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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

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

gonehome wrote: post #150
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…

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 n…

This very site is a good counterpoint to your distinction. HN allows for easy creation of anonymous accounts, and doesn't do much to help you track who says what. And yet some people, by choosing to stick to their handle over time, build a reputation. And yet, even the anonymous people mostly behave, and we end up with a civil community.

Personally, I think the important factors for maintaining a civil community is a focus on civility, some overt selection of topics (vs. having a group that's about everything), and a lot of moderation work in the background that prevents the decay of standards. Social norms, unfortunately, don't maintain themselves.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#173

Post by pmlnr »

dragonwriter wrote: post #170
pmlnr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is an idea, a philosophy. Socialism is basically a flawed materialization of that utopistic philosophy.

> Communism is an idea, a philosophy. “Communism” is a class of philosophies with shared traits. > Socialism is basically a flawed materialization of that utopistic philosophy. “Socialism”, in general, is a class of philosophies of which “Communism” is a more specific subset. In specifically Marxist Communism, “Socialism” is also a named stage on the route to acheivement of the desired end-state at which the philosop…

I was only aware of the

> In specifically Marxist Communism, “Socialism” is also a named stage on the route to acheivement of the desired end-state

part; Eastern Europe had some fun with this route to achievement on that the Socialist stage.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#174

Post by RedShift1 »

Tokkemon wrote: post #111
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…

I think you need to lay off the apocalyptic movies for a bit.

It has happened before, it will happen again.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#175

Post by gonehome »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #171
gonehome wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

This very site is a good counterpoint to your distinction. HN allows for easy creation of anonymous accounts, and doesn't do much to help you track who says what. And yet some people, by choosing to stick to their handle over time, build a reputation. And yet, even the anonymous people mostly behave, and we end up with a civil community. Personally, I think the important factors for maintaining a civil community is a…

Most HN accounts are pseudonymous with the occasional anonymous throw away for something specific.

HN also has great moderation (thanks DanG) and a strict set of rules which helps.

If HN was truly anonymous (everyone posted under anon accounts) I think it would decay and I’m not sure DanG would be able to save it.

I do think Urbit’s approach to this (low cost to creating an ID) is a really good one for handling this problem and the general problem of spam decentralized, and at scale.

https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/urbit-id/

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#176

Post by throwaways885 »

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.…

Anonymity is what gives LGBTQ+ groups the space to be themselves with fundamentalist Christian parents.

Anonymity is what gives foreign journalists the freedom to leak content their governments would execute them for.

Anonymity protects marginalised groups and it is essential to protecting democracy and freedom.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#177

Post by notahacker »

im3w1l wrote: post #107
Veen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it seems unlikely this is deliberate. The SWP is about as likely to forment a revolution or incite violence as Judi Dench. They're a bunch of harmless eccentrics.

According to the article, it was not just the page that was removed. That could have been a mistake, I suppose. But Facebook also banned "dozens of leading SWP activists". That sounds like a very deliberate action to me.

To me that sounds even more like an algorithm at work, and quite possibly one more concerned with identifying possible fake accounts than identifying political violence

(Relevant context: the SWP is tiny and inconsequential, but very active in coordinating its [unlikely to be violent] messaging and inflating its importance. Nobody would know who its "dozens of leading activists" were to target them. And its local group pages are still up and easily discoverable by searching, so if it was a deliberate action to silence the party it would be a very sloppy one)

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#178

Post by eznzt »

konjin wrote: post #125
jjcon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> somehow the official line that it's only Jews that were targeted is not holocaust denial. How is this the official line? Jews were the primary target but I’ve never ever seen anything ‘official’ claim they were the only ones.

>The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah,[c] was the World War II genocide of the European Jews. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust I don't think you can get more of the zeitgeist than the first sentence of a wiki article.

History is written by the victors.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#179

Post by cbozeman »

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.…

Its not anonymity that fuels the problem, its proximity.

When someone has to drive 1,000 miles to try to beat someone up for using fighting words, people are far more brazen in their rhetoric.

This is why, as I've posted before here on HN, I always use my real name in my communications. Because I expect to be held accountable for what I say, and how I say it, and I'm willing to accept the consequences.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#180

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #159
throwawaygh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s always some external thing: “the algorithm”, as if that doesn’t just mean “the way we programmed it”. This is true. > Computing systems are do not act on their own. That doesn't mean that computer systems behave the way that we intend them to behave, or even that we really fully understand our own intent! How much of your own code have you formally verified? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification…

> That doesn't mean that computer systems behave the way that we intend them to behave, or even that we really fully understand our own intent! Sure. Neither do children, nor pets, nor farm animals, nor automated control systems. The common thread connecting these examples is: people who are responsible for managing children/animals/PID controllers bear responsibility for the action of these systems, whatever the act…

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