The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#51

Post by LudwigNagasena » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

ahurmazda wrote: post #28

koolk3ychain wrote: post #2

Someone really needs to give the New Yorker some serious credit for publishing what can genuinely be described as a thoughtful, well written, and objective article on social media and big tech. Bravo. I'm honestly convinced that at some point this kind of big tech social media witch burning will eventually lead to private lawsuits aimed at non-combatants like Signal and Wickr. Please leave a comment if you disagree -…

Couldn’t one argue that we have had a (gnarly) A/B test in the past few years— Twitter, FB mostly let different groups use the platform as the latter see fit. End result is (mind you not theoretical): erosion of civil discourse, platforms being used to organize illegal activities, proliferation of misinformation (during a pandemic) etc. We are kinda beyond what we could happen if company X did not allow Y to begin wi…

> erosion of civil discourse

What erosion of civil discourse are you talking about? 10 years ago half or more Americans were against gay marriage, today 30% of the US is against that, except nowadays they are also called neonazis and are being deplatformed from major platforms. Do you think 50 years ago there could be civil discourse on legalizing rape or celebrating Holocaust? No, these people would get the same treatment. Or, as a non-imaginary example, just remember McCarthyism.

What changed is the level of discrepancy of Overton windows between rural and urban America. That’s all.

> platforms being used to organize illegal activities

Hah, but when they are used to organize illegal activities in countries like Egypt or Belarus it was not an issue.

> proliferation of misinformation (during a pandemic)

If you think that an average citizen is too stupid to think for themselves, we might as well just abolish voting rights. And surely there is a better way to combat misinformation than giving censorship powers to private technocrats.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#52

Post by d0100 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

Big Tech platforms are more and more functioning as utilities, and I believe they should be regulated as such.

Actually, any digital platform with user-generated content should be regulated in such a way that frees platforms from pressures from the government (Section 230) and from social justice (ban bad guy that's not convicted and will have no recourse or penalty expiry)

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#53

Post by kiwidrew » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #10

koolk3ychain wrote: post #2

Someone really needs to give the New Yorker some serious credit for publishing what can genuinely be described as a thoughtful, well written, and objective article on social media and big tech. Bravo. I'm honestly convinced that at some point this kind of big tech social media witch burning will eventually lead to private lawsuits aimed at non-combatants like Signal and Wickr. Please leave a comment if you disagree -…

One can simultaneously roll their eyes about slippery slopes, argue that this is simply banning obvious illegal activities, etc.--and be at least a little bit discomfited that a bunch of private companies can basically disappear someone from public discourse if they want to. Mind you. Historically most people didn't have access to a platform anyway. And the record from at least some players like AWS is that their ban…

Is "the Internet" really a platform, though?

I see it as more like the telephone: customers that want to receive calls (i.e. TCP connections) sign up for the service and receive a number (i.e. an IP address) that others can then use to contact them. And some of these customers choose to have their number published in a public directory of subscribers (i.e. DNS) to make it more convenient for others to find them.

At the most fundamental level, the Internet is nothing more than a vast and automated network for establishing point-to-point (i.e. private) calls between two parties.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#54

Post by xpe » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #41

ghaff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can simultaneously roll their eyes about slippery slopes, argue that this is simply banning obvious illegal activities, etc.--and be at least a little bit discomfited that a bunch of private companies can basically disappear someone from public discourse if they want to. Mind you. Historically most people didn't have access to a platform anyway. And the record from at least some players like AWS is that their ban…

Private companies have been disappearing small business owners for two decades. PayPal locks your account. YouTube decides to kill your channel for copyright strikes to content you created. Amazon does - all the shady things Amazon is famous for. Apple kills your app because reasons. And so on. This is not about disappearing people. Or businesses. This is about disappearing politicians. The real game here is that the…

> So if we're going to talk about concentrated media influence, we should be questioning the international reach and centralised narrative control of the Fox network (and others) at least as much Twitter or Amazon ...

Yes, we cannot ignore the system effects of shared ownership and control. Many economists understand the concept of market power [1]. I'm not so sure that laws and cases around regulating speech have adequately explored the analogous ideas.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#55

Post by koolk3ychain » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

xpe wrote: post #45

bobmaxup wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it any different than if I was banned from HN or an IRC channel? These "platforms" are just large message boards.

Both AWS and payment processors are substantially different from message boards.

Cannot agree more, what Obama started in regards to politically weaponizing payment processors (both VISA and companies that interact directly with their networks) against certain industries and individuals in the wake of Sandy Hook is legitimately concerning. AWS creating DNS and routing features is equally concerning, personally I don't want to live in a world where platforms start to build, control and ultimately monopolize the infrastructure they rely on to exist.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#56

Post by flyinglizard » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

theplague42 wrote: post #44

flyinglizard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these newspapers provide thought provoking articles, or just fuel confirmation bias for their readers? I was a subscriber of NYT for a few years, and the one time there was a dissenting opinion - that of Tom Cotton - it led to editors being fired. WSJ seems better, maybe because business reporting tends to be somewhat less opinionated.

Was the editor fired because of a "dissenting opinion" or because Cotton was effectively calling for martial law against protestors? The NYTimes op-ed section has plenty of dissenting opinions and/or conservatives... just not ones calling for violence.

There was absolutely nothing outrageous in Cotton's op-ed. Mind, the same National Guard that Cotton was calling for was now sent to the Capitol, and I don't think NYT was up in arms.

That aside, he's a public representative of the highest order (a Senator). He needs to be heard whether we like it or not. I've not seen any public representative being censored in the country I'm from, that including opinion pieces from extremist parliament members on both sides. This is clearly a US thing.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#57

Post by xpe » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:57 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #41

ghaff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can simultaneously roll their eyes about slippery slopes, argue that this is simply banning obvious illegal activities, etc.--and be at least a little bit discomfited that a bunch of private companies can basically disappear someone from public discourse if they want to. Mind you. Historically most people didn't have access to a platform anyway. And the record from at least some players like AWS is that their ban…

Private companies have been disappearing small business owners for two decades. PayPal locks your account. YouTube decides to kill your channel for copyright strikes to content you created. Amazon does - all the shady things Amazon is famous for. Apple kills your app because reasons. And so on. This is not about disappearing people. Or businesses. This is about disappearing politicians. The real game here is that the…

> There is no free speech issue here, because the kind of "free" political speech we're talking about is very, very expensive, and only available to a tiny selection of headline operators.

I'm not following. Could you say it in a different way or perhaps with more words?

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#58

Post by throwawayboise » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #16

ghaff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can simultaneously roll their eyes about slippery slopes, argue that this is simply banning obvious illegal activities, etc.--and be at least a little bit discomfited that a bunch of private companies can basically disappear someone from public discourse if they want to. Mind you. Historically most people didn't have access to a platform anyway. And the record from at least some players like AWS is that their ban…

Well, people didn’t use to have a lot of things, it’s still a big problem if you ban certain people from a platform but not others. Those that are allowed gain a huge advantage. It’s especially problematic if these de facto monopolies take sides in elections.

There's a name for a economic structure where corporations are privately owned, but operate in alignment with the governments political agenda and goals. Perhaps out of coercion, or perhaps just trying to avoid scrutiny.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#59

Post by sliken » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

koolk3ychain wrote: post #2

Someone really needs to give the New Yorker some serious credit for publishing what can genuinely be described as a thoughtful, well written, and objective article on social media and big tech. Bravo. I'm honestly convinced that at some point this kind of big tech social media witch burning will eventually lead to private lawsuits aimed at non-combatants like Signal and Wickr. Please leave a comment if you disagree -…

Dunno, they claim it's technology and demoncracy. Seems more like inciting people to break the law and kill people.

Does it really matter if it was twitter, facebook, a new paper, a radio station, a tv station, or really anything that can communicate.

If it was 100 years ago and the same events happened (invasion of the Capitol building and 5 people died) because of an op-ed piece in the NYTimes (printed on paper of course) would cause the same "deplatforming".

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#60

Post by mullingitover » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 11:58 PM UTC

d0100 wrote: post #52

Big Tech platforms are more and more functioning as utilities, and I believe they should be regulated as such. Actually, any digital platform with user-generated content should be regulated in such a way that frees platforms from pressures from the government (Section 230) and from social justice (ban bad guy that's not convicted and will have no recourse or penalty expiry)

> in such a way that frees platforms from pressures from the government (Section 230)

Section 230 does free platforms from pressure from the government. A service provider that is responsible for the content posted by users would have much greater exposure and would be far more likely to censor. People don't understand that 230 is mostly enabling free speech, not stifling it.

The anti-230 crowd is like a dog chasing a car. It's all fun and games to chase that car, but what do you think is going to happen when you get what you're chasing?