Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship • Hacker News Board

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#211

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #197

The reason that centrists support private censorship now is very simple: We are now facing disinformation campaigns that have apocalyptic consequences, and normal legal channels are quite ineffective at battling them. "Well of course, it's not the government's job to decide between true and false, nor to enforce it!" you say. Bullshit, I say. Slander is illegal. False advertising is illegal. Fraud is illegal. Defamat…

> There are a plethora of torts and laws where you will get sued or jailed for lying about something important (like a court matter) and in those cases the truth is a defense! That means a court decides what is true and what is false.

Yes. Courts do that. They decide on what the facts are, and on how the law applies to those facts.

I don't have a problem with a court doing that. I have a problem with Facebook doing that. Even more I have a problem with some government agency telling Facebook to do that (unless the government agency is a court, and they have a finding of fact on that particular issue).

And, "the reality-based community"? Was that the community that agreed that masks wouldn't help? Or was it the exact same community a month later, that said that masks would help? I mean, it's good that they're trying to follow the evidence. But no, I won't let them censor, because they've been wrong before, and will be again.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#212

Post by UncleMeat » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #5

Take what you support and imagine it used against you in the worst possible ways. Do you still support it? If yes, then it is worth supporting. If it's not, then maybe you're only supporting it because of who it currently helps or harms. This exercise also works with things that you don't support.

This approach only works if you expect other people to do the same. I don't want to be thrown in prison for my beliefs. I'm not certain that "hey, we let you march in public" is going to stop fascists from throwing me in prison or outright killing me.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#213

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #209

_ykl9 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. I didn't attack any particular ideology. I politely described my opinion on a specific organization that attempted to overthrow my country's government, first via a soft coup and then by force, as it related to the current discussion. This smacks of making a list.. And? Are you suggesting that HN is anti-lists?

> The greatest threat facing humanity today isn't climate change. It's the current Republican Party > I didn't attack any particular ideology. Well, sorry, my fault, it just seemed that when you aligned anyone right of center with neo-Nazis that some people probably took it that way.

[deleted]

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#214

Post by robertlagrant » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

justbored123 wrote: post #99

PontifexMinimus wrote: post #47

Earlier 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…

Characterising people who want free speech as the criminals who will use that speech for the worst ends is no different to people who opposed a fair trial for all because criminals would want a chance to avoid jail.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#215

Post by blfr » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

LoveLeadAcid wrote: post #174

Just do what smart people have been doing for years - stop using big tech. Stop using Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Microsoft. Buy a used computer and install a Free OS and just check out of the entire big tech ecosystem. Otherwise you get what you deserve. And let’s all disabuse ourselves of the incorrect notion that it’s big tech alone which is ordering censorship. It’s our own governments, who use the many secret…

I use Linux, discuss political ideas on private, members-only forums, and share memes over Signal. This is an excellent setup... if you want to have conversations with your fellow computer janitors.

This is no way to connect to other people. And these people might also have interesting ideas, ideas I might want to hear before some bot at Facebooks deems them against "community standards" or whatever they call their censorship that is totally not censorship.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#216

Post by robertlagrant » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #212

daenz wrote: post #5

Take what you support and imagine it used against you in the worst possible ways. Do you still support it? If yes, then it is worth supporting. If it's not, then maybe you're only supporting it because of who it currently helps or harms. This exercise also works with things that you don't support.

This approach only works if you expect other people to do the same. I don't want to be thrown in prison for my beliefs. I'm not certain that "hey, we let you march in public" is going to stop fascists from throwing me in prison or outright killing me.

That can only happen if you gave government the ability to throw you in prison for that, and then somehow a tiny minority got into government and abused the power you gave them.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#217

Post by shrimpx » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

LoveLeadAcid wrote: post #174

Just do what smart people have been doing for years - stop using big tech. Stop using Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Microsoft. Buy a used computer and install a Free OS and just check out of the entire big tech ecosystem. Otherwise you get what you deserve. And let’s all disabuse ourselves of the incorrect notion that it’s big tech alone which is ordering censorship. It’s our own governments, who use the many secret…

It's an honorable call but most people can't follow it -- like my dad. They're too entrenched.

It's not reasonable, in a connected world-system like today's, to put all the burden on individual people to instantly switch away from bad providers, no matter the level of entrenchment.

Isn't one important role of government to protect constituents from corporate encroachment? Have we given up on electing governments that work for us?

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#218

Post by southerntofu » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

MrStonedOne wrote: post #161

jsnell wrote: post #30

This all sounds very nice, but there's a bit of sleight of hand here since the article goes out of its way to avoid details. That way everyone reads into exactly what they want, and it's totally non-obvious whether this is actually a workable proposal or not. But what's the concrete proposal here? How would things actually work? Will the services be forced to accept whatever unmoderated feed of filth the linked to se…

>But what's the concrete proposal here? How would things actually work? Will the services be forced to accept whatever unmoderated feed of filth the linked to service sends their way? If not, how is this supposed to fix the moderation problem? Does gmail block emails from your friends containing misinformation? Why should facebook be allowed to do the same thing?

> Does gmail block emails from your friends containing misinformation?

No, but they actively block emails from many legit servers in order to enforce an email oligopoly. Note I'm not talking about servers who can't DKIM sign or are on well-known blocklists.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#219

Post by read_if_gay_ » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #28

drstewart wrote: post #19

It was certainly weird to see all the "they're private businesses, they can do what they want!" takes from the internet when Trump and Parler were banned, after the same people have been yelling for years that these same corporations have too much power over the public narrative.

> It was certainly weird to see all the "they're private businesses, they can do what they want!" takes from the internet when Trump and Parler were banned, after the same people have been yelling for years that these same corporations have too much power over the public narrative. Why? Its not inconsistent to argue, as many on the left have, both before and after the right-wingers started whining because they lost t…

> excessive power over public communication [...] should be dealt with by dealing with the monopolies, not curtailing the freedom of speech of private actors.

That sounds like a nice idea. However, I'm seeing it for the first time. While (1) and (2) aren't inconsistent, typically only (1) is brought up.

Take your average thread about how, say, Google is now beginning to censor X thing. It makes little sense to defend big tech censorship with point (1), leaving out (2), if you actually hold both opinions (1) and (2). The latter kind of implies that you agree big tech censorship is a problem. The former in isolation points toward the opposite. Therefore, I don't think most people who argue (1) actually believe in (2) as well.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#220

Post by Nursie » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #203

Nursie wrote: post #26

>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…

It's ironic (or maybe appropriate) that this, talking about how better ideas don't rise to the top, is the top comment. The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them. Lots of support for this view in downstream comments (we're just intelligent apes etc). The strawm…

> The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us"

Not what I said. However the idea that everyone is equally able to parse out good information from bad is absurd, and I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest. Neither do I argue that such people exist or are necessary.

> we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice, or we can go the other way where someone who thinks they know more than us (and you hope it's you but it doesn't have to be) gets to decide.

Or we can ditch bland cliches and false dichotomies and look at pragmatic steps that can be taken to, for instance, improve access to good information, improve education around critical thinking, and perhaps (as mentioned in other comments) re-examine things like automated algorithms that feed people ever more extreme content because it increases engagement levels, clicks and ad revenue.

But no, of course, you're right, taking any action at all is akin to fascism. Totally.