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Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 104 posts

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#51
post #3

My thinking right now is that the status quo is the symptom and not the cause. Were we as the human race simply not ready for this? Could we have been more diligent in educating people on ways of debating and understanding, could we have built a society that is not obsessed with perfection and winning? If it wasn't Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. it would simply be something else in their place who had to perform the…

We could always go the cigarette route: Put a big sticker (legally required) in front of every twitter & facebook post/page just like cigarette boxes need a "smoking kills" sticker. Something like:

"Warning: This site contains highly speculative & offensive gossip and might cause anxiety, stress, unattainable standards and lowered self-esteem. Information on this site should not be considered credible, and might cause radicalization and extremism."

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#52
post #3

My thinking right now is that the status quo is the symptom and not the cause. Were we as the human race simply not ready for this? Could we have been more diligent in educating people on ways of debating and understanding, could we have built a society that is not obsessed with perfection and winning? If it wasn't Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. it would simply be something else in their place who had to perform the…

“Could we have more diligent in the educating...”

Jesus Christ man. You think you can educate the population to the point they don’t believe conspiracies and “fake news”?

I mean, how many anti-vaxers are postgraduates?

You’re absolutely nuts if you think you can “fix” the human condition through education.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#53
post #33

Hancock is a lack-talent idiot. It takes real skill to be a worse secretary of health than both Hunt and Lansley, but he's somehow managed it. He'll say whatever he thinks is popular at the time. Here he is calling for tighter regulation of social media: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/internet-laws... > New laws will be introduced aimed at tackling the internet “wild west” and making Britain the “safe…

He's also a very strange man aside from that. For example, have you seen that video of him standing uncomfortably close to a lady he's being interviewed with, and staring at her? Weird as fuck.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#54
post #29
post #6

Just a random idea: perhaps we should extend democracy to the spreading of information. I.e. you can spread information but only if the majority of people agree with it. (A post is evaluated/moderated by a small group, then a bigger group, etc., until perhaps it reaches the entire population). Moderation is not limited to groups, so echo chambers would not have a chance. EDIT: minorities still have a chance in two wa…

That would be a terrible idea. In times gone by, that would have prevented people spreading information about the world being a sphere and orbiting the sun. The flat earthers and proponents of the earth being the centre of the universe would have suppressed Copernicus' and Kepler's discoveries of heliocentrism and elliptical orbits. New ideas displace old ideas all the time, and that displacement can only occur if th…

I believe that what I'm suggesting is more like how spreading of information worked in the old days (increasingly bigger groups have to approve of the information). The problem is that today we have social media and false information can spread instantly to an entire population. This needs a new approach, because it creates problems like extreme polarization.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#55
post #3

My thinking right now is that the status quo is the symptom and not the cause. Were we as the human race simply not ready for this? Could we have been more diligent in educating people on ways of debating and understanding, could we have built a society that is not obsessed with perfection and winning? If it wasn't Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. it would simply be something else in their place who had to perform the…

I'd much rather we all man up and learn to live with the fact that people say things we disagree with on the internet, instead of assuming that we need gatekeeping.

You have to admit that that would be a lot easier if the people you are disagreeing with were making reasonable level-headed arguments, but somehow we are living in an era where large swaths of the population are convinced that there is no difference between what is true and what they feel is true and, consequently, they reject rationality and with it the concept of objective reality.

I know I'm on the record as saying that rationality, which is to say empirical philosophy, is incomplete. Let me clarify that by saying that it isn't the same thing as rejecting it outright anymore than rejecting Newtonian mechanics outright is the same thing as admitting it is incomplete.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#56

To what extent could the UK regulate a US company? Especially if they don’t have a UK subsidiary. Last I checked I publish a blog site and I did not get the necessary permission from Chinese authorities to do so... and I don’t care, I have no link to China.

The EU has regulations, such as GDPR, that applies to any company serving EU citizens, even US companies.

The UK has regulations that companies have to follow to serve UK citizens.

It’s not that strange and is quite common.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather we all man up and learn to live with the fact that people say things we disagree with on the internet, instead of assuming that we need gatekeeping.

Is inciting violence allowed?

Let the government regulate it, not a private company.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#58
post #6

Just a random idea: perhaps we should extend democracy to the spreading of information. I.e. you can spread information but only if the majority of people agree with it. (A post is evaluated/moderated by a small group, then a bigger group, etc., until perhaps it reaches the entire population). Moderation is not limited to groups, so echo chambers would not have a chance. EDIT: minorities still have a chance in two wa…

In the abstract, that's how information spreads. Just look at conventional media: A small group judges something or someone newsworthy, and then the other outlets repeat it. Or, look at the old email chains that were popular before social media.

But, more importantly, people like to spread what they want to believe, even if it's not true. Trump really played into that: He started by promoting the birther theory, which people who didn't like Obama chose to believe. Finally, he promoted the theory that there was widespread election fraud, even though it was thoroughly disproven. Again, people chose to believe Trump's lie even though it was thoroughly disproven.

IMO, we need to strengthen our slander laws, and have a higher "burden of truth" on our media companies. Specifically, if a media company covers provenly false information in a way that implies it is, or could be, true, that media company needs to be prosecuted for slander, or worse.

But, more importantly, we need to prosecute elected officials who contradict fact; and ban candidates who brazenly contradict established fact.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather fancy a system where such platforms can choose between being a publisher and a platform. If they be a publisher, they may take editorial control but the also become liable for anything that escaped their control and can no longer claim “The views expressed here are not our own.”. In the alternative, they can be a platform, and may not take editorial control and only be required and allowed to remove conten…

>In the alternative they can be a platform, and may not take editorial control and only be required and allowed to remove content they are legally required to remove. Any platform that tries to do this will quickly fill up with spam.

This is what 8chan does and it did not fill up with it.

They're permitted to implement restrictions on that only humans and not bots may post, not on content, provided that it be legal.

8chan had a system where one had to solve a captcha every day and where one was not permitted to post more than one message per minute.

Re: Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

#60
post #6

Just a random idea: perhaps we should extend democracy to the spreading of information. I.e. you can spread information but only if the majority of people agree with it. (A post is evaluated/moderated by a small group, then a bigger group, etc., until perhaps it reaches the entire population). Moderation is not limited to groups, so echo chambers would not have a chance. EDIT: minorities still have a chance in two wa…

I'm old enough to remember when the government made it illegal to mention homosexuality in schools. And when it was illegal for a particular elected MP to speak on television.
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