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UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#81

Post by FakeComments »

Throwway32 wrote: post #78
FakeComments wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a strange response, since the extra-judicial killing of an American by the Obama administration was widely regarded as a serious breakdown in American norms — precisely by the same crowd who says things like GP. Your link then would be support for their point, not a refutation. Generally speaking, point out something in the past few years that’s an example of what the person is talking about isn’t a way to…

I never bought into Obama’s hype machine, but the drone strike was carried out by the United States armed forces, who are required to not follow illegal orders; via a chain of command. There is a different party in power now: have there been any prosecutions?Presumably there was a lot of legal advice that sanctioned the hit on a US citizen exercising his ostensible free speech rights,[1] otherwise it would not have h…

There was a lot of pseudo-legal justification and lack of prosecutions for the Bush torture program as well, which was another violation of American norms.

You have a very idyllic view that people can’t break the rules and get away with it: Obama murdered an American in violation of the law, but there is a tradition of not holding presidents accountable for their crimes.

Personally, that lack of accountability seems to have led to a ratcheting level of presidential misbehavior and a collapse in societal norms — precisely what this thread is about.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#82

Post by dang »

usub98 wrote: post #17

It's funny how this is such a popular topic on sites like HN who heavily censor users themselves based on their political opinion. HN put shadow bans on hundreds of users for non-conforming posts. It seems like anyone who had a wrong stance on the whole "NPC meme" is affected, even if they only found it mildly amusing. Source: I found it amusing, openly said so and I'm shadow banned on this IP.

We don't ban users for "non-conforming posts" unless you mean non-conforming with the site guidelines.

People sometimes claim otherwise but such claims never seem to come with links that would allow readers to make up their own minds. If what you're saying is even 10% true, there should be an abundance of such links available.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#83

Post by dang »

FakeComments wrote: post #56
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that HN moderators mostly focus on civility. IME stance-related silencing occurs only via downvotes by regular users.

There’s a strong, intentional skew in their enforcement: dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. That’s what it means when they say they censor to keep “civility”: if the groupthink finds you disruptive, you will be silenced by arbitrary application of rules others (who su…

I've not said that. If you're going to make such a claim, you should provide a link so readers can make up their own minds.

The other claims you make aren't really falsifiable, though I can tell you we go out of our way not to moderate HN based on ideology, and I can also tell you that for whatever ideological position you'd care to name, people loudly complain that we're biased against it.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#84

Post by FakeComments »

dang wrote: post #83
FakeComments wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a strong, intentional skew in their enforcement: dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. That’s what it means when they say they censor to keep “civility”: if the groupthink finds you disruptive, you will be silenced by arbitrary application of rules others (who su…

I've not said that. If you're going to make such a claim, you should provide a link so readers can make up their own minds. The other claims you make aren't really falsifiable, though I can tell you we go out of our way not to moderate HN based on ideology, and I can also tell you that for whatever ideological position you'd care to name, people loudly complain that we're biased against it.

You have, to me, in reply to contentious things I’ve said.

Repeatedly.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#85

Post by dang »

FakeComments wrote: post #84
dang wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not said that. If you're going to make such a claim, you should provide a link so readers can make up their own minds. The other claims you make aren't really falsifiable, though I can tell you we go out of our way not to moderate HN based on ideology, and I can also tell you that for whatever ideological position you'd care to name, people loudly complain that we're biased against it.

You have, to me, in reply to contentious things I’ve said. Repeatedly.

All my replies to your comments can be found in this subthread, and plainly do not match your description.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19345439

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#86

Post by FakeComments »

dang wrote: post #85
FakeComments wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have, to me, in reply to contentious things I’ve said. Repeatedly.

All my replies to your comments can be found in this subthread, and plainly do not match your description. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19345439

> Especially: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

> dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for.

Your entire moderation policy is based around precisely what I claimed, as you yourself stated: the arbitrary application of increased standards for comments which disrupt groupthink, or to use a euphemism, are “divisive”.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#87

Post by dang »

FakeComments wrote: post #86
dang wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my replies to your comments can be found in this subthread, and plainly do not match your description. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19345439

> Especially: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." > dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. Your entire moderation policy is based around precisely what I claimed, as you yourself stated: the arbitrary application of i…

That guideline is based on the evidence of what happens when people don't follow it. That's the opposite of arbitrary. You're effectively calling the rule "no fires in a dry forest" arbitrary because it doesn't apply to all forests.

Uncivil comments about divisive topics lead to flamewars. Flamebait comments don't "disrupt groupthink"; they reinforce it, because what flamewars do is reinforce pre-existing opinions with jacked-up intensity. If you want to change other people's minds, you need to actually reach those people. Verbally tasing the other side makes them go rigid and think whatever they thought before, just more angrily.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#88

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

FakeComments wrote: post #86
dang wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my replies to your comments can be found in this subthread, and plainly do not match your description. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19345439

> Especially: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." > dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. Your entire moderation policy is based around precisely what I claimed, as you yourself stated: the arbitrary application of i…

@FakeComments: I'd like to share an idea you may find helpful.

I too am sometimes frustrated by how HN conversations go. There are numerous times where I know I'm taking a contrary position on HN, and despite my best efforts to present my argument politely and succinctly, the audience seems unable or unwilling to honestly engage with my logic. It's doubly vexing when my comments are downvoted without clear justification. (To be clear: I'm talking only about downvoting, not thwacking from the site admins.)

But I also think there's plenty of evidence that taking a harsh tone in the discussion is unproductive in such conversations, and is ineffective at curbing the behavior of (what I perceive as) unjustified penalization of my comments.

So here's my idea: How about treating this as an intellectual challenge? The goal is to study the form and substance of these contentious discussions, and identify trends regarding successful vs. failed presentations of contrary viewpoints. And then see if adopting those forms results in more satisfying discussions of the points you're trying to raise?

If you're able to nail that skill, especially with a sometimes-fickle audience, you may find it benefits other areas of life as well.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#89

Post by FakeComments »

dang wrote: post #87
FakeComments wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." > dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. Your entire moderation policy is based around precisely what I claimed, as you yourself stated: the arbitrary application of i…

That guideline is based on the evidence of what happens when people don't follow it. That's the opposite of arbitrary. You're effectively calling the rule "no fires in a dry forest" arbitrary because it doesn't apply to all forests. Uncivil comments about divisive topics lead to flamewars. Flamebait comments don't "disrupt groupthink"; they reinforce it, because what flamewars do is reinforce pre-existing opinions wi…

> That guideline is based on the evidence of what happens when people don't follow it. That's the opposite of arbitrary.

I didn’t mean to imply that the rule was arbitrarily selected, merely that your application of it was arbitrary — that it, at the sole discretion of a small group of people, without guiding rules, and without systematic review for p, eg, bias.

Force, such as bans, applied in an arbitrary manner is inherently tyrannical — and your appeals to civility a rote recitation of a millennia old justification for tyranny. Tyrants are never merely enforcing their biases on others — it’s always for the greater purpose!

Having been a member of this community for a while, my reply would be that flame war groupthink is better than this groupthink: flame wars can occasionally change minds and show the diversity of extant opinions — while your groupthink preserving censorship distorts people’s view of the diversity of opinions while leading to no more changed minds, and is therefore strictly worse.

Re: UK government proposes fine or block if website fails to tackle “online harms”

#90

Post by FakeComments »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #88
FakeComments wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." > dang has previously said that they’re more critical of people who perturb the groupthink, and take action against them for things people supporting popular opinions would be excused for. Your entire moderation policy is based around precisely what I claimed, as you yourself stated: the arbitrary application of i…

@FakeComments: I'd like to share an idea you may find helpful. I too am sometimes frustrated by how HN conversations go. There are numerous times where I know I'm taking a contrary position on HN, and despite my best efforts to present my argument politely and succinctly, the audience seems unable or unwilling to honestly engage with my logic. It's doubly vexing when my comments are downvoted without clear justificat…

You admit your comment is non-responsive to my point, which is that dang ideologically censors posts.

Do you believe a non-sequitur ad hominem was a constructive comment?

I’d prefer not to learn that style of social skill.

Your comment is also factually wrong: the reason that censorship for civility developed as a strategy is that it’s maximally effective suppressing ideological conversion for the amount of speech it suppresses. Your comment then becomes nothing more than “working under adverse conditions teaches resiliency”, which is true — but not a reason to stop questioning the censorship policy.

People do not rationally switch positions — they switch positions during an emotional cascade after a sufficient number of rational reasons have accumulated. That “avalanche” where an emotional spark triggers the awareness of a substantial shift in your beliefs.

These criticality events necessarily require an emotional trigger such a failing to be able to substantively reply to provocatively phrased arguments or the inability to factually correct mocking humor.

Civility suppresses precisely that: the emotional barbs in arguments and the mockery which might provoke a person to change their stance, in a substantive manner.

Rationality alone is all powder, no spark.

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