Tech and Liberty • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech and Liberty

#131

Post by spyckie2 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

loudmax wrote: post #10

The fundamental problem is the near monopoly powers enjoyed by a select few social media and tech companies. If Facebook and Twitter's social networks were federated like email, it wouldn't matter whether they refuse to propagate one opinion or another. Unhappy users or anyone who feels silenced could simply switch to a different provider. The problem isn't that Facebook or Twitter are allowing or not allowing free s…

Here's the thing. Are "platforms for speech" so important? Are they as important to our society as say, basic infrastructure? If they are, we should treat them like how we treat electricity and plumbing, housing and transportation, education and healthcare.

Imagine if our roads were maintained and monopolized by a tech company. Every driver would be a "user" to milk cash out of, either through subscription or through ads.

It's a bit of a stretch from your original idea, but maybe you're suggesting for government to run social platforms OR heavily regulate them instead.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#132

Post by KozmoNau7 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

dave_b wrote: post #74

thundergolfer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused by your first paragraph. In what way do progressives control the public space? Republicans are far more powerful than progressives in all branches of government (and remember Democrat != progressive). Corporations obviously dominate corporate space, which is a large sphere of life in the USA, and not at all “public space”. So what’s left?

By “public space,” I meant the predominant avenues for public discourse (maybe not the best choice of words). Mainstream media, tech platforms, and universities are the specific things I had in mind.

The mainstream media is overwhelmingly owned by the rich elite, with deep connections to conservative politics.

The idea that the mainstream media is somehow overwhelmingly progressive is something conservatives like to parrot, but I've never found it to have any basis in truth. The "leftist" big media outlets are really centrist, at best.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#133

Post by pojntfx » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 6:55 AM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #131

loudmax wrote: post #10

The fundamental problem is the near monopoly powers enjoyed by a select few social media and tech companies. If Facebook and Twitter's social networks were federated like email, it wouldn't matter whether they refuse to propagate one opinion or another. Unhappy users or anyone who feels silenced could simply switch to a different provider. The problem isn't that Facebook or Twitter are allowing or not allowing free s…

Here's the thing. Are "platforms for speech" so important? Are they as important to our society as say, basic infrastructure? If they are, we should treat them like how we treat electricity and plumbing, housing and transportation, education and healthcare. Imagine if our roads were maintained and monopolized by a tech company. Every driver would be a "user" to milk cash out of, either through subscription or through…

This. The internet is a basic service and should thus be ran by the people.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#134

Post by ohduran » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 7:56 AM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #131

loudmax wrote: post #10

The fundamental problem is the near monopoly powers enjoyed by a select few social media and tech companies. If Facebook and Twitter's social networks were federated like email, it wouldn't matter whether they refuse to propagate one opinion or another. Unhappy users or anyone who feels silenced could simply switch to a different provider. The problem isn't that Facebook or Twitter are allowing or not allowing free s…

Here's the thing. Are "platforms for speech" so important? Are they as important to our society as say, basic infrastructure? If they are, we should treat them like how we treat electricity and plumbing, housing and transportation, education and healthcare. Imagine if our roads were maintained and monopolized by a tech company. Every driver would be a "user" to milk cash out of, either through subscription or through…

I'm afraid that no innovation would come after that: there would be simply no incentive to improve the Internet as it would be, because eventually it would be "nationalised" so to say, and profit will max out for Internet companies.

I'm all for thinking of ways to tackle the issue with Facebook and Twitter's monopolies, which are a special form of one in the sense that the technology to build similar platforms is more or less open source, but the ability to gather together millions of people isn't.

But let's not kid ourselves and be led to unintended consequences out of it.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#135

Post by raxxorrax » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #122

PureParadigm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Americans, First Amendment protects telling lies (as long as there is no other crime such as fraud), so penalties for lying on the internet likely wouldn't stand up in court.

Well then, the problem is baked right into the first amendment. (But aren't most lies a kind of fraud?)

No, not every lie is fraud and everyone lies from time to time. What problem do you think this would solve? Frankly, I think it would have catastrophic repercussions for any form of communication. Try to complete a day with complete honesty. Wouldn't net you that many friends. Perhaps a few would think you are refreshingly funny. Probably people that are a bit angry with current aspirations to restrict content.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#136

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 9:04 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #120

loudmax wrote: post #10

The fundamental problem is the near monopoly powers enjoyed by a select few social media and tech companies. If Facebook and Twitter's social networks were federated like email, it wouldn't matter whether they refuse to propagate one opinion or another. Unhappy users or anyone who feels silenced could simply switch to a different provider. The problem isn't that Facebook or Twitter are allowing or not allowing free s…

I consider myself pretty progressive, but I find the idea of forcing companies to "open up their networks" distasteful and problematic. I just doesn't seem piratical. I've said it a few times before, I don't think the problem is the carriers, its that there are no penalties for telling a lie on the internet. This is where we should start to fix this problem.

> there are no penalties for telling a lie on the internet.

Some unrelated points on this:

People will believe you less if they find evidence against your lie.

This problem is a recent one that came about when the gullible masses started arriving to the internet in the 2000s.

I can concieve of no structured way of penalizing liars because I don't see any way of making a truth determining institution that would not be immediately corrupted.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#137

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #91

zozbot234 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We usually call that whole complex "the Cathedral". It fits with progressives' historical origin in the gradual politicization of new religious movements of all sorts.

Who's "we"?

Probably the Dark Enlightenment.

It's a good term though...

Re: Tech and Liberty

#138

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #25

This describes precisely my own reaction to Munroe's comic. I mean, it's certainly true that discussion forums benefit from moderation to remove trolls. However, Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being de-platformed are trolls. Even if some of the people being de-platformed are provocateurs, the fact is that there's still a difference between excluding people from what is essentially a private club (as m…

The end result of people following the Munroe idea is an almost perfectly polarized society where everyone who disagrees with the dominant idealogy of a location is ejected.

Almost every internet forum I've been on that allowed politics has in the last ywo decades gone from a lively mix of people of diverse political views debating each other to political monocultures that spend their time talking about how evil and stupid their political opponents are. This results in the inhabitants having basically no understanding of the beliefs, world views and motivations of people outside their bubble and near complete ignorance of any facts that might be evidence for said views.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#139

Post by raxxorrax » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 9:14 AM UTC

dave_b wrote: post #44

lliamander wrote: post #25

This describes precisely my own reaction to Munroe's comic. I mean, it's certainly true that discussion forums benefit from moderation to remove trolls. However, Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being de-platformed are trolls. Even if some of the people being de-platformed are provocateurs, the fact is that there's still a difference between excluding people from what is essentially a private club (as m…

Progressives of the past were all about the principle of free speech. Now that they have the power to control the public space, all they seem to care about are the technicalities of the first amendment. Arguments like that in the comic revel in enforcing groupthink because the author thinks it will be used in a way he finds favorable. If you take a step back, it’s obvious that every censorious organization has very s…

Well said. There is certainly a place for the xkcd comic. It can be used to argue for the right of free association as well as corporate censorship. That progressives picked the latter as favourable shows a staunch regression in the quality of thoughts.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#140

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #56

_xnmw wrote: post #15

The First Amendment was written at a time when the constraints of the available technology created "natural" boundaries as to what kind of speech could spread in a society. The very fact that publishing an opinion anonymously (edit: I should say without peer-review of any sort), at scale, was nearly impossible, prevented the development of many sordid, dark, and "evil" thoughts from reaching the point of public disco…

What are some of these "dark" "evil" "bad ideas" you believe are infecting, festering, and mutating in minds thanks to the internet?

Given that the world-view commonly called "progressive" currently dominates, I'd expect the most "dark" views to be those which contradict (or seem to contradict) fundamental tenet of progressivism: the idea that everyone should be equally valued.