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Did the early internet activists blow it?

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Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#61

Post by samatman »

incompatible wrote: post #21
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…

Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance relevant here? Also, if you ask for (legal) spaces for "anything goes" content, you need to campaign not just against "hate speech" laws, but all the other laws that prohibit various kinds of information.

Maybe, but probably not. I encourage people to read the full Karl Popper quote, which contains this:

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

The claim isn't that we should denounce those who hold opinions we find abhorrent as intolerant and fail to tolerate them; it's more specific than that, it says that we may need to physically fight those whose 'opinions' are backed by force or the credible threat of it.

I don't think vile, anonymous Internet racists rise to this measure. Your mileage may vary. Most of the Interneterati who invoke the paradox of tolerance are saying that, e.g., being intolerant of the LGBTQ, or racially chauvinist, or less than enthusiastically feminist, is grounds for censorship and deplatforming.

I don't agree, and don't get the impression Karl Popper would either.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#62

Post by dependenttypes »

Barrin92 wrote: post #40
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #25

Freedom is the right to be wrong. If I am free as long as I only do it "The Right Way", I'm not free. People need to try different things, make mistakes, be foolish. Without that freedom, we become a(n at least metaphoric) theocracy. Society's disapproval cannot be incorporated into law in a free society.

>. If I am free as long as I only do it "The Right Way", I'm not free This is a shallow definition of freedom, the sort of idea of freedom that children instinctively have when they're told to go to bed and start throwing a tantrum and it is largely what the internet was built on, maybe not accidentally by people who in many ways were juvenile adults. There's a deeper version of freedom, a more adult one, that recogn…

> that children instinctively have when they're told to go to bed and start throwing a tantrum

Would you be happy if right now someone forced you to go to bed at arbitrary times when you are not tired and potentially had work to do?

> who in many ways were juvenile adults

Are you calling them immature, youthful, or something else?

> a more adult one

No, a more authoritarian/collectivist one that consider abstract concepts such as society and morality as more important than the personal freedoms of a human. It takes out the individualism from a person and only considers them as a cog in a bigger machine which can be replaced at will. This mentality is what led us to absurd laws such as the ones that forbid sodomy, or alcohol, or any other victimless crime really.

> it also consists of maintaining enough order so that authentic expression of freedom is possible

What is this supposed to mean in the context of the internet?

> Social approval should be incorporated into law

Which goes back to the point about lgbt rights. Until recently most people were against them in the west and most people are still against them outside of the west. You should not need your village's permission to commit a victimless act.

> because places that don't do it become uninhabitable

Should it not be up to the "rulers" (that is the server owners) of these services to decide their rules then? It is not like it is the business of someone outside of the community whether said community becomes inhabitable.

> as the current public internet increasingly is

You say increasingly, yet it is only recently that there has been adaption of rules to satisfy the wider social pressure to censor.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#63

Post by catalogia »

ethbro wrote: post #31
TomMckenny wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, we…

I think this is a balanced appraisal of the situation. Historically, US free speech has been "crazy rant" = okay, "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay. And that worked, when distribution was relatively centralized with respect to network size. However, now I think we have a third category, somewhere between the previous two: "fire!" (on a widely- and easily-disseminated medium). The sheer scale of social networks m…

> "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay.

I really wish people could find a different expression to convey what they mean by this, because what they/you mean by this is probably worlds apart from what this phrase actually meant when it was formulated.

> ""Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."

I think we can all agree that protesting the draft should be protected by the first amendment.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#64

Post by ggm »

hitekker wrote: post #43
ggm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

A man who styles himself an internet visionary while abdicating his responsibility to the future of the internet is likely to have an ulterior motive when talking about the internet. However I also recognize that our community, like other communities, tend to forgive high status community members, as long as their lies aren’t too obvious.

Well done for simultaneous criticism of him and me. This feels like "if you are not against him, you must be for him" reductionism. I merely note he is capable of being seen, like all of us, as multithreaded.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#65

Post by samatman »

dependenttypes wrote: post #55
roenxi wrote: post #11

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 iss…

> there isn't a tool (that I know of) saying "Zerohedge has been removed from Google's index" Google uses the lumen database for DMCAs, which account for most of its removals, I am not aware for something similar for non-dmca removals however.

It's also unclear what such a statement would look like in Google's case.

"Zerohedge has been moved to page 10 for the following searches:" strikes me as expensive, impossible in the general case, and relatively useless.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#66

Post by dboreham »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #52
whiddershins wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expressing opinions vs making specific threats is a very clear thick line for me, and yet somehow whenever I read about takedowns and such it seems many people have trouble making the distinction. “I hate x and wish they had never been born” Is not “I am coming to your house tomorrow with a weapon” Yet people treat them similarly. From there it just becomes “anything that scares me is a threat.” Then, it becomes obvi…

In some psychology class long ago, I learned that one of the most self destructive things someone can do is perceive emotions as information. As in "That made me mad so what they did was clearly wrong". A lot of therapy is geared to shifting people away from that cognitive error. But that concept is thrown out the window when it comes to Twitter/Facebook/etc. I can't count how many times I've read "I'm literally shak…

Unfortunately this is kind of how the human brain works. It presumably evolved from a simpler design that only had "emotions", adding a higher level processing function that began as something very simple, evolving over a long time into the complex neocortex we have now. The primitive emotional brain is still present, with an imperfect "interface" to the newer brain.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#67

Post by Izkata »

catalogia wrote: post #63
ethbro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a balanced appraisal of the situation. Historically, US free speech has been "crazy rant" = okay, "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay. And that worked, when distribution was relatively centralized with respect to network size. However, now I think we have a third category, somewhere between the previous two: "fire!" (on a widely- and easily-disseminated medium). The sheer scale of social networks m…

> "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay. I really wish people could find a different expression to convey what they mean by this, because what they/you mean by this is probably worlds apart from what this phrase actually meant when it was formulated. > ""Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Ju…

> > "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay.

> I really wish people could find a different expression to convey what they mean by this, because what they/you mean by this is probably worlds apart from what this phrase actually meant when it was formulated.

A bit yeah, right on Wikipedia [0]:

> The paraphrasing differs from Holmes's original wording in that it typically does not include the word falsely, while also adding the word "crowded" to describe the theatre. The original wording used in Holmes's opinion ("falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic") highlights that speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is dangerous but also true.

Additionally:

> The First Amendment holding in Schenck was later partially overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#68

Post by AnthonyMouse »

heartbeats wrote: post #32
bsder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1. No, there should not. People should have the freedom to congregate and to discuss. If people are hurt by this, too bad. There is no solution. 2. There isn't one. If I say something, there are some insane people who will hear it, and some of them might kill someone. Too bad, but it doesn't make me a terrorist. 3. Facebook and Google are natural monopolies, and they should be regulated like telecom carriers.

> 3. Facebook and Google are natural monopolies, and they should be regulated like telecom carriers.

Malarkey. If Facebook was a natural monopoly they wouldn't have to keep buying competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp because the barrier from the natural monopoly would prevent the then-competitors from gaining significant market share to begin with. The failure there was on the part of antitrust in allowing Facebook to buy them, and even that isn't fatal as long as they don't continue to do it. Social networks only have a popular lifespan of a decade or two and exist in parallel to multiple other competitors. That is unless one company is allowed to buy them all, and keep buying them as newer ones become popular.

And Google doesn't even have network effects. All they have is a better search engine than anybody else, which only lasts until that stops being the case. It's hard to complain about it as long as they're giving the results you actually want -- especially when competing search engines do exist and can easily be used by anyone who wants to.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#69

Post by andai »

Mirioron wrote: post #49
mikedilger wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly may _want_ to eliminate such places and/or such beliefs. But stamping out places or beliefs doesn't really work. People find or create new places, and what is left is just ill-will and further political division. Beliefs become martyred and the Streissand effect draws more people in to investigate. The way to reduce bad beliefs is to, IMHO: 1. Ingratiate and investigate. Respect the people, become their…

One very important thing to counter hate is to try to have everyone in society involved in society somehow. People are much less willing to wish ill on others in society (or society itself) if they feel that they are part of it. A lot of stories about people being radicalized start with a person feeling at end of the rope and alone. This isn't something that you can really do online, but it is something that can be d…

"The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#70

Post by catalogia »

Izkata wrote: post #67
catalogia wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay. I really wish people could find a different expression to convey what they mean by this, because what they/you mean by this is probably worlds apart from what this phrase actually meant when it was formulated. > ""Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Ju…

> > "fire!" (in a crowded room) = not okay. > I really wish people could find a different expression to convey what they mean by this, because what they/you mean by this is probably worlds apart from what this phrase actually meant when it was formulated. A bit yeah, right on Wikipedia [0]: > The paraphrasing differs from Holmes's original wording in that it typically does not include the word falsely, while also add…

This suggests a better phrase to use: "inciting imminent lawless action"

Maybe that's not as dramatic as "yelling fire in a crowded theater", but I think that's actually a good thing.

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