We can have democracy or we can have Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#301

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

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…

This is the issue. There is no such thing as news. It is infotainment designed to shock, outrage and be sticky for the sole purpose of selling advertising.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#302

Post by diegoholiveira » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

The first step to protect democracy is to imposing huge limitations in the governments and a review of the antitrust laws to cover tech companies.

Governments around the world have too much power and our antitrusts laws are outdated.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#303

Post by laurent92 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #280

lordnacho wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same inclinations as you. I see there are various kinds of bias from different sources, and that you have to be able to think critically in order to maintain some sort of perspective. I also think that we need a bunch of different perspectives, so in that way it's good there's a lot of people talking. But we also live in a world that is more educated than ever, and a lot of those people who went to school…

You think the problem is a lack of education or understanding? I don't think so, it's something else - being left behind, feeling unheard of, destitute, incapable of changing the situation no matter how you vote. Then people start breaking away from the official story and invent their own explanations, and why would they have solidarity with the mainstream society when it betrayed them? Better to vote in an antagonis…

Honestly, having studied a bunch of official figures that I « was surprised of », I found there were just blatant lies covered by a scientific stamp (actually someone succeeded to pass a paragraph from Mein Kampf into the same journals, after replacing « Jews » by « Men »). The « scientific evidence » we’re governed with is frequently grossly manipulated, and yet it routinely passes peer review, journal publication and makes its way on TV channels and then into law to « curb this unprecedented situation that disenfranchises [place this politician’s favorite group here] ».

Politicians have very well understood that modern civilization is governed by scientific beliefs rather than religious beliefs, and masquerading science for political gain will give you power for a very efficient cost.

The problem is not Facebook, but that our science is as vulnerable to 51% attacks as Bitcoin.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#304

Post by InitialLastName » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

viridian wrote: post #281

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigrants are required to possess a modicum of knowledge about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the system of government, not to mention some level of command of the English language (my wife teaches citizenship courses to immigrants). I, myself, am a naturalized citizen, from Canada, and I had to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, forbear allegiance to foreign powers etc. It's a ritual,…

I tend to agree actually, and would go a step further and suggest that citizenship should be a requirement to vote in any election, and that persons born in the US should not be granted citizenship without being able to pass the citizenship test. I'm less comfortable granting people a bid based on general knowledge and intelligence though, I think the uninterested citizenry is a far larger problem than the uneducated…

The problem with this is that you find yourself in a position where you're adding educational access as a means to manipulate the voting base. Want to disenfranchise people (as an example) from rural areas in your state over the long run? Funnel education funding away from school buses and into schools that offer wide varieties of academic programs (that can only be offered in large schools).

Before you say "that would never happen", the US has a long history of using literacy tests to disenfranchise voters, including many cases where those tests were applied unevenly or administered in ways that were openly discriminatory. [0]

[0] https://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#305

Post by snarf21 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

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…

There is no such thing as news anymore. It is infotainment designed to shock, outrage and be sticky for the sole purpose of selling advertising. Additionally, the FTC and SEC have failed us in letting such enormous consolidation. Just look at something like Parler that got popular for a hot minute but will fade back to obscurity whence it came. We need to start taxing advertising revenue aggressively to make disinformation more costly.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#306

Post by mhoad » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #71

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:…

I never understood how the Christchurch Shooting would argue in favor of putting tighter controls on 8chan or abolishing it altogether. The way I understood it, the shooter placed a manifesto there before shooting, that, if anything, could have given the enforcement a way to stop it if they were fast enough — it enhanced their chances of doing so. 8chan allowing anything and everything hardly caused the shooting, and…

The report goes into detail about what his path towards radicalization was. The posting of the manifesto is not what I am talking about here. The argument was that had he not had such easy access to well organized hate communities who would egg each other on to take it further and further that the incident probably wouldn't have occurred to begin with.

I don't know if this is not well known in tech circles perhaps but this is basically an established fact among those who study this kind of thing for a living. Those communities effectively act as an extremely effective radicalization pipeline where the most extreme version is actual acts of terror and mass shootings.

In the exact same way that say law enforcement and intelligence agencies spent the last 15 years trying to ensure that access to jihadi material wasn't freely available online they are now being asked the question of what exactly is the difference because not only are the outcomes very similar but so are many of the steps leading up to it.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#307

Post by KaiserPro » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

CaptArmchair wrote: post #172

KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I'm struggling to see the argument here. Facebook is a very large company, and is taking large amount of advertiser cash. That is true. That money would otherwise go to publishers (possibly true, although I suspect it would go to google.) What the author fails to back up is the either facebook/democracy argument. facebook could attempt to editorialise all content, to give a specific bias to the news feed. But I don't…

"Is Facebook a publisher or just a platform that connects people?" That's exactly the core question in legal cases so far. If it's recognized as a publisher, it can be held accountable for it's editorial decisions. If it's just a platform, that accountability is delegated to the people posting on that platform. The big issue is that Facebook will purport to be one or the other depending on the context. As a publisher…

> Personally, I think that Facebook does hold a shared, moral responsibility.

I agree 100%

> news publishers do make the same cardinal sin by putting a "comments section" below any and all news articles without proper moderation

Again I agree.

The broad thrust of your argument is correct. I failed to argue the point about responsibility correctly.

If you ever take time to read the "community guidelines" that facebook have, you'll see that they are actually really good. I would quite like to live in an environment where they are applied ubiquitously, equally and quickly.

Which leads me on to your point about responsibility. Facebook has a set of rules, but is not willing to apply them (in the case of celebs and politicians) or unable to in the case of individuals. For individuals I have sympathy, thats a hard problem to crack. For politicians, there is no excuse.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#308

Post by MagnumOpus » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

eptcyka wrote: post #140

mnd999 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There needs to be nuance around "outnumbered".

The deplorables are made more visible and made to appear more popular by bot-assisted upvoting/retweeting/sharing efforts.

Non-deplorables are silenced or made to self-censor by mass-downvotes/death threats in DMs/doxxing. And even the ones who just view and don't write get disheartened and leave if their curated frontpage is a cesspool of falsehoods and outrage bait. So yes, bot farms and their manual brethren (wumao dang, IRA, alt-right discords) over time help to purge dissenting voices.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#309

Post by Avicebron » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

laurent92 wrote: post #303

visarga wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the problem is a lack of education or understanding? I don't think so, it's something else - being left behind, feeling unheard of, destitute, incapable of changing the situation no matter how you vote. Then people start breaking away from the official story and invent their own explanations, and why would they have solidarity with the mainstream society when it betrayed them? Better to vote in an antagonis…

Honestly, having studied a bunch of official figures that I « was surprised of », I found there were just blatant lies covered by a scientific stamp (actually someone succeeded to pass a paragraph from Mein Kampf into the same journals, after replacing « Jews » by « Men »). The « scientific evidence » we’re governed with is frequently grossly manipulated, and yet it routinely passes peer review, journal publication a…

And if Facebook reduces the friction to those attacks? Isn't it then back to being the problem? I think the friction was part of the design/major benefits of older forms of media

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#310

Post by DennisP » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 3:46 PM UTC

BrianOnHN wrote: post #52

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can you buy assault rifles?

At the local "gun show." It's advertised on billboards all along the highway. No background check required!

The only way no background check is required is if you buy from an individual, not a dealer.

The threshold to be considered a dealer is fairly low. If it's someone with a table, they're going to be a dealer. It's just that if an individual sells their personal firearm, they're not required to do a background check, and at gun shows you'll see a few people walking around with a rifle slung over their shoulder and a sign saying they're selling it.

But that's semi-auto only (one bullet per trigger pull). Fully automatic weapons have stringent federal requirements.