541–550 of 889 posts
The big social media platforms should be treated as common carriers, and as such only be responsible for preventing malware and flat-out illegal content.
Expecting Big Tech to moderate content (for what?) while allowing them to force feed unwanted/unrequested content to users is the perfect shit-storm we have today.
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Do you have a source for this? Genuinely curious and couldn't find anything searching myself.
https://www.cato.org/blog/twitter-alternative-they-can-keep-... To be clear, it makes sense to ban fake accounts proporting to be well known people and people breaking the law. Banning anyone with views you dislike and anyone paroding conservatives is where it gets censourous.
Thanks for the link but nothing in that article supports this comment. The only mention of content not allowed is:
1. Matze's post about spam, NSFW content, and death threats not being allowed (https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs/public...)
and
2. Matze's post about banning the accounts of a group of ANTIFA supporters (https://imgur.com/WaAMEyn). This image was linked without any context (perhaps because Matze posted this without any context) so we don't know why these accounts were banned.
All of this could have been avoided with more robust filtering capabilities in the hands of users, which Twitter has consistently refused to provide. The big social media platforms should be treated as common carriers, and as such only be responsible for preventing malware and flat-out illegal content. Expecting Big Tech to moderate content (for what?) while allowing them to force feed unwanted/unrequested content to…
I’m starting to think that this could actually be good news for left-leaning people. It’s entirely possible that separated from the people they usually fight against, and isolated in their own platform, conservative voices, people who have made careers out of rhetorical conflict, will begin to fight among themselves. and this can only benefit the left. It’s also very possible that Parler will only go uncensored for s…
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I see it as the opposite: this may be how a technical network is supposed to work, but it's not how a society is supposed to work. The internet has created the ability for any given subculture to discover instant validation and reinforce their beliefs into a tribe, which further solidifies and extremifies those beliefs. It's a psychological power almost equivalent to a nuclear reaction: beliefs and ideas that might h…
The argument that we need to stop tribalism to preserve society is both an un-self-conscious conservativism and a more pernicious appeal to cultural homogenization, which is what the dominance of the platforms caused, and which these innovations are a reaction to. There is no diversity in 140 characters of closely monitored claptrap, and there is no risk and opportunity in trust and safety. There is no culture in a h…
I can't see how people fail to notice the snobbish elitism underlying "we need to manage the discourse so that people's behavior is under control."
It's amazing how cyclical this sort of stuff is. Plato's Republic was enmeshed with a similar logic: that there is a natural way for society to progress, that human society is interfering with this natural way and that is a problem, and that we ought to have philosopher-kings (read: techies & politicians) to shape beliefs and discourse into a more natural (and thus "good") direction.
G.A. Cohen's writings on the history of philosophy have a scathing critique of this sort of thinking that I recommend.
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"No, I think there's a big difference between an echo chamber constructed by algorithms that push content upon you without your consent or knowledge, and an "echo chamber" constructed by yourself when you actively curate and trim the media you consume." What is the difference?
I am guessing the difference is the level of control of the echoes.
The problem is that people have become hyper-partisan en masse and whether they arrived there because of "the algorithm" or because they intentionally filter out sources they disagree with ... it doesn't really matter.
https://www.allsides.com/filter-bubbles
The real problem (in my humble opinion) is that there is too much news and it's almost all intentionally biased to some extent. It's therefore not practical for people to keep up with the news without entering an echo chamber. You would have to, for each instance of "news", read at least 3 versions of it to ensure you are considering all perspectives. No one is going to do that.
Do people want to consume net unbiased news? Everyone says they do but consumption patterns says otherwise. Is it commercially viable to produce unbiased news? It used to be favorable but now distribution is cheap and there is more competition so the incentives are to be more biased and find a niche.
I don't think this is a solvable problem, the genie is out of the bottle. This is just a price we pay societally for having the Internet.
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Except for the people who simply downvote and never explain their position. Plenty of them on here.
I'd say that has more to do with the HN platform and its rules. Imho this is one thing that Slashdot does better: it let's you indicate the reason for your vote.
Isn't that what we are discussing - platforms, their rules, and how that influences discussions? I'm just saying that there are plenty of people, in my experience on here, that would rather downvote an opposing opinion rather than start a discussion about it or answer a question about their own position.
I routinely even get downvoted when asking why the previous comment was downvoted. To me, these behaviors are akin to mob-driven censorship of minority opinions - downvote it so it moves down and greys out.
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> Or if its actually some shady privately funded project by billionaires seeking to influence elections. Let's not jump to conclusions, otherwise we are as guilty of the credulity we are casting on them (Soros bucks, anyone?). Until there is hard evidence of this, please don't bandy it about.
"Rebekah Mercer is funding Parler, the social-media app touted by Republican politicians and pundits that conservatives are flocking to" https://www.businessinsider.com/rebekah-mercer-funds-parler-... "[Robert] Mercer played a key role in the campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union by donating data analytics services to Nigel Farage. He is also a major funder of organizations supporting right-wing…
Well then, I am grateful you cited sources. GP proffered the claim with nothing to back it up. I'm definitely the kind to believe these claims, as I've seen them verified in other realms before (Murdoch, Ailes, Kochs, Sinclair, etc), but that's precisely why I have to question that instinct. I can't just go believing things without evidence.
