[deleted]
Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
121–130 of 600 posts
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#122Probably a good place for reposting this: https://publicseminar.org/essays/why-we-should-outlaw-oppres...
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because the "marketplace of ideas" is being distorted by algorithms that are going to favor "provocative" ideas that drive clicks. Exciting lies defeat boring truths.
That is no doubt true (about how the algorithms work). At the same time what we see is that there is a market, demand, for misinformation. And some people are making money from that. Why is there so much misinformation about Covid vaccines and vaccines in general? Because people want to believe in such misinformation and because that allows websites to make money from their readership. Therefore the peddling of misin…
[deleted]
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Will the services be forced to accept whatever unmoderated feed of filth the linked to service sends their way? I was kinda wondering that. If a user gets banned, and moves off-platform to continue the behaviour there, but is somehow magically still linked to everyone they were linked with before... has anything really changed? Will facebook be forced to show its users the same nastiness it just booted off, because…
> Will facebook be forced to show its users the same nastiness it just booted off, because of the interop necessities? Facebook should be forced to show me the feeds I choose to subscribe to. I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself whether I find something nasty, and I find the idea of Zuckerberg as an arbiter of morality both absurd and dystopian.
> I find the idea of Zuckerberg as an arbiter of morality both absurd and dystopian
This is a very common characterization that I find frustratingly absurd. Zuckeberg is not "an arbiter of morality" in any respect, the contents of Facebook is a corporate business decision, not a reflection on morality.
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your friend is actively broadcasting to the world (except you) their photos, they're sharing articles & their opinion, they're writing on other friend's wall (and you can see). Social places are filled with activity. They are broadcast mediums that beget further broadcast interactions, which beget yet more broadcast interaction. This cruel small hearted tough-love view of social you present reads as extremely unempat…
Why does any part of this need to happen in public? Not in a text group? Random discord server? Is it just some sort of underlying exhibition drive that Myspace originally tapped into? To me, my friends are the 15-20 people I've grown to know and like. From reading what you said here, it seems as though to you the word friends captures your entire extended network, with friends of friends, old coworkers, etc. If your…
You propose replacing public commons with something different, immediately showing you have gained no sense of what Metcalf's Law implies or what value social networks enable.
None of this sounds in any way realistic or like a viable replacement for what we are right now stuck with. Giving people broadcast, in public capabilities is different, it's easier. I wouldn't necessarily say it's better, but the ease & ambience of broadcast is a huge advantage, and leads to far more interesting mixing. Nothing you've proposed sounds in any way similar. Your words continue to amount to: withdraw from the public. I for one do not see that as a likely or desireable counter-conclusion for myself, for my friends and family, or for society.
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Will facebook be forced to show its users the same nastiness it just booted off, because of the interop necessities? Facebook should be forced to show me the feeds I choose to subscribe to. I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself whether I find something nasty, and I find the idea of Zuckerberg as an arbiter of morality both absurd and dystopian.
So, you are in favor of things like pedophilia/child grooming online, revenge porn, defamation, false advertisement, fraud, etc. because YOUR moral may approve of it regardless of laws or harm to others. Got it. The idea of no-regulation free for all is childish/sick nonsense. If you want to have your own nazi-phedo site/feed, host it yourself and face the cost and consequences yourself, don't force private for profi…
There’s a huge gap between ‘legal but morally unacceptable to some’ and ‘blatantly illegal’. Making an argument against the latter while ignoring that the discussion is largely about the former is the very definition of a straw man.
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Problems with fake news, censorship etc are much bigger outside of big tech than inside (media monopolies and propoganda like fox news for a start). * so if you actually care about those issues (rather than just hating big tech) you need to fix things beyond big tech * that means reform of the 1st amendment * I suspect that no one actually wants that, they just don't like Facebook etc but they're used to Tucker Car…
Yes I understand now thanks!
No worries. I was pretty wordy the first time so it was good for me to summarise. :)
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> factually incorrect, scientifically illiterate, conspiratorial, harmful crank ideas gain legs in the online world we've created I don't think this is unique to the online world. It's just how humans are. We are drawn to sensational, scandalous stories for some combination of entertainment and self-righteous outrage/virtue signaling to the others in our tribe.
> We are drawn to sensational, scandalous stories for some combination of entertainment and self-righteous outrage/virtue signaling to the others in our tribe. While I agree, I think there's more to it than that, I think it's more serious than that, and I think the message amplification capabilities afforded to profit-driven (or ideologically driven) bad actors is something we've not really seen before. Certainly not…
"major platforms’ amplification features have also caused or contributed to real damage in the world. At a societal level, they have spread misleading political material, to the detriment of democratic governance"
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/amplification-and-its-dis...
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#129>First of all, the internet’s “marketplace of ideas” is severely lopsided at the platform level The marketplace of ideas itself has been show to be a bust in recent years, IMHO. Better ideas, better models of truth and reality don't win out. People have not shown themselves interested in intellectual debate or argument. We do not see the 'best' ideas rise to the top. And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best…
That's because the "marketplace of ideas" is being distorted by algorithms that are going to favor "provocative" ideas that drive clicks. Exciting lies defeat boring truths.
I actually think algorithms are more likely to promote things that either reinforce your existing beliefs or incite outrage.
Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship
#130>First of all, the internet’s “marketplace of ideas” is severely lopsided at the platform level The marketplace of ideas itself has been show to be a bust in recent years, IMHO. Better ideas, better models of truth and reality don't win out. People have not shown themselves interested in intellectual debate or argument. We do not see the 'best' ideas rise to the top. And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best…
"Often at the root of these is a profit motive."
Big Tech is DOA if the web is not open for commercial use, i.e., advertising. But the web is definitely not DOA if all advertising ceased. Look at the enormous growth of the internet, the vast number of users with internet subscriptions today, billions of them using the network on a daily basis for a variety of non-commerial uses, hundreds of millions uploading content for others to consume. (Big Tech middlemen pervert this recreational usage for their own commercial uses.)
The internet was not created for the purposes of advertising. (There was none in the beginning.) That is only one use. Look what happens when we allow ads without any rules. Yikes.
Even if advertising were regulated, the web could still be used for commerce, e.g., processing commercial transactions.