is king and everything else secondary.

Admittedly, FB is much worse that Google in that regard.

EDIT: All of the above points are more or less cited from Googles own document. Except the part with e oligopol which is my own conclusion.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#218

Post by chaosite »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #189
chaosite wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a position. This document is showing the hole in that position -- an outright attack (elsagate) aimed at children. A cursory inspection by the parent sees the child watching a harmless Peppa the Pig video, while in fact she's watching snuff. This is a problem that Google has to address somehow (because that is what is demanded of them), while not censoring things aimed to adults. That's why the conclusion is…

That isn't a hole, it's an iterative process. Parents didn't know there was snuff on YouTube Kids. As soon as they find out, their kids are not allowed to use it anymore and with declining viewership, whatever garbage feedback loop allowed that to happen is destroyed.

... and Google is supposed to stand by while their platform is not fit for its stated purpose?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#219

Post by 0xBA5ED »

raxxorrax wrote: post #215
0xBA5ED wrote: post #208

Censorship alone is not evil. The problem is, once you have infrastructure in place to make it easy, it will be abused. And if that infrastructure is centralized, the stakes for abuse are much higher. It's the same old problem of "who regulates the regulators". Rather than the issue being about "censorship bad / free speech good", I think the heart of it is: There's simply a lack of confidence that tech giants like G…

> Censorship alone is not evil. Restricting access to information generally is until a good reason is given. That could be the protection of personal information for example. But without justification I would heavily disagree with that statement.

I'll point out that I didn't say "Censorship without justification is not evil."

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#220

Post by VonGallifrey »

pathseeker wrote: post #186
est wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "against freedom of speech" a freedom of speech?

Yes, talking about it is. Restricting it at the government level isn't. Freedom of speech is a right protecting you from the government, not companies.

Are you confusing the american first amendment with the concept of freedom of speech? Freedom of Speech is a much broader concept then just the first amendment.
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