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Did the early internet activists blow it?

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Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#81

Post by ip26 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #74
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…

> The sheer scale of social networks makes the effect fundamentally unlike prior scenarios. Is this even true? There are a billion people on Facebook, but it's not like a given post ever gets seen by more than a small fraction of them. Nearly the entire human race has been reachable by postal mail for over a hundred years; the size of the network really has nothing to do with anything. What has changed isn't the size…

I think your parent is basically referencing the fact that you can find large groups of people who share your views, no matter what they are. Nervous about vaccines? Great, you can find literally thousands of people who affirm your fears, and you needn't even speak to anyone who doesn't. That's what's new, that's how scale changed things.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#82

Post by jancsika »

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…

> We have a right to exist too.

You do.

On a separate note:

1. From a technical point of view it's poorly-designed software for 2020. For example: you can't measure how many of "we" are refrigerators. You apparently don't reflect about how that may open up exploits to a wide variety of attackers in "their own space" for the "anything goes" crowd. (Same for HN for that matter.)

2. From a practical point of view this type of software serves as a poor entry point for a persuasive free speech argument. I much prefer using E2EE messaging apps as the entry point for a strong defense of free speech in the digital era. We know bad actors have used them and will likely use them in the future. Nonetheless, the rest of us use them and will fight to continue to do so on principle (e.g., for security in a weaponized internet, for privacy, for research purposes, etc.). Those principles are at the forefront, as is the fear that will be used in the counter-argument and which we must resist. We know the value, we know the cost, and we can argue the point clearly.

If we instead start the argument with poorly designed, buggy software that requires a birds-eye view of the network in order to properly assess when and how it's being exploited we're going to be fighting on two fronts. (As well as ignoring the risks of the design as I believe your comment does.)

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#83

Post by catalogia »

vehementi wrote: post #77
catalogia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it understood that the person yelling "fire!" is by assumption doing it falsely? The "[falsely] yelling fire in a croweded theatre" is immediately relatable by everyone and conveys the idea. What is the problem?

Because the 'false' in "falsely yelling fire" is subjective and has its origins in the suppression of legitimate political speech.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#84

Post by cwyers »

I don't really like the premise of the article. It seems to revolve around "how Wikipedia remains so information-rich and useful when the rest of the internet (in his view) is filled with divisive, corrosive misinformation." I think Wikipedia has a lot of problems, and coming at it from a perspective of "how can we repeat Wikipedia's success" cuts us off from talking about a lot of topics that are important.

The first examples I could remember off the top of my head:

https://www.gwern.net/In-Defense-Of-Inclusionism https://twitter.com/GretchenAMcC/status/1227060591350566912

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#85

Post by ethbro »

ip26 wrote: post #81
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sheer scale of social networks makes the effect fundamentally unlike prior scenarios. Is this even true? There are a billion people on Facebook, but it's not like a given post ever gets seen by more than a small fraction of them. Nearly the entire human race has been reachable by postal mail for over a hundred years; the size of the network really has nothing to do with anything. What has changed isn't the size…

I think your parent is basically referencing the fact that you can find large groups of people who share your views, no matter what they are. Nervous about vaccines? Great, you can find literally thousands of people who affirm your fears, and you needn't even speak to anyone who doesn't. That's what's new, that's how scale changed things.

I was thinking in terms of virality velocity as well.

Using the postal reference, something may have taken a week to transmit to 100 people. Now, it takes 5 seconds.

That's a fundamentally different situation, and it requires different tradeoffs in society.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#86

Post by seibelj »

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…

> 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.

You sound like a very silly child to me, with arguments such as this.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#87

Post by fl0wenol »

Mirioron wrote: post #51
eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radicalization is not about opinions , it is about convincing the radicalized to undertake acts of violence and threats thereof for a political purpose . You get, yeah, that these are also places where these little shitheads gather and decide who to brigade (the aforementioned "oh, hmm, that lady has opinions about video games, let's try real hard to destroy her life" dreck that the various chans indulge in when they…

> the aforementioned "oh, hmm, that lady has opinions about video games, let's try real hard to destroy her life" dreck that the various chans indulge in when they're bored What are you referring to when you say this? Because if you're referring to Gamergate then that's quite a mischaracterization. I'm not saying that bad things weren't done during it, but it wasn't about hating on women in video games. And aren't mo…

>but it wasn't about hating on women in video games.

Are you saying it was about integrity in video games journalism?

I wish I could express a figurative glance over the top of my reading glasses without an image macro.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#88

Post by smsm42 »

vehementi wrote: post #77
catalogia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it understood that the person yelling "fire!" is by assumption doing it falsely? The "[falsely] yelling fire in a croweded theatre" is immediately relatable by everyone and conveys the idea. What is the problem?

The problem is it conveys the wrong idea. Falsity of expression is no grounds for persecution. Moreover, the word "fire" has been yelled many, many times in many, many crowded theaters (during films, plays, concerts, etc.) without anything bad happening. The problem is that it tried to describe a very narrow situation (falsely causing panic which leads to people being hurt by making them believe there's imminent danger) by describing a much wider situation, and then making conclusions from this as if the wider situation was the narrower situation.

That is exactly what happened when this phrase was first used (it was used when a person was prosecuted for speaking against the war under the guise that he's "hurting the war effort" - you can see how this trick works) - and it has been used many times after to validate persecution of speech that hurt nobody but that you could construe a byzantine logical way it could in theory hurt somebody is you really really want to believe it. And that's exactly the problem.

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#89

Post by smsm42 »

> I hear this too-much-free-speech argument a lot these days, but I can’t get used to it.

That has been my feeling for the last decade. When I grew up, there were all this talk about how Internet would be a truly free medium of information exchange, and what immense benefits this will bring to humanity. Usually, there's generations between new things appearing and their effects being seen, and one can only read in books about what your ancestors though about this new thing and marvel about how wrong they are. Now, we live in the happy time where it takes mere decades.

And so, 30 years after, the Internet did change the world. And it didn't. We got the awesome freedom of information - and we've got the usual suspects gnawing at it from all directions, and unlike what early enthusiasts predicted, largely they succeeded. Some expected that. What they - and myself - didn't expect at all that formerly "progressive" movement, academia and large segments or highly educated and cultured people will join the most oppressive governments in calling to reign in free speech, restrict the freedom of information flow, and deny people with non-mainstream opinions access to free speech, and threatening with vicious harassment and prosecution anybody who dares (or ever dared) to voice a controversial opinion.

I remember when freedom of speech debate was about "should we allow the (actual) Nazis to express themselves publicly" and the answer was "we don't like them, but yes". Now the debate is "should we allow people who support a mainstream political candidate to listen to what she has to say within 10 miles of where we are" and the answer seems to be again and again "we don't like them, so no". And it's even worse on the Internet, because it's not 10 miles, it's everywhere. What happened to all those free speech supporters? Did they get old and die? Did they only support free speech because they didn't think nobody would say anything they don't like? I can't believe they were so stupid as to think that. So what happened?

Re: Did the early internet activists blow it?

#90

Post by bsder »

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.

> 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.

Hogwash. We have harassment, stalking, libel, defamation, and slander laws in meatspace for a reason. The fact that doing it on the Internet exempts you from these laws because enforcement isn't "cost effective" is a problem.

The Libertarian Internet(tm) was tried and failed. People suck; groups of people suck worse; individuals need to be protected at some level.

The question at this point is whether we put laws in place such that individuals can seek cost-effective justice, or whether we wait until so many people get burned that they start clamoring for the government to step on the Internet with jackboots.

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