Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#251

Post by potatoz2 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:04 AM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #202

danShumway wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s perfectly reasonable to want to set up some kind of publishing company that has user-generated content Note that under this setup, a forum like HN would be basically impossible to maintain. How would you set up a publishing content that included user content without having a human pre-vet all of that content? And HN has, like, 3 moderators? The practical end result of this would be that the Internet would spli…

Depends what you mean by "a forum like HN". Before HN the main geek watering hole was Slashdot, which famously never censored content and fought strongly against attempts to force it to do so. Slashdot also had a rather sophisticated moderation and scoring system, that allowed spam (hot grits etc) to be downranked and appear auto-collapsed, whilst longer form content was upvoted and expanded by default - even if it w…

The idea that it's OK to implement an algorithm that takes some user's input to censor posts but it's not OK to do so directly seems like it skirts the central question.

If I have upvotes and downvotes, weighted the way I like, and I limit who can get an account in the first place, I can probably achieve the speech outcome I want relatively easily "without" human intervention.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#252

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

abathur wrote: post #229

buboard wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have a checkbox "remove spam" that the moderators could turn on and off. There's not a lot of ambiguity about spam so it's not a real issue. I think the law should be "platforms should not tinker with their users' expressed preferences - you can't hide something that they 've chosen to subscribe to". > And would this extend to marketplaces? I believe these are already considered publishers ? In any case it…

Replying to your root comment but also addressing some points in subcomments. Generally (and perhaps ideally), I like the idea of more visibility/transparency into what algorithms (and human moderators) do. But I think it's worth noting that, pragmatically, there are at least a few minefields here... - Providing full transparency into what gets flagged as spam is going to make it a lot easier for spammers to model, e…

[deleted]

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#253

Post by PavlovsCat » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:20 AM UTC

slavik81 wrote: post #185

brnt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is, Mill lived in an era where dissemination of information was barely at a steam-engine equivalent, whereas now we've got automated opinion-generating rocket systems in orbit ready to barrage millions of info missiles at any online discussion at any point in any language within 300 nanoseconds. New realities need new quotes.

I started reading through On Liberty recently and I was surprised by how topical it was. This discussion doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 150 years. Mill spends a long time addressing arguments for censorship that I still see used today. A lot is lost when a book-length discussion is reduced to a single sentence. In his work, there's a very thorough discussion of why this liberty is essential. I don't…

> I don't like how the grandparent used the quote so flippantly. Without the supporting context, it's a baseless statement that encourages low-quality discussion.

The context was someone saying they have no problem with users flagging stories, as long as it's not the mods. I disagree, and I might just as well have said "personally, I don't like it either (when some of the hoi polloi take it on them to decide what the rest should discuss, insted of using the "hide" feature)". Instead I said it with a quote.

That doesn't "encourage" ignoring that context, a non-sequitur slogan like "new realities need new quotes", and equating any verbal or written statement, even lies or auto-generated spam, with persons holding an opinion.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#254

Post by Udik » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

buboard wrote: post #235

Udik wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is the ability to make choices, which means having the power to choose. Great power is a great freedom in choices- and of course that freedom comes with a responsibility- you made choices, you are responsible for them. And yes, if you have no freedom you cannot be considered responsible for what you do or don't. A slave cannot be held responsible for actions he's been ordered to perform. This might not be "bl…

that implies there 's a tradeoff between freedom and responsibility. freedom is a natural right - responsibility, while highly valued, is not required.

We are simply confusing two different meanings of "responsibility" and misunderstanding each other.

Responsibility is both a way of acting that is mindful of the consequences, and simply the fact that people will ask you to respond of the consequences of your actions.

The two are strictly connected but are not the same. You "act responsibly" when you are prepared to answer tough questions about your actions. The simple fact that you will be asked to answer those questions, independently from your actions, is the fact of "being responsible".

So responsibility as virtue is not required by freedom; but as a simple fact of life it is its consequence, people will consider you responsible for what you do.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#255

Post by leereeves » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 7:45 AM UTC

potatoz2 wrote: post #250

leereeves wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a platform that actually banned hate speech; they all allow such speech, as long as it's directed at acceptable targets (often white people or Christians). These platform's actions aren't about problematic speech, but about identity politics. But in theory a platform could ban such content impartially. Should they? Should such speech be universally suppressed? I'd have to say no; if it were, who could…

Criticism is not hate speech. Ignoring the unclear phrase "hate speech", banning calls to violence or verbal harassment is very different from banning opinions. Free speech as it is understood in the US applies to the government and the government can and does limit your rights when it comes to violence and time and place (e.g. you can't yell during a session of Congress). It's absolutely morally fine to do so and it…

Another distracting discussion of criminal behavior. As I said two posts up, we all agree such abuses should be banned. Opposition to censorship and defense of free speech is about censorship based on opinions; free speech advocates aren't fighting for an unlimited right to make threats or yell "Fire!" just for fun.

By "ignoring the unclear phrase 'hate speech'" you've ignored the very issue under discussion.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#256

Post by everdev » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #145

everdev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we expect all civil exchanges to be treated equally Define civil :) Take any hot button issue like guns, abortion, etc. where your stance on one side of the issue can be seen as immoral or life threatening to the other side. Take a passionate / borderline tweet from one side and you'll probably get a 50/50 disagreement on wether or not it's "civil". Now what? Block the tweet? Warn the user? How many people need to…

So the WBC is an extreme case. Obviously it’s problematic. Their tactics are disgusting, and really it’s counter productive to their cause, though they are more like nasty trolls. But we’re seeing issues where things are not problematic but because people are guilty of thinking “wrong”. If I want to discuss international politics and think we should liberate/invade country X or conversely we should leave country X we…

> think we should liberate/invade country X

There are some people on the right and left that think that advocating for foreign war is problematic and counter productive. Some foreign wars in history have been justified and others have been out of greed or racism.

I think the point is we all draw the line in different places on what speech is appropriate which is why censorship itself is problematic.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#257

Post by repolfx » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #228

repolfx wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a difference of additive vs subtractive distortions. Censorship deletes things: it reduces the size of the marketplace of ideas. Money adds things: if I spend money tomorrow to buy some ads it doesn't affect you unless either (a) you're also spending money and trying to buy the same ad slots or (b) your views are very weakly held and you become convinced to change sides by my witty advert. The "get money…

Money adds things No. What money does is redistribute limited attention. Information may (or may not) be freee, and nonrivalrous. But its complements, attention, distribution, discoverability, access, reach, are all rivalrous. Time is the ultimate rival good: a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, lifetime, spent on one thing is that interval not spent on all else . "Money doesn't talk, it swears." B…

As to the touted ineffectiveness of political advertising, the arguments would ring far truer if 1) the parties claiming such reflected the belief in their actions and 2) would not protest so loudly efforts to either curtail or 3) clearly identify those doing the advertising and spending.

1) This is the case, isn't it. In America the Republicans were far more relaxed about the ruling allowing unlimited US campaign money, then spent around half the amount the Democrats did and won.

If they were really being duplicitous about it you'd have seen major freakouts amongst Trump supporters about his very low levels of spending, but I don't remember much of that. You saw far more angst amongst Democrats about the "free" news coverage he got by virtue of saying popular-but-unpopular things.

I'm not saying people are totally consistent on this, but at least in the last election, Trump's behaviour appears to have matched the overall right wing pattern of not really believing political spending is a big deal. The US needs a pretty high baseline of political ad spend just to communicate "there's an election on day X, vote for candidate Y" to 350+ million people in a very short space of time. Beyond that it doesn't seem to matter.

2) Why shouldn't they protest? It's perfectly possible to both believe that government control over speech is bad on principle, and also that political advertising isn't as powerful as your opponents believe.

3) Why should people doing political ad spending be forced to be identified, but people posting political views on the internet not be? A good reason to not force identification of such people is to stop retaliatory attacks by extremists designed to silence people, a very real problem. This is especially important in elections where there's a risk whoever comes to power will try to get revenge on people who supported their opponents. Not normally a risk in US politics because of the First Amendment but it's been seen elsewhere.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#258

Post by repolfx » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

abathur wrote: post #223

repolfx wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam can be solved by just making it easy for people to spot when something was classified as spam, e.g. as spam folders do.

Maybe I'm misreading this comment or the context (because I think the biggest single piece we're currently lacking in platform moderation is maximal transparency into what/who gets moderated and how)... but how would this "solve" spam in any case where the ratio of spam-to-signal crosses whatever threshold it takes to start breaking a platform's network effects, reducing engagement, driving out existing users, wardin…

Spam didn't break email's network effects. Yeah, it hurts it a bit, but there were lots of attempts to build competing email networks that didn't go anywhere.

This is partly because email isn't "for" anything except communication. The idea that platforms must stand for something is new and wrong. A good platform stands for nothing and is open to everyone.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#259

Post by abathur » Sun, Nov 10, 2019, 3:07 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #258

abathur wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misreading this comment or the context (because I think the biggest single piece we're currently lacking in platform moderation is maximal transparency into what/who gets moderated and how)... but how would this "solve" spam in any case where the ratio of spam-to-signal crosses whatever threshold it takes to start breaking a platform's network effects, reducing engagement, driving out existing users, wardin…

Spam didn't break email's network effects. Yeah, it hurts it a bit, but there were lots of attempts to build competing email networks that didn't go anywhere. This is partly because email isn't "for" anything except communication. The idea that platforms must stand for something is new and wrong. A good platform stands for nothing and is open to everyone.

This might just come down to why I'm not sure I'm interpreting you right.

It's one thing to have the platform equivalent of a spam folder for new top-level posts that smell like junk. But these platforms have more significant design challenges: to cleanly handle replies, retweets + commentary, mentions, comments, threads, and anything else that is sort of inherently contextual (including the possibility that there are legitimate non-spam posts that interact with a spam post to quote, comment, reply, warn others, and so on).

I'm a little skeptical about how well anyone can meet that design in a way that makes it easy to see what was flagged as spam and isn't also sensitive to the ratio of spam to legitimate posts...

Its possible you're imagining that spam posts don't show up at all in a thread unless you hit a single toggle that re-renders the thread with any pruned replies and branches in place. Interfaces like this don't spiral out if the ratio changes, but I also don't think they make it easy to spot the flagged posts.

An interface that marks the posts in-thread can make it easier, but they're sensitive to that ratio. Very sensitive if they shows the full post, and a little sensitive if they replace the post with a clickable indicator that there's suspected spam there.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#260

Post by slavik81 » Mon, Nov 11, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #253

slavik81 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started reading through On Liberty recently and I was surprised by how topical it was. This discussion doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 150 years. Mill spends a long time addressing arguments for censorship that I still see used today. A lot is lost when a book-length discussion is reduced to a single sentence. In his work, there's a very thorough discussion of why this liberty is essential. I don't…

> I don't like how the grandparent used the quote so flippantly. Without the supporting context, it's a baseless statement that encourages low-quality discussion. The context was someone saying they have no problem with users flagging stories, as long as it's not the mods. I disagree, and I might just as well have said " personally, I don't like it either (when some of the hoi polloi take it on them to decide what th…

For what it's worth, I had upvoted you. The shallowness of the discussion wasn't something you started, and I'm not sure you really had a responsibility to end it. I just wanted to see us do better as a community.