Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship? • Hacker News Board

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#61

Post by cvwright » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #33

plerpin wrote: post #14

The thing that really bothers me about Weinstein's approach is that, while he and his wife are scientists, they're exceedingly quick to assert their hunches as scientific fact. They wear their scientist labels on their sleeves but their thinking is far more ideological. In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and y…

> podcast about fluoridation in tap water This has been a staple of crazies since, what, the 50s? I'm reminded of the speech from the deranged general in Dr Strangelove: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/characters/nm0001330 You could fit that right into a modern rightwing podcast without it being out of place.

Or, you know, the citizens of hyper progressive Portland, Oregon, who voted down a measure to finally fluoridate the city’s tap water less than 10 years ago.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#62

Post by ArcturianDeath » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

Now that the facility of the digital tooling is more granular and refined, and theres no shortage of weak-minded grunts that are powertrippin to do what theyre told, by the telepath aliens in human disguise or transdimensionals with the ability to manipulate all digital processes or the government, as zealous intern lords over the online conversation or jannies of pre-crime trends, this is all now easier to implement when it will matter the most to our future: silencing anti-alien dissent after "arrival."

The Roswell trojan horse and social infiltration to pressure the farce of 2020, is paying off. Abductees/contactees with negative experiences of the 40+ species will be flagged as "agents of "disinformation" and limited for "preemption of public criticism."

https://reclaimthenet.org/world-economic-forum-makes-censors...

https://fair.org/home/us-censorship-is-increasingly-official...

https://archive.vn/WVDGU

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-case-of-intellectual-capture...

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#63

Post by mikeiz404 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

mikeiz404 wrote: post #34

ndndksksl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public social media is really fundamentally different from traditional media because it functions as the public square in a way that traditional media never did. As such, it needs to be evaluated and regulated as the novel thing that it is. It's not a newspaper and it's not a telephone company, and it's time to stop trying to apply old regulatory arguments and mindsets to the new situation. So far, attempts to regula…

I’m curious as to why this was downvoted. Is it because they disagreed with some of the opinions? I was under the impression that’s not what down voting was for here. Personally I think it is worth considering a social media platform, once it reaches a certain scale and depending on how content is distributed, as a “public square” or at least more towards a “public square” on the continuum between a private community…

Could some one who down voted this elaborate on their reasoning?

I can no longer edit the above post but it looks like the parent post I was referring to is no longer down voted.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#64

Post by shkkmo » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #49

ndndksksl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public social media is really fundamentally different from traditional media because it functions as the public square in a way that traditional media never did. As such, it needs to be evaluated and regulated as the novel thing that it is. It's not a newspaper and it's not a telephone company, and it's time to stop trying to apply old regulatory arguments and mindsets to the new situation. So far, attempts to regula…

One of the problem of such networks is permanency of something that we still treat as spoken word. If posts were ephemeral, they would present much less of an attack surface for various digital mobs. Maybe there should be an option for users to limit their comment lifetime to N minutes. With N starting somewhere around 5. Of course, you can do this manually, but a semiautomatic mechanism would work better.

Self-destructing messages only really work if you trust every person who reads them AND their devices. They can somewhat limit exposure (especially in obscurity) but also introduce the risk of establishing unwarranted perceptions of security.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#65

Post by spfzero » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #24

People shake their heads and wonder how the Catholic church could have been so backwards, dogmatic, and ignorant as to jail Copernicus. Yet, here we are. "At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins." https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... Censoring commentary on scientif…

We seem to be moving to the idea that people can not think for themselves and so need to be told what to do by "experts", who cannot be questioned. Your ability to think critically about what you see and hear, is being marginalized and ignored, in favor of gaining your obedience.

Holding out examples of people who make bad decisions, is used to gain acceptance for the idea that no one can make good decisions, except these few ones, who you now have to obey. This is the new religion.

Unfortunately, the experts and dogma of the day tend to turn out to be wrong, at huge harm.

I'd rather accept that there is some small fraction of the population that can be easily mislead by manipulative misinformation, with all of the risk that entails. That's better than the coercive thought policing we're starting to see.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#66

Post by klyrs » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #11

Facebook's censoring of #Revolution via their claims of moral superiority should frighten the shit out of every free person on earth. While we still have it reasonably good in America, their willingness to suppress speech in good times doesn't bode well for people who will be oppressed during bad times. The first amendment made it clear that not even the government had the authority to use their vast moral authority,…

If #revolution getting censored by facebook is enough to stop the movement, then it was slacktivism to begin with. Or as Gil Scott Heron said, the revolution will not be televised. One cannot expect mainstream businesses to support a movement that will fundamentally destabilize their revenue streams.

Libertarians are at a loggerhead here. On one hand, businesses are meant to be free to make money however they please, and the market is supposed to correct whatever human rights abuses occur. But the market doesn't seem interested in actual zero-censorship publishing platforms, so on the other hand, free speech advocates are concerned with perceived overreach by the largest platforms.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#67

Post by shkkmo » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

mikeiz404 wrote: post #63

mikeiz404 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious as to why this was downvoted. Is it because they disagreed with some of the opinions? I was under the impression that’s not what down voting was for here. Personally I think it is worth considering a social media platform, once it reaches a certain scale and depending on how content is distributed, as a “public square” or at least more towards a “public square” on the continuum between a private community…

Could some one who down voted this elaborate on their reasoning? I can no longer edit the above post but it looks like the parent post I was referring to is no longer down voted.

Compaining about downvotes or the reasons behind downvotes is a reliable way to attract downvotes. The is expressly mentioned in the site guidlines:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#68

Post by mikeiz404 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #67

mikeiz404 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could some one who down voted this elaborate on their reasoning? I can no longer edit the above post but it looks like the parent post I was referring to is no longer down voted.

Compaining about downvotes or the reasons behind downvotes is a reliable way to attract downvotes. The is expressly mentioned in the site guidlines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Understood, thanks

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#69

Post by naniwaduni » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #64

inglor_cz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problem of such networks is permanency of something that we still treat as spoken word. If posts were ephemeral, they would present much less of an attack surface for various digital mobs. Maybe there should be an option for users to limit their comment lifetime to N minutes. With N starting somewhere around 5. Of course, you can do this manually, but a semiautomatic mechanism would work better.

Self-destructing messages only really work if you trust every person who reads them AND their devices. They can somewhat limit exposure (especially in obscurity) but also introduce the risk of establishing unwarranted perceptions of security.

People were always able to reproduce things you said—by repeating the words.

They can even claim you said something you didn't say!

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#70

Post by akomtu » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

maverick-iceman wrote: post #47

Every social group eventually uses the weapon of censorship. It's not just government...even without a proper institutional structure , censorship will emerge as a thing that a social group does endogeneously. Like just scrolling back and looking at my last 10 posts on HN , I had to delete them after a few minutes in order to cut my losses because they were being heavily downvoted and once you are in negative territo…

It's because those who agree rarely bother to upvote, while those who disagree downvote often. It's the same in real world: disagreement in form of protests is loud and visible, while even massive support is quiet.

One fix HN could make is to take into account the number of readers before hiding a comment: 4 downvotes is big when there are only 10 readers, but it's nothing when there's a million.