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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

#131

Post by adnzzzzZ »

onethought wrote: post #120
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are unknowingly being manipulated how do you know you aren't being manipulated also? There are plenty of examples of manipulative and fake news coming from both traditional and alternative media.

I may be in various ways. But that isn’t a counter argument for stopping people being manipulated. Is your point: you could be exposed to misinformation as well so we shouldn’t stop misinformation? (If it is. That is absurd)

If everyone is being manipulated how do you stop misinformation in a fair manner? We can't even agree on what is information and what is misinformation. Surely you understand how stopping misinformation is bad if people can't agree on what it actually is, right?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#132

Post by lldbg »

berdario wrote: post #107
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…

> Restricted speech has killed millions. You don't need to restrict speech to kill millions, you just need to have a louder voice than the people you are oppressing, deafening out anyone who might otherwise listen to them.

There's a whole lot of terrible screaming when you kill people, unless you restrict their ability to speak :) Very unpalatable, even to the executioner.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#133

Post by detaro »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #124
jordanbeiber wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A specific compact form-factor and multiple rounds in a magazine that allow for more rapid fire than a bolt action rifle? I know people claim "hunting" with these rifles, but I think there's a shiny toy thing at play more than utility.

No, you're describing a semi-automatic weapon, which requires a separate trigger pull for each shot. Fully automatic allows multiple shots with one pull of the trigger.

I don't see how this addresses anything in the parent comment? Are you trying to say they can't define assault weapons as including semi-automatics?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#134

Post by gjulianm »

bondarchuk wrote: post #121
gjulianm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> 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. If we would put restrictions on social media and let the big media companies decide what is "consensus reality" like they are so vehemently arguing for, then everybody would also be living in a fake reality, the only difference is that it would be the same for everyone, whi…

Restrictions on social media doesn't mean that it is big media companies the one that decide, necessarily. I think it would actually give more power to the people to decide what is the consensus reality, but this time organically: instead of giving importance to ideas that generate engagement, give importance to ideas that people agree with. If those ideas come from an independent group that manages to grow via people agreeing with it instead of generating controversy for the sake of it, so be it.

Of course it will be difficult and not straightforward, and there will be challenges to control big media, but at least we align the incentives in the good direction. The current situation is awful: chaos and a push towards polarization, because that's what generates engagement.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#135

Post by blisterpeanuts »

CPLX wrote: post #122
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #115

In an earlier era, people's opinions were shaped by a small number of newspapers and newscasts. Some of these old media were so biased and agenda driven that they caused wars. Not that much has changed, except that people now rely on centralized, AI-driven funnels of information and entertainment. Democracy has always been fragile, barely functional, easily corrupted, warped by money. The best and only way to defend…

> a small number That's not correct. There were staggering numbers of them. In 1900 there were 15 English language daily newspapers in New York City alone. The problem with Facebook is monopolization. It's different when you have a ton of places that share information, and some of them are biased in one direction or another, versus when you have just one, and that one actively works to prevent other options from emer…

In 1895, William Randolph Hearst's jingoistic yellow journalism pushed millions of Americans to support a pointless war with Spain.

Time Magazine influenced three generations of Americans.

For the last hundred or so years, every major city has had one primary newspaper, 2-3 local news broadcasters, maybe a local magazine.

Old line magazines and newspapers were information silos unto themselves.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#136

Post by josephg »

solaarphunk wrote: post #42

This person is confusing ranked newsfeeds with free speech. Ranked newsfeeds are the actual poison, because they are their own form of censorship and amplification for exploitative purposes. It’s fine if someone says something horrible or false on the internet, it’s not fine if a ranked newsfeed amplifies that message to millions of people because it’s engaging. This free speech or not argument is a complete straw ma…

Yep. Alex Jones is a bit of a nut, and left alone I'd have no problem with him. But youtube recommended his videos 15 billion times, and presumably made a killing in advertising revenue off his videos.

I don't have a problem with alex jones. I have a problem with social media companies promoting lies about reality in the name of engagement. Polluting our information ecology in the name of a quick advertising dollar is lazy and dishonest and they know it.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#137

Post by meheleventyone »

NoOneNew wrote: post #94
meheleventyone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everyone knows about the Nazis and Soviets but that’s not following through my point. You need to think a little beyond famous example of mass murdering regimes that also were against speech and causally link the speech restriction to the mass murder. As you can do with the Myanmar regime’s genocide and their use of Facebook.

Basically authoritarian regimes restrict speech to maintain control but don’t necessarily commit genocide and some authoritarian regimes will use free speech to commit genocide.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#138

Post by [deleted] »

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:…

[deleted]

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#139

Post by gjulianm »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #128
gjulianm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Maybe people wouldn't so easily believe in alternative narratives if people in power didn't also lie all the time? No one believes in the media anymore for a reason. People don't believe in scientists anymore for a reason. People don't believe in most government officials anymore for a reason. You can find many examples of continued and relentless lies from all these classes of people over the years and decades. Is i…

Social media posts lie all the time, way more than politicians. Why do people believe those?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#140

Post by eptcyka »

mnd999 wrote: post #73
eptcyka wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that it's just the baddies that employ troll farms?

IMHO trolling is bad by definition. But it doesn’t really matter whether you consider it the goodies or baddies, it’s still a form of shutting down speech.

Are you implying that the deplorable people on twitter are not outnumbered by the non-deplorable people because of bot farms?
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