Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

taibbi.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 340 posts

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

#231

Post by jayd16 »

blahblahblogger wrote: post #219
andrewprock wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with this sentiment strongly. As much as I may lament today's social media landscape, it is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to my ability to participate in our cultural zeitgeist. And as long as we are going to pursue capitalism with gusto, I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues.

> I am in favor of capitalists controlling their own business - modulo protected class issues What does this mean? Can you give an example of a protected class and how the business would be impacted?

I think modulo is a bit misused here but race, religion, sex, age and more are legally protected classes in the US and a business' right to refuse service can not be because of discrimination against these protected classes. The parent wants to make it clear that they do support a capitalist's freedom to control their business in so far as it does not conflict with class protections.

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

#232

Post by ThrustVectoring »

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…

Sufficiently powerful private corporations should be held to similar standards. It's a loophole in the first amendment, honestly - congress can't make a law punishing certain kinds of speech, but it can make Facebook's CEO show up to testify and threaten ruinous regulation if certain problems on the platform aren't handled.

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

#233

Post by btinker »

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…

Yep, that's part of why reddit is so great.

> 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.

There's no serious YouTube competition because YouTube is not (just) a video host. Video hosting isn't that big a deal (though hard at scale).

YouTube is a network of videos, creators and viewers powered by recommendations, subscriptions advertisements (paying creators) and massive network effects.

You could build yet another video host and even have niche success with it. But you have no chance of providing the equivalent effect of a video landing on the YouTube frontpage.

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

#234

Post by lommelun »

duxup wrote: post #78
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…

"culture of tolerance" What does that mean exactly? By that you mean you require someone host, intolerance? Is it a "culture of tolerance" if someone spews hate on me on a social media platform because of my race, because we're tolerating that? I'm still trying to figure out what folks think this alternate choice looks like... do we require people to host whatever gets posted?

I agree with OP, opinions shouldn’t be censored, no matter how much we disagree with them.

Anything that’s not harassment, a direct threat or direct call to violence should be allowed.

To your example, if someone attacks you personally then that would count as harassment and be moderated out.

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

#235

Post by blurp_ »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #197
SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These tech companies make it harder and harder to avoid their lock in platforms. They crush and buy all the competitors and end up with userbases so big that if you do not participate you will be missing out. I never wish to sign up for facebook but they have crippled the alternative buy and sell sites, obsoleted most forums and are now invading the VR space with their spyware. At some point we need to stop blaming t…

You'll only be missing out in the same sense that you're missing out if you don't go to church on Sundays or don't watch NCIS on Tuesdays. There may be commercial advantages to having accounts for your business, but there's absolutely no reason you need to personally participate in the discourse or know about the most viral tweets. I think we've gotta step back and recognize how strange this would sound just a couple…

This is a very sensible comment, but I think the fear some have is that these companies will eventually be the sole arbiters of what is and is not acceptable to talk about because they will control all means of communication and information dissemination.

I'd like to say face to face communication is outside of their control, but when I think about how many devices in my house have microphones and cameras in them I begin to question even that assumption.

I bring up private communication because Norway recently passed hate speech laws that threaten prison time for private remarks they deem "hate speech".

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

#236

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

pdx6 wrote: post #209
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #133

I think Peertube with its decentralized live streaming where the moderator of the instances and moderator of remote instances where their videos are federated to are the way forward. You dont like some instances' moderation rules, go and set up your own and then federate with only like minded people and servers. Will it "support" extremism, probably, but will it cause them to get stuck in their own defederated bubble…

I see from their blog that they support live stream now. Very interesting solution, but it lacks a community (at least at first glance). I wonder what a good social pairing with it would be to help drive traffic between federations.

instances are federated with similar instances. one video on instance A goes to all instances in its network. everyone from those nstances or from any activitypub account like mastodon or pleroma can interact, comment, like...

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

#237

Post by lommelun »

jb775 wrote: post #176
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.

Since I primarily see the canned response of "they can build their own youtube if they don't like it", I'll rephrase to help get your actual point across: Imagine if Hitler were currently alive and rising to power in Germany, and imagine if Silicon Valley were located in Germany. Would you be ok with Silicon Valley de-platforming and doing everything in their power to silence the Nazi-opposition political party? And…

Would I be ok with suppressing speech if I was an omnipotent being who knew the future?

Probably yes.

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

#238

Post by bostik »

ogre_codes wrote: post #158
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.

Your television and radio broadcasts have been "censored" and curated since the dawn of time. Newspapers have curated their content and various newspapers are known for having left or right bias. This isn't just the stations own content. If you paid to put content on television, radio, or in the paper, the publisher has always had the right to publish or not publish content (with some limits, but nothing this article…

Funny thing is, there might be a way out if we changed the incentives. Because let's be clear: FB, Twitter, YouTube, ... (and to a slightly lesser degree, Google) - they are all media distributors and opinion amplifiers. Much like traditional publishers. Only instead of creating or sourcing their own content, they syndicate.

We also have to acknowledge that content moderation at scale is impossible.[ß] The lines are hazy and fluid, context matters, and incentives are outright perverse. The volume of incoming material is overwhelming. On top of that, people with money, fame or lulz on the line will game any rules based system.

But what if these online syndicates had to publish corrections for their worst offenses? News outlets have had to do that for decades, after all. We could as a society take this as an opportunity to move the goal posts for the better. Instead of allowing the correction to be buried in a dark corner nobody ever sees, specify that the correction itself has to be displayed as prominently as the original news itself.

You're doing print? Then that correction will eat up prime eyeball real estate from the publication. (And make it clear you messed up.) You're an online syndicate? The correction needs to go through the same amplification mechanism and get as prominently on top of the users' feeds as the original item did. It eats up prime screen real estate and makes it equally clear that you messed up.

This would have three benefits:

1) Content publishers become accountable for their actions. The US media in particular is obsessed with just throwing whatever they get their hands on out there and have the readers sort it out for themselves. To hell with accuracy.

2) The requirement to surface corrections as widely as the original item(s) provides a second-order incentive. Your publication forfeits revenue and opportunity from whatever other news are currently floating around, costing both money and reputation. Mess up more often, get punished more often.

3) The readers would benefit from increased media literacy education. Get bombarded with garbage and outright lies? Receive more fact-checks after the fact, published and syndicated through the same funnels that fed you the original trash.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from accountability.

ß: Mike Masnick has been saying this for years. For a longer take, see https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191111/23032743367/masni...

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

#239

Post by osobo »

colllectorof wrote: post #206
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>if youtube becomes to dranicon, start a new website. You are clearly ignorant of the kinds of shit actual YouTube alternatives have to deal with. Their websites and videos get de-ranked or de-listed from search (Rumble [1]), their apps get removed from app store (LBRY [2]), their infrastructure gets constant attacks (BitChute [3]). Meanwhile, the mainstream media smears them at every opportunity. This is nothing lik…

I never heard of these before. I wish there was a plugin that'd signal me if I visited a Google-owned platform and provided me with alternatives.

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

#240

Post by [deleted] »

stale2002 wrote: post #165
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN