A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming • Hacker News Board

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#111

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #106

stcredzero wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has lost their first amendment rights That's just what Universities say when they create protest zones where no one can see the protest. That's what Universities say when they slap outrageous fees and fines on groups who invite speakers they don't like. Technically, they're correct, but in the spirit of the law, suppressing speech is what they are seeking to do. the person you're replying to hasn't made such a…

You are free to make whatever argument you want - what you can't do is deliberately misrepresent the other person's argument, which is what you are doing. HN even has a weird rule about that involving quotation marks. There's no 'technically' about this, you're doing it, it's bad and you shouldn't.

I'm not misrepresenting the other's argument at all. I'm clarifying it.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#112

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #105

woodruffw wrote: post #103

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case [1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works. [1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/p…

For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption. Yes, you can coerce people with your advantages, and it will work for awhile. You can even create enclaves where you can keep undesirables out. But no, that never wins in the end.

> For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption.

I take the scarequotes there to be you admitting that gulags aren't really deplatforming -- it's a government terrorizing its citizens. Nobody in this conversation is interested in building gulags or putting the undesirables in them.

> Yes, you can coerce people with your advantages, and it will work for awhile. You can even create enclaves where you can keep undesirables out. But no, that never wins in the end.

I don't understand this reasoning. I've presented some research indicating that banning hateful online communities actually does have some kind of positive effect, and your response it that it "never wins in the end"? What is the "end" here? Do we have any sort of evidence or overarching political theory that suggests that it doesn't win in the end?

Most of us are on board, intuitively at least, with the notion that you can't have both a dictator and be a democratic republic. Why are we so hesitant to accept that other entities fundamentally conflict with the notion of liberal democracy?

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#113

Post by uabstraction » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:11 AM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #22

This is a good article that explores many of the angles involved. Deplatforming is a dangerous step for a free society, especially when so much power is accumulated in a few platforms* The big risk is this: when only a few entities funnel so much societal discourse or control our communication infrastructure or process payments, those entities making arbitrary decisions about who they serve has similar impacts and ri…

> Deplatforming is a dangerous step for a free society, especially when so much power is accumulated in a few platforms

I disagree here. Communities like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, have grown to such enormous scales, that their eventual fracture is inevitable. Whether it takes the form of griefers getting the boot, or communities leaving on their own accord, the root problem is the same. You simply can't put a billion people together in a box without any stronger identity or culture tying them together.

Think of how things work in the natural world. We have universities, libraries, coffee shops, pubs, clubs, offices, stores, restaurants, museums, parks, playgrounds, fairs, festivals. Each social setting has its own culture, its own rules, its own priorities.

If you take the riffraff from the pub and inject them into the library, you're going to have a bad time. If you start club dancing on the HR lady at the office, you're going to have a bad time.

The problem with the current crop of social media is that they are meant to be everything for everyone. We mash hundreds of different communities that have nothing to do with each other into the same platforms like square pegs into round holes. Engagement and user count are the ONLY thing the companies care about - but those KPIs aren't what drive healthy communities.

The future of the web is going to be fractured and federated. The pains being experienced by the big players right now are the obvious outcome of trying to apply the same set of standards and rules to thousands of different sets of people. If there is no set of rules you can make to please everyone, the answer is simple: it is time to split.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#114

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #110

stcredzero wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spare me the tired arguments that these private companies have a right to not serve customers at will. Some people's hypocrisy doesn't undermine the core principle of freedom of association. There is a lawsuit where a mining company owned an entire town, including the roads. A Jehova's witness won a lawsuit allowing them to distribute pamphlets there on the basis of free speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBoz…

If I start a company that allows users to upload content over the internet, is it your contention that I should not be within my rights to control what is stored and who is allowed to use my services?

You wind up in a monopoly, or a near-monopoly position, and you can practically suppress the free speech of people, then yes.

There is a lawsuit where a company owned this mining company town, including all of its roads and sidewalks. A Jehova's witness won a lawsuit on the basis of the First Amendment, enabling her to walk about that town and distribute her pamphlets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBozijndSLc

Originally, it was widely recognized by US jurisprudence, though property rights and freedom of association are important, the First Amendment was even more important.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#115

Post by wetpaws » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #103

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case [1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works. [1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/p…

When people say toxic, it usually always a synonim for "things I don't like"

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#116

Post by StuntPope » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #93

StuntPope wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your point?

There's nothing 'ironic' about it, flagging is like downvoting. You aren't being 'deplatformed' by some inscrutable power, users just don't think it's a fit for the site.

No, flagging is not like "downvoting", this isn't reddit.

As somebody else here already pointed out:

> From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.

This isn't spam and given the interest it's garnered it's obviously not off-topic.

So if you're flagging it you're basically throwing your opinion over it and preventing others from seeing it and from upvoting it. That's imposing your opinion over everybody else's.

If you don't like the post, then don't upvote it or better still, post an erudite missive on why the author is a brain-dead moron, but don't mis-label it as spam or off-topic.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#117

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #105

woodruffw wrote: post #103

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case [1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works. [1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/p…

For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption. Yes, you can coerce people with your advantages, and it will work for awhile. You can even create enclaves where you can keep undesirables out. But no, that never wins in the end.

Because being banned from Twitter is totally like being sent to a gulag.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#118

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #95

dragonwriter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deplatforming is a dangerous step for a free society, Deplatforming is simply the a natural consequence of the operation of the marketplace of ideas, a central necessity for a free society. If ideas don't have to compete for the privilege of access to resource to relay them, there is no marketplace of ideas, and society drowns in noise. > The big risk is this: when only a few entities funnel so much societal discou…

Deplatforming is simply the a natural consequence of the operation of the marketplace of ideas That's just as silly as if someone had said, "Certain people losing their 1st Amendment rights is simply the natural consequence of the operation of the marketplace of ideas." It's nonsense, because once you let people start silencing others, there is no more free marketplace of ideas. That's pretty much like some Victorian…

It is a natural consequence of the marketplace of ideas and of capitalism in general. Capitalism ascribes values to speech. If speech therefore has negative value, capitalism has the imperative to censor or prevent that speech from occurring. I would even hasten to argue that if you don't follow that train of thought you would be inherently anti-capitalist or unable to understand the full extent of the free market.

A great example of this is Elon Musk. Elon has said quite a lot of stupid things on twitter, many of which can be easily argued that as a result has hurt the value of his company. The imperative for his company then would be to get him to shut up.

Another example is companies firing people who go on racist tirades. By doing so, they effectively link the company to those same racist arguments and can cause the company to lose value. Of course every company is going to make a judgment as to how much value they'll lose from firing an employee: That's why companies can and do shield or defend employees who commit sexual harassment or do things that would otherwise create negative value.

Make no mistake. This is a feature and not a bug. People are just realizing that the best way to manipulate companies into action is by forcing them to lose value by association, whether it's linking ads they show in a negative context or painting employees actions in a different light. Those are all examples of consumers in a free market exercising their collective power to influence it. And I am by no means a strong proponent of capitalism at all.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#119

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:18 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #112

stcredzero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption. Yes, you can coerce people with your advantages, and it will work for awhile. You can even create enclaves where you can keep undesirables out. But no, that never wins in the end.

> For awhile, the Soviets could "deplatform" people from their lives entirely by threatening them or sending them to the Gulags. They held things together for many decades through that continual disruption. I take the scarequotes there to be you admitting that gulags aren't really deplatforming -- it's a government terrorizing its citizens. Nobody in this conversation is interested in building gulags or putting the u…

I've presented some research indicating that banning hateful online communities actually does have some kind of positive effect

I'm sure that you can find a Soviet study indicating that certain of their programs had an effect against Bourgeois oppressor thinking and activity for some number of years.

Why are we so hesitant to accept that other entities fundamentally conflict with the notion of liberal democracy?

Conditioning a society to accept the practically suppression of free speech fundamentally conflicts with the notion of liberal democracy.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#120

Post by claudiawerner » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 2:18 AM UTC

wetpaws wrote: post #115

woodruffw wrote: post #103

> Most successful deplatformings are Pyrrhic victories We have reasonable (not perfect!) empirical evidence that this is not the case [1]. It appears that toxic and hateful movements can only resist disapprobation when they develop a sufficiently large, sufficiently public (in the visibility sense, not the publicly-owned sense) channel. Continually disrupting those channels works. [1]: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/p…

When people say toxic, it usually always a synonim for "things I don't like"

I've usually seen it as a synonym for disruptive, hostile and rude communication in a generally bad mindset; this is the impression I get when it's used to describe gaming communities for various popular games (in particular LoL and Overwatch).