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Did the early internet activists blow it?

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Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#11

Post by roenxi »

The internet does need regulation; what I'd like to see (but don't expect to) is a regime where platforms have to be transparent about their moderating systems.

I have no objection to Facebook, Twitter, Google/Youtube, Hacker News or WeChat aggressively moderating their platform, or even running social engineering programs. Their platform, their problem, humans have lived with that sort of thing for centuries. My issue is that content recommendation systems are not transparent about why things don't appear.

Zerohedge got booted from Twitter recently. I don't mind that sort of thing because it is obvious what happened; go to their twitter page and it says the account is suspended. If Google tried something similar and removed them from the index there isn't a tool (that I know of) saying "Zerohedge has been removed from Google's index" and that is upsetting. I'd support legislation where people had to provide that sort of information in a public and accessible manner.

I suppose my big complaint is that if the big companies were organised against a group (maybe Google has an irrational dislike of Russia-based IT companies; it is possible) then that group has no way of identifying that they are being treated differently. This will always be a concern for political minorities.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#12

Post by ColanR »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

Well said!

> Lastly, to make sites like 8chan out to have no value other than content some might find deplorable is, frankly, as close minded as those who the author apparently fears.

It's nice that someone actually came out and said this.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#13

Post by casefields »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

What people in general want is exactly that type of censorship. Just look at the way the public in general, media/companies in particular, react when you say Eric Ciaramella's name.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#14

Post by ggm »

hitekker wrote: post #5

It sounds like Godwin is trying to distract public attention away from his selling-out of .org to a private equity corporation. https://domainnamewire.com/2020/01/15/vint-cerf-and-mike-god... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200115/11301343739/techd... https://prospect.org/power/private-equity-corporate-takeover...

He can discuss multiple things at once. You think the world is single threaded? He has a life outside of his board role (I also think the board stuffed up, btw)

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#15

Post by bsder »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

There are multiple problems:

1) How do we deal with the fact that an Internet mob can horribly damage a random individual?

This is a really serious issue. Even a single stalker can cause a nightmare for a person and they will have difficulty fighting back. An Internet mob can be completely devastating. There needs to be some way for an individual to cost effectively fight back against online "assault"--especially when it's a mob.

2) How do we deal with the whole "stochastic terrorism" problem?

Stirring up a bunch of people until finally one of them does something horrific and then sitting back and saying "But I didn't say to go shoot them, I only posted their picture and name with cross-hairs." needs to have some penalty. We didn't used to care about this because only the truly powerful could say "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and have grievous harm come about. Now, with the Internet, you can be much less powerful and have your words reach far more people--some of whom will be sufficiently disturbed to carry things out.

3) Facebook and Google are effectively monopolies. How do we deal with that?

We have historically dealt with monopoly by forcing breakups. The lack of monopoly actions in the last several decades has brought us to where these behemoths have no fear.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#16

Post by TomMckenny »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

As you say, the problem is not 8chan or "the daily stormer" for that matter. But it _is_ Facebook. Anything goes sites like 8chan have so much reality free and bizarre content that they have only the tiniest impact. Yet they provide insight into those mindsets and their trends.

But Facebook and Twitter inject extremely harmful falsehoods into reams of fluff and corporate posts. This gives them far more legitimacy, weight and exposure than they would otherwise have. And since those two have made agitating posts part of their business model, regardless of historic levels of societal harm, the problem is not fixed.

I would be appalled if anything I built were used to do such harm, I would use every ounce of my being to stop it. If necessary I would shut the whole thing down rather than have my name remembered forever as such a facilitator. Obviously Zuckerberg has a different mindset and is clearly no Alfred Nobel.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#17

Post by eropple »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

There certainly are anodyne parts of 4chan--but they're obviously, to the point where your post comes off as disingenous, not the problem. Hell, they could migrate back to Something Awful, like a lot of us who grew up ended up doing. (Which, just recently, torpedoed FYAD, the last vestige of the edgelord era. The FYAD types seem to have fucked off to 4chan and elsewhere. Nobody was surprised.)

Hate speech is abhorrent and its purveyors should be ostracized from decent society. But you can deal with the crazy screamer on the streetcorner. The organizational facet is not merely distasteful but threatening. These are places to air doxxed information. They're places to gin up raids. Remember "4chan is not your personal army"? It isn't real anymore, if it ever was. For the last five years, 8chan in particular (largely because 4chan has an ownership group that maybe-just-maybe is scared of real consequences, which tells me that real consequences work) has been the personal army of a lot of sadsacks who, just to name one facet, really really really want to make the lives of women who have the temerity to make or talk about video games really horrible.

These places are literally-not-figuratively hives for fascists to radicalize the clueless, and that is a threat at a societal level.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#18

Post by bitwize »

v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

> To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech?

Because the moment a troll shooter posts his manifucksto to a site, that site becomes "linked to terrorism" and it becomes our social responsibility to shut that site down and ensure that sites like it never rise again. Based on which comments get modded up and which get modded down, this is Accepted Truth on Hackernews.

If these principles were applied consistently, what should we do about the newspapers, magazines, and web sites that ran the Unabomber's manifesto in the 90s?

Oh, right. Marcuse's principle of repressive tolerance kicks in. That tells us we have a social duty to legally protect expressing a leftist perspective and to criminalize expressing a rightist one.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#19

Post by bitwize »

eropple wrote: post #17
v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

There certainly are anodyne parts of 4chan--but they're obviously, to the point where your post comes off as disingenous, not the problem. Hell, they could migrate back to Something Awful, like a lot of us who grew up ended up doing. (Which, just recently, torpedoed FYAD, the last vestige of the edgelord era. The FYAD types seem to have fucked off to 4chan and elsewhere. Nobody was surprised.) Hate speech is abhorren…

How dare people go through Zoe Quinn's tweets and discover that she was in a consensual relationship with the man she claims raped her at the time said rape was supposed to have occurred! The people who did this have no other motive than to punish her for being involved in video games while having a vagina! Such hate speech, and all institutions complicit in its spread, needs to be blotted from existence immediately!

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#20

Post by craftinator »

bsder wrote: post #15
v7x wrote: post #10

I agree with most of the article, but the author faltered in the area I predicted he would before I began to read. He expresses fear that without some restraint that sites might become "like 8chan". To which I have to ask, why is that a problem? Because its a hotbed for hate speech? What is hate speech? I'm sure I dont need to elaborate further on what I see wrong with that. What people seem to forget/ignore is that…

There are multiple problems: 1) How do we deal with the fact that an Internet mob can horribly damage a random individual? This is a really serious issue. Even a single stalker can cause a nightmare for a person and they will have difficulty fighting back. An Internet mob can be completely devastating. There needs to be some way for an individual to cost effectively fight back against online "assault"-- especially wh…

I see a problem with points one and two. That problem is partially what spurred the First Amendment of the Constitution (USA) to be made. Trying to control the speech of people is both impossible and forces escalation. When people desire to communicate, they will do so, about whatever topic they choose. Trying to stifle or manipulate this communication will fail eventually; either those who see themselves as part of the "ruling body" will accept this failure, or escalate with more robust controls. Rinse and repeat this through a few iterations, and you end up with the Great Firewall in China. The only way to deal with communication that turns hostile or negative is to increase the communication skills and tools of those involved. Conflict resolution, empathic reasoning, detailed vocabulary, and strong argument skills will allow people to communicate clearly and reasonably. A communicating group that carries many members who have these skills will be deal deftly with these issues, and carry a thick enough skin and strong enough values not to be swayed by the moral poisoning that tends to happen in forums in question.
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