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Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

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Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#161

Post by mercurialshark »

opendysphoria wrote: post #136
mercurialshark wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I fundamentally reject the premise that inaccurate expression should be censored or moderated without a proximate cause to a specific harm or credible imminent apprehension of harm. I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm.

>I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm. Can you provide an example?

If someone posts an inaccurate or untruthful comment that a reasonable person would not rely upon for their safety, I think the correct response is to mute, unfollow or retort (and if it's self-evident, hopefully it's easy to explain why it's inaccurate or link to countered evidence).

However, the imminent apprehension of harm (from a direct, credible or specific threat), does comport with the concept of assault and is grounds for moderation. Likewise, demonstrating proximate cause from someones actions to a specific harm/damages, would also be grounds for censorship.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#162

Post by artificialLimbs »

CivBase wrote: post #147

The constitution protects our freedom of speech from the government, not from private entities on their own private property. Make no mistake, that's what centralized social media platforms are - private property. Freedom of speech is not protected by the constitution on social media platforms and, frankly, I don't want 100% free speech on social media. Take a look at HN. HN mods do a brilliant job of moderating. We…

*incoming nitpick

>If you're civil, respectful, and on-topic you're seemingly allowed to present just about any idea.

HN heavily follows the religion of scientism. If you reject science, you will be downvoted nearly immediately. HN forgets that the reason that we don't fog our kids with DDT anymore is because 'settled science' was questioned. Yes I am generalizing by using "HN".

This is still, however, one of my favorite platforms to read.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#163

Post by jjcon »

CivBase wrote: post #147

The constitution protects our freedom of speech from the government, not from private entities on their own private property. Make no mistake, that's what centralized social media platforms are - private property. Freedom of speech is not protected by the constitution on social media platforms and, frankly, I don't want 100% free speech on social media. Take a look at HN. HN mods do a brilliant job of moderating. We…

>The constitution protects our freedom of speech from the government, not from private entities on their own private property. Make no mistake, that's what centralized social media platforms are - private property.

I'm getting pretty tired of this line. The American first amendment is not the same thing as the freedom of speech. People who value the freedom of speech aren't making arguments against these companies based on the law, they are stating this is a deterioration of liberal values.

Furthermore, the argument is that no corporation should have these powers that they do, thus the need to regulate or break up the large tech companies.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#164

Post by ajkjk »

emptyparadise wrote: post #46

My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? The same methods used to quickly shut down a dangerous website or to track down a terrorist by their online posts can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition.

flatly, yes, that sounds like an good tradeoff.

It seems unlikely to go wrong the other way, since people are mostly sane about this stuff and agree on what should be shut out (calls for violence, conspiratorial nutjob stuff, widespread misinformation). obviously the calculation would change if Putin-style misinformation was being defended by these people, but it's not.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#165

Post by stale2002 »

bawolff wrote: post #72
emptyparadise wrote: post #46

My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? The same methods used to quickly shut down a dangerous website or to track down a terrorist by their online posts can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition.

What tools are these actually - the delete button? When it comes down to it - i like moderated spaces on the internet. I dont want to wade through spam, not to mention violent and abusive content. I don't like seeing shock images. So yes, i support having moderation. The question to me is not: yes/no moderation, its where you draw the line; what are your policies and how are they enforced. Fundamentally i think the s…

> I dont want to wade through spam, not to mention violent and abusive content.

I mean, ok? Can't you simply not watch that content? What if there were a warning on the content, so that you could choose to not watch it?

Or maybe you could specify on your account, that you don't want to see that content, so it never shows up for you. Problem solved, and everyone wins.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#166

Post by sneak »

shrimpx wrote: post #151
emptyparadise wrote: post #46

My question to everyone supporting restrictions on speech and supporting privacy violations, even for good reasons, is this: are you prepared to have these tools fall into the wrong hands? The same methods used to quickly shut down a dangerous website or to track down a terrorist by their online posts can be used to silence protests and to hunt down political opposition.

You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence? On a more detailed note, I draw a sharp line between normal speech and selectively amplified speech. Twitter and Facebook are in a bind becaus…

> You can make the same argument in the opposite direction: for those who support unbridled electronic speech amplification, are you prepared for it to fall in the hands of people who are bent on changing minds en masse to fill society with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence?

This seems to equate the ability to publish with a society that's filled with falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence. Is it possible that society won't have any more or less falsehoods, more or less uncertainty, or more or less violence than a society in which you don't appoint some "knows better than the reader" censor to decide what people are allowed to see and read?

It seems insanely presumptuous to me that some censor at Facebook or Google won't turn into a violent maniac when they see the things you seem to propose that they censor, but the general, unwashed masses will. Give adults some credit.

We've had the church around spreading falsehoods, uncertainty, and violence for centuries, and the world is still here (and still improving). I don't think letting people publish whatever legal content they like is going to suddenly send our world to hell in a handbasket. The danger from uncensored publishing is overblown.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#167

Post by cbozeman »

rebuilder wrote: post #88
cbozeman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well too goddamn bad. That's part of life in a post-Enlightenment world. You don't get to have the all the great shit without all the worst shit along with it. The very nature of freedom means at some point, someone is going to do something you don't like. And I don't mean the mosque shooting. That was illegal. I mean part of having a free society means you have put up with people saying crazy nonsensical bullshit th…

Allowing mass murderers to stream their crimes live is not going to fly. I think that's pretty clear. So, Youtube has to do something about it. The way traditional broadcast media handles this is that they know whoever's reporting, and have someone watching who can pull the plug if that reporter goes nuts. This is apparently too expensive for YouTube, so they use blunter tools.

Budd Dwyer blew his brains out on live television. Thousands saw the broadcast live. The broadcast was actually shown unedited later that day.

This kind of stuff isn't new.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but I just do not see any way that you can navigate around this. As for all the Moms (and Dads) who clutch their pearls and scream to YouTube, "HOW COULD YOU LET ME SON/DAUGHTER/CAT SEE THIS KIND OF MATERIAL?!" Well why are we even allowing that question to be asked? The real question is, "Why aren't you monitoring your children's Internet usage? The Internet isn't a babysister. It isn't a parent.

People need to start taking responsibility for their own lives. There's entirely too much passing of the buck.

It blows my mind that less than 3000 years ago, 7 years old Spartan boys were already training for war with sticks, and I literally have a friend who gets offended when I tell off-color jokes around his son at dinner. Who is 22. And has graduated college.

That isn't a "hallmark of civilization", that's crippling our children such that they're unable to cope with anything outside of a curated Disneyland. And the Universe is not a curated Disneyland.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#168

Post by xyzzyz »

nl wrote: post #108
revnode wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What rules do we put in place that they have to host some of this content? Blatant misinformation, vague encouragement of violence... hate? Why do they have to be rules? Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? Robots aren't running these companies. They're people, just like you and me. They can choose to be tolerant. Tolerance is about tolerating the most horrid things. Not because it's nice or those things have…

> Why can't we have a culture of tolerance? The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance. [1] If you haven't read Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies"…

Have you read Popper? Here's a relevant quote from him about tolerance:

> If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

I think it's safe to say that the extent of censorship perpetrated by the big tech is not limited to the voices that teach others to "answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols". They of course ban some of that too, but they ban quite a lot more.

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#169

Post by Thorrez »

JCharante wrote: post #93
emptyparadise wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fundamentally i think the solution is competitors. This was a much easier position to take when the web did not just have a few social media giants with network effects, but still: if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. The tools to stream video (albeit not at scale) are just an apt-get away. I agree. I wouldn't have a problem with YouTube doing anything if YouTube wasn't the video website. We need dec…

Decentralization of hosting responsibilities would certainly help bring down costs which is usually what makes it hard to make a competing hosting site. Then again any popular website _is_ going to need to go beyond standard protocol practices and try to censor certain illegal content. We could just change our culture to be satisfied with 720p content and use traditional websites that don't use p2p tech. Like, we cou…

Does bilibili.com have less censorship than Youtube?

Re: Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content

#170

Post by CivBase »

jjcon wrote: post #163
CivBase wrote: post #147

The constitution protects our freedom of speech from the government, not from private entities on their own private property. Make no mistake, that's what centralized social media platforms are - private property. Freedom of speech is not protected by the constitution on social media platforms and, frankly, I don't want 100% free speech on social media. Take a look at HN. HN mods do a brilliant job of moderating. We…

>The constitution protects our freedom of speech from the government, not from private entities on their own private property. Make no mistake, that's what centralized social media platforms are - private property. I'm getting pretty tired of this line. The American first amendment is not the same thing as the freedom of speech. People who value the freedom of speech aren't making arguments against these companies ba…

I want companies to be able to restrict speech though. That's what moderation is. I just want people to hold their moderation policies to a higher standard.
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