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We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

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Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#91

Post by primroot »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #38

> The business model is to divert revenue that used to go to newspapers and publishers to themselves. And there you have it. Anything that threatens the position of media companies is always portrayed as an attack against Democracy. If choosing democracy means shutting down the free flow of information between individuals on social media sites like Facebook, then my vote is for Facebook.

"The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest." - Bernays. This quote makes me think how it should not be a surprise that journalists working for big media companies are some of the main voices behind the calls for censorship.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#92

Post by jacquesm »

lebaux wrote: post #77
gjulianm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are several reasons: - Twitter relationships are based on interests mostly. If I follow people who tweet about math I will see tweets about math. Facebook relationships are based on real-life relationships so the topics in my news feed will be more heterogeneous. - In Twitter don't see as many content from people I don't follow directly. Sometimes I will see tweets that other of my followed liked or rep…

Very succinct description of twitter. I use it mainly for work and I mostly see work related stuff that is trending. Facebook likes mashing your whole life together, so one post is from a group, another from your high school weirdo that sells MLM products and another one from your racist uncle. Honestly, Google+ "circle" concept was ahead of its time and I will die on this hill.

Hyves pioneered that.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#93

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bondarchuk wrote: post #81
cptaj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't an awkward exchange of ideas. The problem is industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine, grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. Its a DDOS attack on that very same free exchange of ideas you mention.

> industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine This is just a fancy way of saying "people saying things I don't like". > grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. How so? Like GP said, you can just not use facebook and freely exchange ideas with your peers through other channels. Sure, some of your peers might have a diffe…

You seem amusingly unaware of how various organisations of questionable intent have farmed microtargeting to influence elections and referendums.

If this was "people saying things I don't like" it would be absolutely fine. People say things I don't like on HN all the time, and I either ignore them or debate with them - which is how it should be.

But that's not what this is about. This is about political PR machines with unusual wealth lying to Facebook users on an industrial scale to control what they believe and how they act.

But perhaps you think lying to people on an industrial scale is ok?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#94

Post by NoOneNew »

meheleventyone wrote: post #58
lldbg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the case for free speech has never looked as good. A few (even hundreds) of murders are an acceptable cost of free speech. Restricted speech has killed millions. Little by little the western freedoms are being taken away. And you want it to go faster? Rap music which idolizes violence is allowed, despite thousands dying every year in connection to crimimal enterprise. The case to ban rap is just as naive as th…

Has restricted speech actually killed millions or are you conflating regimes that killed millions and also restricted speech together? Basically I doubt the restriction on speech was a significant causal factor in preventing or encouraging the murder of millions. That is to say those authoritarian regimes would have murdered millions of people even if they were also into free speech. On the free speech and authoritar…

Literally Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The hallmarks of a whole lot of restricted speech. That was the cornerstone of their power dominance since they had perfect and efficient legal and social mechanisms to not just undermine, but arrest and disappear any opposition. Not exactly regiemes know for their humanitarian activities.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#95

Post by short_sells_poo »

anovikov wrote: post #34
lldbg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the case for free speech has never looked as good. A few (even hundreds) of murders are an acceptable cost of free speech. Restricted speech has killed millions. Little by little the western freedoms are being taken away. And you want it to go faster? Rap music which idolizes violence is allowed, despite thousands dying every year in connection to crimimal enterprise. The case to ban rap is just as naive as th…

The free speech is well... a lot like right to bear arms. While you only had muskets, right to bear arms had a clear benefit (ability to quickly raise reasonably trained militia ready to fight in days) and little risks. Now that you can buy assault rifles, and war has become so high-tech that people who are trained to use small arms and nothing else aren't of any benefit in it - it has become a different thing.... Wh…

> Same is free speech: when actually exercising this right was about printing books of pamphlets that meant a certain level of financial and intellectual barrier to it, free speech was clearly all benefits and no risks.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is also a very dangerous approach in my opinion. What you seem to be saying is: "as long as only the well-off - and therefore likely to be educated - people had the means of mass expression, dangerous ideas could not proliferate". Should it be one group of people, preferably "us", who decides what the other groups are allowed to think and discuss? To me this is much more ripe for abuse than the other extreme. Doubly so because the dangers in free speech can be much better solved with education and removing the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots.

So I disagree vehemently that the solution is to limit free speech. That to me is akin to cutting off our own noses because we have a flu. The root of the problem is elsewhere.

What does pretty much every malicious and totalitarian regime start with?

1. Ban free speech 2. Institute the concept of thought crimes 3. Limit education

Concentrating knowledge and intelligence in the hands of a few, and reducing information and idea flow to the masses.

Dangerous and radical ideas can proliferate mostly among marginalized groups who have been excluded from welfare for one reason or another. People who are gripped by existential fears and see little to no possibility of improvement or solution to their problems will naturally gravitate towards radical opinions because they have nothing to lose, no other options and nobody else listens to them. Banning their voice will do nothing just push them further away and radicalize them even more.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#96

Post by onethought »

bondarchuk wrote: post #81
cptaj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't an awkward exchange of ideas. The problem is industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine, grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. Its a DDOS attack on that very same free exchange of ideas you mention.

> industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine This is just a fancy way of saying "people saying things I don't like". > grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. How so? Like GP said, you can just not use facebook and freely exchange ideas with your peers through other channels. Sure, some of your peers might have a diffe…

I think this over simplifies it.

People are being (unknowingly) manipulated and the sheer quantity of misinformation is being mistaken for evidence of truth.

Why isn’t subliminal advertising considered free speech or free exchange of Ideas?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#97

Post by bondarchuk »

sneak wrote: post #2

It's troubling to me that censorship is being set up as the narrative savior of a free society, when in fact just the opposite is true.

The most pessimistic and paranoid commentators saw this coming back when the "fake news" and "fact checking" narratives were being ramped up, and it seems they were right.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#98

Post by duozerk »

lldbg wrote: post #61
Renaud wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean Religion is banned in France? I'm curious about what sort of twisted broad exaggeration and misunderstanding do you have to believe to drop something like that?

Perhaps it was a poor choice of words considering HackerNews nitpicking, but in france display of religious symbols (such as wearing a cross) is banned in public places (mostly). I wrote it that way for effect, thinking that people would be familiar with the french laws. I have no "twisted broad exaggeration and misunderstanding" of belief. I don't think this chain of comments has a good tone, and won't reply further…

> but in france display of religious symbols (such as wearing a cross) is banned in public places

That is not true; you're free to have religious symbols in public places. What you cannot do is wear them ostensibly if you're acting as an official for a public service. Teacher ? no cross/kippa/etc. while you're teaching. Cop ? same. Mayor in the process of marrying a couple ? same again.

Parent helping teachers during a school outing ? you're perfectly allowed to have such signs visible, you're not an official representative of the French republic. Same goes in public places in general.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#99

Post by dTal »

XorNot wrote: post #19
mhoad wrote: post #7

The case for free speech absolutism has never looked more questionable than it does right now. Every online platform that has tried to market itself as a “bastion of free speech” has become overrun with the absolute worst of society and as of 2020 is directly implicated in multiple real life terrorist attacks including most recently in the Nez Zealand government’s post-mortem on the Christchurch shootings here https:…

Free speech is fine provided the multiplier everyone is given is exactly 1. Imagine Facebook with no comments, everyone just has exactly the one status they can update (and somehow their are no fake accounts). But that's not what any of these platforms are, so really it's speech for whoever has the fastest script.

This is insightful, but it's more complicated than that.

In the same way that people with money find it easier to make more money, people with social influence can leverage that to obtain more social influence. It's a positive feedback loop. The "multiplier" is never 1.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#100

Post by gjulianm »

bondarchuk wrote: post #81
cptaj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't an awkward exchange of ideas. The problem is industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine, grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. Its a DDOS attack on that very same free exchange of ideas you mention.

> industrial-scale disinformation campaigns manipulating public opinion and discrediting every single thing you can imagine This is just a fancy way of saying "people saying things I don't like". > grinding the free exchange of ideas to a halt at every turn. How so? Like GP said, you can just not use facebook and freely exchange ideas with your peers through other channels. Sure, some of your peers might have a diffe…

> This is just a fancy way of saying "people saying things I don't like"

Not just "I don't like", but things that "aren't true". There's a difference, and it's important.

> How so? Like GP said, you can just not use facebook and freely exchange ideas with your peers through other channels.

The how is that the constant exposure to lies makes people doubt everything. A lie is easy to fabricate, will create controversy, and social media will reward that controversy and show that lie to even more people. A truth usually requires more research, and given that more people agree with it it will create less controversy, less engagement and the platforms will not reward that content.

That's how you end up with what you have now: people living in completely different realities because the things that spread the most are lies. You can't have a free exchange of ideas if people don't agree in basic facts of reality.

We really can't ignore the damage that social media is doing to society by dismissing the concerns as "well it's just that people have different opinions". It's not about the opinions, it's about the type of content that gets rewarded now.

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