Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#141

Post by nemo44x » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

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…

Maybe it’s because you can’t get your ass kicked by being uncivil on the internet anonymously?

People are kicked out of bars for being assholes and it’s because they have been drinking their inhibitions are lowered and judgement of consequences is disrupted. Similarity to anonymous assholes on the Internet - their inhibitions are lowered because there’s no consequence.

I don’t think we should require names use or prohibit anonymous contributions. But the culture of the internet is pretty bad in this regard today when millions of anonymous people spend millions of hours getting riled up at shit posts from anonymous people.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#142

Post by pmlnr » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

> They are demanding to be reinstated immediately.

LOL. You were using someone else's website - Zuck's, to be specific. If you demand that he allows you to post on his site, could I make demands to post on your site?

I'm actually glad these are finally happening. People need to learn to go back running their own services, under their own domain, owned (bought or leased) hardware, etc.

The current "social" media + cloud everything is a bad road, but apparently this - the shutdowns - is the only way to get out of this swamp.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#143

Post by hertzrat » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

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.…

Anonymous accounts let people who differ from the norm say thing safely and to meet one another

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#144

Post by maxwell » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

23B1 wrote: post #31

chroem- wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irrelevant, because a private company can't be compelled to support someone else's speech against their will. If you don't like it, then take political action. Edit: For those unaware, this is the devil's advocate take. HN has been remarkably pro-corporate censorship lately, and only a matter of weeks later its coming back to bite pro-censorship advocates.

I'm mostly tired of this take, especially by technologists. First off: you're right. You can't compel a private company to support speech. But the entirety of political discourse happens online now. There's a clear and prevailing interest that free speech can happen online, at scale.

Honestly, the market will take care of it: who's comfortable hosting their content on the platform any more? They've alienated the right and the left.

At the end of the day/century, FB is just a random internet site/app. Discourse is online, yes, but the zeitgeist left FB years ago. Zuck's fate will catch up with him fast, now that their network effect has broken, or is close to doing so.

It's already over. FB/IG/WhatsApp are all clearly dead, in the Grahamian sense.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#145

Post by 0x138d5 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

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.…

>I would personally love to see a "web" where you have to comment...as your public self. Post messages...as your public self (not just on an individual platform level). So on and so forth.

That's Facebook though. And in my anecdotal experience the only reason most of my friends group has ever used Facebook is to post in private groups and events and use messenger. Scarcely any wall posts, very few posts in public groups. No opinions or politics whatsoever. Maybe the odd activist sharing some "wear a mask" message.

Those who engage in public discourse under their own names on the platform are by and large kind of ... strange.

Using your actual name for everything would be an amazing tool for building up a profile on you. Either you lay out your hobbies, interests and political standings for the whole world to see or you stop participating in those communities and discussions. And the profile won't be about only you, but your employer as well. If a load of engineers at X start posting more about tech Y or methodology Z you can deduce internal workings from that.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#146

Post by lmilcin » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

mkhpalm wrote: post #126

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.

Digging themselves into a regulation hole is one thing. But they're digging the rest of us into that hole with them as they refuse to stop. The regulations applied to them will affect all of us as well.

Nah, they can't refuse to stop. We just need strong enough coalition of countries. Not sure if US is going to do it but EU certainly will. And once laws are in place all those deplatformed organizations will pop up again pretty quickly.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#147

Post by mrec » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

convery wrote: post #129

mrec wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally agreed, although I think that only really applies to control at the social-network level, not to control exerted via e.g. Chrome or DNS or your ISP. This feels like the start of a very long road.

Didn't Mozilla recently-ish put out a statement about possibly having a black-list of sorts to remove bad sites / "think of the children"? On mobile so can't search for it but surely someone here remembers the link.

You're probably thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690941

The statement was vague and ambiguous and touched a lot of raw nerves, but coming as it did on the heels of major layoffs at Mozilla it felt a bit like Mitchell Baker pulling a "roll hard left and die".

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#148

Post by dilap » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

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.…

There are real advantages to being anonymous though, especially given the well-known tendencies of societies to end up in manias of intolerance.

I think you can have platforms that encourage civilized discussion w/o needing to link that to a real name. (HN is a great example of that, in fact!)

And conversely, even a platform with real names attached can still end up being extremely uncivil (e.g. Facebook).

There's also a long (pre-internet) history of people publishing good stuff anonymously, for one reason or another.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#149

Post by foxhop » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

DonaldFisk wrote: post #101

29athrowaway wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is already somewhat the case in China. Meaning, it is not a possible dystopian future... it is the present in some parts of the world.

You can use a VPN in China to gain access to content blocked by the Great Firewall.

You would be surprised, very very surprised at the great firewalls capabilities, things working one day and not working the next. It's terrible.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#150

Post by gonehome » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 11:53 PM UTC

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…

Pseudonymity and anonymity are not the same thing.

Pseudonyms that are not trivially created and discarded can build reputation and will generally behave themselves (see Urbit’s approach to this problem).

Anonymous accounts incentivize awful behavior (see 4chan).

Real life is different because you’re not truly anonymous in person - you’re recognizable most of the time and identifiable. There are also more in person norms and social constraints.

The exception to this in real life might be mobs, where the chaos and confusion can provide some anonymity and well - people in mobs don’t behave that well either.