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Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

swp.org.uk

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Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#131

Post by desine »

ralston3 wrote: post #92
IndySun wrote: post #70

This shut down story is another tale in the impending international regulation, and maybe breaking up, of what is comically called 'big tech' ('big' does not begin to describe the sizes involved, the naivety is staggering). As newspaper barons before them, the internet has not policed itself adequately enough, according to the governments of the world, and now they will act in unity to take back some control. And the…

> and anonymous use will be illegal. Super interesting that you mention this. I was just thinking the other day about what an absolute dumpster fire "the internet" is due to anonymity (obviously that's not the _only_ reason, but it's a non-trivial reason). This idea that "Let's give people the ability to be anonymous, and somehow, that's gonna make us all bond together and be better" is pretty hilarious in hindsight.…

>This idea that "Let's give people the ability to be anonymous, and somehow, that's gonna make us all bond together and be better" is pretty hilarious in hindsight.

I get irritated by this logic. I don't think many people are arguing that anonymous access makes us more likely to get along. There are lots of areas where we have the freedom to do something, that access objectively makes things worse in terms of social cost, but we keep it because it's what is right. Installing a breathalyzer lockout device on every new car sold would decrease drunk driving. There's a few religious sects that could be eliminated that would overnight reduce the amount of vile rhetoric in the world. We all make choices as to how much regulation we deem acceptable in daily life. Many of us see no valid reason to permanently tie online access to personal identification.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#133

Post by pmlnr »

ralston3 wrote: post #92
IndySun wrote: post #70

This shut down story is another tale in the impending international regulation, and maybe breaking up, of what is comically called 'big tech' ('big' does not begin to describe the sizes involved, the naivety is staggering). As newspaper barons before them, the internet has not policed itself adequately enough, according to the governments of the world, and now they will act in unity to take back some control. And the…

> and anonymous use will be illegal. Super interesting that you mention this. I was just thinking the other day about what an absolute dumpster fire "the internet" is due to anonymity (obviously that's not the _only_ reason, but it's a non-trivial reason). This idea that "Let's give people the ability to be anonymous, and somehow, that's gonna make us all bond together and be better" is pretty hilarious in hindsight.…

You and your op are both idiots, pardon my wording.

People don't care: real names, real faces on Facebook, yet they still act as raging lunatics.

The old, actually anonymous internet 20+ years ago was much better.

EDIT: clarification: anonymity is not what's causing the dumpster fire, it's the people, and the companies driving them into vicious circles to get more attention - and thus, advertisement time and money - out of them.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#134

Post by smichel17 »

root_axis wrote: post #128
Swizec wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know my name in the street and I don't know yours. We manage to be perfectly civil to each other. And my reputation does not follow between groups either. I can even have completely distinct friend groups for different activities. Nobody at boxing class knows anybody I work with and the people that hang out with me at a bar can be a completely new set all over. I could even use different names in all these…

> We manage to be perfectly civil to each other. Huh? People get "censored" all the time on this site due to incivility. Edit: I misread the parent comment, sorry :)

The comment was talking about irl.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#135

Post by Karishma1234 »

IndySun wrote: post #70

This shut down story is another tale in the impending international regulation, and maybe breaking up, of what is comically called 'big tech' ('big' does not begin to describe the sizes involved, the naivety is staggering). As newspaper barons before them, the internet has not policed itself adequately enough, according to the governments of the world, and now they will act in unity to take back some control. And the…

> Citizens will require a personal licence to access the internet, and anonymous use will be illegal

The new war on drugs would be coming.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#136

Post by snoshy »

nexthash wrote: post #93
IndySun wrote: post #70

This shut down story is another tale in the impending international regulation, and maybe breaking up, of what is comically called 'big tech' ('big' does not begin to describe the sizes involved, the naivety is staggering). As newspaper barons before them, the internet has not policed itself adequately enough, according to the governments of the world, and now they will act in unity to take back some control. And the…

What makes you think the future will be so dystopian? In Western countries such as the United States citizens have a high level of political participation and awareness of various issues. If the government attempts to unilaterally throttle the Internet there will be such a large uproar that our political leaders will be overturned on the next election. Plus, the newly voted-in Democratic leadership has a policy of ad…

I'm not sure what makes you believe this. The voter turnout for the 2020 election was merely 62%, and that was a record high. American voters being more aware of various issues is another myth. Look at how quickly a politician that straight up denied facts made it to the highest office in the land.

Political leaders in the US are not really all that beholden to their voters, and very frequently strive to push self-serving agendas ($) over the needs of the public.

As dystopian as it sounds, we're already well on our way toward the Balkanization of the internet. Russia and China have their own firewalls bearing down on global network access. Many other authoritarian countries are following suit. It's going to be hard to stop that train regardless of if/how Facebook or Google are regulated.

We shouldn't confuse a throttled Internet with a fractured, balkanized one.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#137

Post by lmilcin »

mc32 wrote: post #116
lmilcin wrote: post #112

I think FB/Twitter and others got bold, but kinda forgot they are also most likely digging themselves deep into regulation hell.

It feels like they opened a Pandora’s box. They feel they have the power and self imprimatur to manage speech as they see fit, but now also activists are telling them to shut this or that voice they disagree with. They made this bed themselves.

Well... not exactly.

I mean it is true they did it. But they got help.

Because I remember when all this was starting up two decades ago there were a lot of pressures to block this or that. Maybe hate speech, or maybe you crossed RIAA, or maybe you were of dark complexion and Middle East descent and nobody could tell what your arabic said but it defenitely had to be dangerous.

So it became pretty customary to have corporations bring content down when asked to do so and this recent wave of deplatforming is just extension.

Basically, that's what happens when you start to compromise on principles and choose the easy path.

Instead of letting people exercise their free speech and using existing laws to chase people for when they are impinging on somebody elses rights, we chose to compromise and asked companies to do this without due process.

And that was beginning of the slippery slope which now suddenly got much steeper than before.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#138

Post by markdown »

Swizec wrote: post #109
ralston3 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and anonymous use will be illegal. Super interesting that you mention this. I was just thinking the other day about what an absolute dumpster fire "the internet" is due to anonymity (obviously that's not the _only_ reason, but it's a non-trivial reason). This idea that "Let's give people the ability to be anonymous, and somehow, that's gonna make us all bond together and be better" is pretty hilarious in hindsight.…

You don't know my name in the street and I don't know yours. We manage to be perfectly civil to each other. And my reputation does not follow between groups either. I can even have completely distinct friend groups for different activities. Nobody at boxing class knows anybody I work with and the people that hang out with me at a bar can be a completely new set all over. I could even use different names in all these…

> Yet we're all perfectly civil.

There are no real-world consequences for being an anonymous jerk online, so you are comparing apples and oranges.

> On the other hand, you have to show government ID to walk into a bar and yet people are kicked out for bad behavior all the time.

That's because under the influence of alcohol, one stops caring as much about real world consequences.

Being anon online is (somewhat) like being a drunk in a bar (for some people).

Your examples here have proven the opposite of what you were trying to say.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#139

Post by stretchcat »

throwawaygh wrote: post #103
stretchcat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think mens rea is particularly relevant when it comes to the actions of corporations. It's not at all clear to me what it would mean for a corporation to have intent. We could certainly say a 'corporation intended' to do something if we found an email from the CEO commanding it, that much is trivial. But what if we think of a corporation as a 'slow AI' or 'China brain'? Might the corporation, viewed that way,…

> I don't think mens rea is particularly relevant when it comes to the actions of corporations. It's not at all clear to me what it would mean for a corporation to have intent. But we do distinguish in regulated engineering disciplines. A contractor that intentionally uses shoddy materials in a bridge or tunnel is treated differently from a contractor who simply fails to implement legally required QC is treated diffe…

> 1. Held accountable how? 2. Toward what end?

In the case of the Nazis, the answers are 1. Executed. 2. Justice. For Facebook, I think executions should be off the table, but the second answer is the same.

Facebook's engineers aren't gods, I get that. Knowing their engineers aren't gods, Facebook proceeded to use them to create imperfect but profitable systems anyway. Systems they knew or should have known would harm society while enriching their shareholders. This is facebook's crime. If they couldn't create moderation systems that operate well at a massive scale, they never should have operated at that scale in the first place. They couldn't, should have known they couldn't, but tried anyway.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#140

Post by generalizations »

root_axis wrote: post #128
Swizec wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know my name in the street and I don't know yours. We manage to be perfectly civil to each other. And my reputation does not follow between groups either. I can even have completely distinct friend groups for different activities. Nobody at boxing class knows anybody I work with and the people that hang out with me at a bar can be a completely new set all over. I could even use different names in all these…

> We manage to be perfectly civil to each other. Huh? People get "censored" all the time on this site due to incivility. Edit: I misread the parent comment, sorry :)

Yep, they get censored. We manage a totally reasonable level of moderation in an anonymous environment. RealIDs wouldn't improve on that.
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