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Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

nytimes.com

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Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#61

Post by johnchristopher »

tjpnz wrote: post #26
nicbou wrote: post #22

I significantly scaled back my online presence this year. I deleted accounts, scrubbed information from my public profiles, and left many communities. Despite my very bening post history, I don't feel safe participating in the discussion anymore. I don't fear being cancelled, but I am terrified of Internet lynch mobs. They know no due process, no measure, and no limits. I've dealt with a lot of direct and personal ha…

I despise litigation but perhaps that's the best solution to solving this - especially when it also involves lies and blackmail. Maybe people will think twice if there are very real consequences involved.

The endgame will be that only rich people can afford justice once you need to finance the real consequences and the due process and everyone and every procedures involved. Really, sometimes, I believe the only winning move is not to play.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#62

Post by cik »

emerged wrote: post #50
cik wrote: post #37

The lack of nuance on this issue, in society is shocking. We expect people to change and grow over time. People change opinions, political parties, perhaps even ideals, yet we crucify people in the public domain for opinions they once opined, and possibly still hold. At best this discourages dialogue. It discourages people from interacting in the public domain, vilifies their non-work lives, and unifies them in terri…

I’ve noticed society also tends to be surprisingly supportive of people who were once drug addicts, even in spite of any crimes they committed during that time. It’s recognized the effort it takes to change and sometimes evens seems to be perceived as making you a better or more impressive person than someone who never took drugs in the first place. Maybe these things have to become so prolific that it touches a crit…

Does the question not become redemption from what? There are individuals who support X or support Y - but in the modern era to some group of people support for either of those letters is abhorrent.

Today people are 'cancelled' for holding certain political views. Perhaps in the future they're cancelled for having eaten meat, or spending money in a communist country. What about holding stock in Nestle, or perhaps at one point in time supporting a (now disgraced) cleric. The nuance is rather important - the world is neither black, nor white.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#63

Post by dTal »

AstralStorm wrote: post #53
blablabla123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditio…

Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist. There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of a…

You're going to sue me for running, in my head, the program "if misbehave, then boycott"? Because that's all it takes to be a member of a "mob". Or you're going to sue me for passing on information of , even if it's true, because you're afraid of being cancelled? That's a fairly horrifying dystopia you're painting.

Nobody has to incite a mob. It just happens. It's collective action. There's no one to sue, unless you feel like suing everyone.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#64

Post by codingdave »

3np wrote: post #30
tluyben2 wrote: post #14

This is a difficult problem to solve unless you can remove stuff about yourself from Google and other platforms. Which won't happen as that would be expensive manual work for the platforms. I cannot imagine what happens to the gigs of info young people post online (about eachother and themselves) that will be mined in 10-20 years by companies and used for evil. Since I said something in an interview to push a particu…

There actually is a process to remove yourself from Google Search results. https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/9685456?... https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061?...

Those are not describing a process you can go through - they are telling you manage your robots file and handle your own content security if you own a site, or talk to the site owner if you don't own the site, and then gives very narrow conditions about removal if you cannot get the site owner to control the content.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#66

Post by JackMorgan »

dTal wrote: post #63
AstralStorm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist. There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of a…

You're going to sue me for running, in my head, the program "if misbehave, then boycott"? Because that's all it takes to be a member of a "mob". Or you're going to sue me for passing on information of , even if it's true, because you're afraid of being cancelled? That's a fairly horrifying dystopia you're painting. Nobody has to incite a mob. It just happens. It's collective action. There's no one to sue, unless you…

I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#67

Post by tomjen3 »

ben_w wrote: post #55
JackMorgan wrote: post #51

In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. If a person commits a crime, then let courts decide, otherwise it's just mob rule and vigilante "justice". That said, I think it's going to take…

While I agree that the status quo isn’t stable and must change, I don’t think what you’re suggesting will be stable either. The internet is one place where 99.9% compliance with a social norm or law isn’t good enough to prevent the remaining 0.1% from causing enough damage to be un-ignorable, even if you manage to get worldwide agreement on updating the law. (Consider that e.g. the UK does not have American freedom o…

Is there a standard way to convert an encryption key into a human readable name?

Because then we could have a service where you signed everything with your key and then you were know as whatever the hash of that key is - and you can create a new identity with a new key, but your name won't be linked to any real world identity.

I barely use Facebook or Twitter compared to reddit, and I suspect it is because of the real name issues, that makes those places just not as much fun.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#68

Post by tomjen3 »

freebuju wrote: post #42
captainmuon wrote: post #27

Instead of self censoring and deleting our past, we should solve the problem on the recipient's side, and harden ourselves against this kind of attack. When someone is booted out of office for the wrong reasons (even though it is "the right person", i.e. someone who's views I don't agree with) I speak out against it. If I was a politician, I would pledge before elections to never step down due to anything that happen…

The moment Twitter finally went mainstream, that was the death knell for "free" speech. Your employer, government agencies, religious & community leaders are all now on Twitter. Self censorship is not obligatory, it is a requirement to use the platform. Same thing to those family Whatsapp groups. I remember creating a Facebook account in my teenage years, most of my friends used nicknames on the account names. Why? B…

I don't think the family whatsapp groups really fit in here, because by default they contain only things you want with your family. You can also join other groups that are different and have different focuses.

Anyway reddit is as mainstream as the others and they not only permit account names, basically nobody uses their real names. Heck alt accounts are encouraged too.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#69

Post by swebs »

tomjen3 wrote: post #67
ben_w wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that the status quo isn’t stable and must change, I don’t think what you’re suggesting will be stable either. The internet is one place where 99.9% compliance with a social norm or law isn’t good enough to prevent the remaining 0.1% from causing enough damage to be un-ignorable, even if you manage to get worldwide agreement on updating the law. (Consider that e.g. the UK does not have American freedom o…

Is there a standard way to convert an encryption key into a human readable name? Because then we could have a service where you signed everything with your key and then you were know as whatever the hash of that key is - and you can create a new identity with a new key, but your name won't be linked to any real world identity. I barely use Facebook or Twitter compared to reddit, and I suspect it is because of the rea…

That sounds like the tripcode system you see on imageboards like 4chan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Tripcodes

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#70

Post by david_allison »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #12
plank_time wrote: post #7

I realized this back in 1997 when dejanews started up. From then on I never posted with my real name, and never will. I only have a very limited internet presence with my real name and never post any of my opinions on it.

Caution is still advised. ML identity-matching using your writing patterns/idiosyncracies will likely be a thing in the near future.

Stylometry is already a well-studied field, just not typically applied to online datasets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry

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