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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#421

Post by wayne_skylar »

jrm4 wrote: post #345
grawprog wrote: post #203

So, facebook employees are mad they're not allowed to censor things they disagree with that people post on facebook? I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. In fact, I don't understand why employees at tech companies believe they have the right to police people's opinions period. I see it amongst commenters here too. What gives any of these people the right to po…

This, rather incorrectly, presumes that the default mode of Facebook is "non-censorship," i.e. something resembling fairness in terms of what gets popular and what doesn't. This is a huge farce, of course, it's all completely unfair pay to play and black-box algorithms. Now, I could be wrong about this -- but it would be incumbent UPON THEM to prove that, by opening up and showing us how they do things. Barring that,…

This is the way I see it. Ever since Facebook started "optimizing" the timeline order they have been showing you a distorted picture of the world. Honestly it would probably be enough to default everyone back to a world where nobody gets preferential treatment on your feed and everything is chronological.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#422

Post by grawprog »

jarpadat wrote: post #356
grawprog wrote: post #203

So, facebook employees are mad they're not allowed to censor things they disagree with that people post on facebook? I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. In fact, I don't understand why employees at tech companies believe they have the right to police people's opinions period. I see it amongst commenters here too. What gives any of these people the right to po…

It's pretty simple, although it may not be obvious. There are 2 different views about "what freedom/democracy is" that are presently doing battle in america, at least among inteligentsia One, the worldview embedded into your comment, is that freedom is about the limits of discourse. Under this system, limiting discourse is inherently undemocratic, so if facebook "censor(s) things they disagree with" this is bad and w…

>For example, misinformation that might persuade voters into voting based on a false premise undermines a democratic system.

So, what's different now vs when there was paid political campaigns and advertising on TV, radio, magazines etc.?

Partisan political ads have never been a source of reliable information as long as i've been alive.

I'm curious as to what elections you've participated in within your lifetime that wasn't full of campaigns full of misinformation or hell even an election where the candidate that won kept their word on everything they said.

My problem with this all is it feels just engineered and over reactionary.

Misinformation has existed as long as i've been alive in pretty easily accessible forms. There's always been tabloids next to checkout stands, there's always been bullshit news, ads pretending to be factual and mountains of garbage info heaped onto people and the same people that believed it then believe it now.

None of this is new and the only thing the internet changed about it all is now we can hear about whatever nonsense Joe Blow believes in.

I have a problem with it all because what people call 'misinformation' isn't always such, it's 'disagreeable information'.

Many of the things i've seen labelled as information.over the years, not your examples in particular, but in general, aren't even things with an objective correctness to them.

The whole second viewpoint relies on the idea that there is a morally superior group of people out there who know the correct ideas and everyone would just be better off if we just listen to them as any other ideas are just misinformation against the 'correct ideas'.

Again, this reminds me very much of the way things were when the church ran things. Just replace God and his commandments with the correct world view and beliefs.

This is very much the idea behind wrongthink and thoughtcrimes in 1984. That holding a non conforming belief makes one guilty and requires them to be punished by those that believe 'the correct thing'.

In the end, it all comes down to the idea that one group of people has the moral authority to decide what's right for everyone and should be allowed to crush any dissenting opinion.

And this, yes, I have a huge problem with. It's no different than what any other oppressive dictators have done to crush dissent.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#423

Post by crazygringo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #414
crazygringo wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mischaracterizing the classical liberal consensus. That was best represented by John Stuart Mill, and his main point was not that censorshop will be used as a weapon -- it's simply that censorship infringes on liberty, and that the best cure for bad speech is more speech. And the idea that the "general consensus" is against all forms of censorship is quite false. In America it is, but in Europe and oth…

> And even in the US, "yelling fire in a crowded movie theater" isn't protected either. Well, if you believe tangential dicta that was grounded in no preexisting law offered in a since-overturned case allowing the repression of core political speech, sure... But best not use that example.

It's a widely understood example that is perfectly fine to use, since the underlying concept is immediately understandable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

If you're feeling pedantic, perhaps you can replace the phrase with "yelling things to incite an imminent lawless action" (to crib from Wikipedia's summarization of Brandenburg) any time anyone ever says it. Does that work for you? Because the underlying point remains: that there are limits to free speech.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#424

Post by slg »

samatman wrote: post #380
jarpadat wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple, although it may not be obvious. There are 2 different views about "what freedom/democracy is" that are presently doing battle in america, at least among inteligentsia One, the worldview embedded into your comment, is that freedom is about the limits of discourse. Under this system, limiting discourse is inherently undemocratic, so if facebook "censor(s) things they disagree with" this is bad and w…

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

>Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go from suspending accounts which promote the theory that COVID-19 is caused by 5G towers, to suspending the account of a virologist who issued a preprint suggesting that gain-of-function mutations in SARS2 point to a laboratory origin.

Why do you believe that only the the second viewpoint will suffer from this slippery slope? We also seen similar examples in the first worldview. A conversation can quickly go from being against illegal immigrants, to being against all immigrants, to being against a specific race of immigrants, to genocide of that race. We have already seen this laissez-faire approach from Facebook help contribute to genocide in Myanmar.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#425

Post by dang »

bitxbit wrote: post #98
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There’s no discussion to be had when you’re FOR equality and the other side is arguing against it. Kind of like how there's a subset of a certain political party that believes fetuses have the same right to life as infants. Or how some people believe someone who comes from a statistically high crime demographic, has $120 in their checking account and face tattoos has the same right to own a gun as someone from a low…

[flagged]

Would you please stop posting ideological flamewar comments to HN? You're breaking multiple site guidelines here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Mark in the Middle

#427

Post by yuin278 »

grawprog wrote: post #203

So, facebook employees are mad they're not allowed to censor things they disagree with that people post on facebook? I don't understand how facebook came to be responsible for policing political opinions anyway. In fact, I don't understand why employees at tech companies believe they have the right to police people's opinions period. I see it amongst commenters here too. What gives any of these people the right to po…

What's worse is that a lot of these people are terribly hypocritical and I don't think they realize it.

Censorship bad for this issue. Censorship good for what I don't agree with.

Discrimination bad in this case. Discrimination good for the sake of diversity!

Racism bad. But wait, positive racism is totally different and good!

Diversity is what we want! Except when it results in things I disagree with.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#428

Post by tallon »

crazygringo wrote: post #407
samatman wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

I think you're mischaracterizing the classical liberal consensus. That was best represented by John Stuart Mill, and his main point was not that censorshop will be used as a weapon -- it's simply that censorship infringes on liberty, and that the best cure for bad speech is more speech. And the idea that the "general consensus" is against all forms of censorship is quite false. In America it is, but in Europe and oth…

The ACLU was founded to protect the rights of Communists after World War I to say what they want. The ACLU fought to defend the free speech of KKK members and Nazis. The phrase "I disagree with you but I defend to the death your right to say it" is unique to America and was actually something fought for until recently when even the ACLU caved.

>spreading blatant viral lies on social media

You even admit this is arguable. You're assuming people are morons who need big brother to help them out - you don't really believe in democratic principles if this is your stance. The enforcement of punishing such lies is inconsistent as well. One needs only to look at the blatant left wing bias of Twitter and Facebook, where conservatives are banned for expressing opinions whereas lies told by media outlets (with small corrections added days later) are left up and not punished at all.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#429

Post by tallon »

majormajor wrote: post #410
NewOrderNow wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point of view is intrinsically liberal, and the latter point of view plays the victim and assumes people can't evolve to gain the intelligence needed to not fall for misinformation. You intrinsically think there are people who can't make decisions for themselves. Sounds like control

The absolute "freedom is simple, and restrictions are all bad" position is nonsense. Ignoring that there are people who would use their freedom to infringe on others is naive and childish. If everyone has a gun, we aren't all safer, we're just all each at the mercy of whoever decides to pull the trigger first.

>If everyone has a gun, we aren't all safer

If everyone who is responsible has a gun, we are all safer.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#430

Post by NewOrderNow »

majormajor wrote: post #410
NewOrderNow wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point of view is intrinsically liberal, and the latter point of view plays the victim and assumes people can't evolve to gain the intelligence needed to not fall for misinformation. You intrinsically think there are people who can't make decisions for themselves. Sounds like control

The absolute "freedom is simple, and restrictions are all bad" position is nonsense. Ignoring that there are people who would use their freedom to infringe on others is naive and childish. If everyone has a gun, we aren't all safer, we're just all each at the mercy of whoever decides to pull the trigger first.

Ah, the word "nonsense" being thrown around without rationale, reason, or explanation.

These type of fascist comments are what genuinely scare me these days.

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