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

#281

Post by verdverm » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #228

justbored123 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tells you that "marketplace of ideas" is a dumb idea, because we already have proved a million times that people are not the rational creatures that we were sold we were for a long time. We are smart apes, but apes none the least: emotionally driven by our limbic system, very tribal and status seeking. Prone to rationalize all these basic impulses in a million different ways creating the illusion of rational ind…

Or that a few algorithms created by a few companies does not constitute anything remotely resembling a marketplace.

People can choose to get their information from places other than the large platforms. To me, the "marketplace" is the internet as a whole. If people choose to stay on the platform, is it not similar to choosing CNN and not ever looking at Fox? In the end, people have many options but choose to limit which options they engage with

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

#282

Post by version_five » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

anyonecancode wrote: post #269

version_five wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've bumped into the exact same problem that exists with our democracy. Do you want our future determined by a few well-informed, rational people? Or do you want it determined by an ignorant, short-sighted mass? Isn't this an argument for limiting the power we give to those in power? It's unrealistic to think that only people who are right will be in charge (I doubt I need to give examples). The realistic thing i…

Yes, but the tricky part here is that "those in power" is far more than just those in government. As this very thread topic itself demonstrates, there are plenty of people and organizations that are not the government that have a large amount of power. In a democracy, we have a way to limit the power of our government -- but what's the way to do that for those in power who are not in government? The traditional appro…

This is a very good point (it's my view that government has abdicated a lot of the power it did have in recent years and tech has filled the void, but that's another story). When I say "those in power", I mean the broad interpretation, not just government.

I agree that we need norms that limit any concentration of power. We've had anti-monopoly laws on the books for 130 years that serve a valid purpose. We may need to look at more laws to deal with recent constructs, I.e. platforms. I can see a superficial contradiction between not wanting government power, and giving government the power to break up monopolies or platforms. But if the overall goal is a restriction on how power can be concentrated, it's still in keeping with the idea of limiting what "those in power" can do.

I'm sure I've missed something. I definitely take your point.

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

#283

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

pueblito wrote: post #46

pjc50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This applies to policing in general of all kinds? Isn't this literally an "abolish the police" argument? After all, imagine the police used against you in the worst possible way ..

Surely one can conceive of effective ways to limit to damage the police can do to people short of abolishing the police. For example, disarm the police and they can’t shoot you.

[deleted]

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

#284

Post by jsnell » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

claytoneast wrote: post #249

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…

What's wrong with: anything a user can do on your app in the interface must also be doable via API call by that user. You don't have to map everything so the platform interactions are the same, simply make them equal-access via API call. It seems flawless to me but I also only spent the time I took to type this thinking about it, so it may be 98% flawed.

Your solution doesn't address at the problem the article was describing. The stated problem is the "censorship" by tech companies. Allowing posting via API rather than just a user interface does nothing to solve that. If it doesn't solve the problem, why are we doing it again?

Your solution creates the new problem that normal users don't understand what access they're granting to an API. Every API you expose is a tool for an unscrupulous app to exfiltrate data about you or your contacts. It's an avenue for sending spam. It's an avenue for monetizing your account's reputation by taking actions such as liking content, following/subscribing channels to boost their engagement numbers, scraping content that your contacts had not shared publicly.

It makes abuse-fighting much harder, since you can no longer trust the application to collect any kind of bot detection signals, and since huge tons of user interactions will be getting artifically concentrated at a few API gateways.

And finally, while nobody has a right to their business model, it's maybe useful to consider what the implications would be. It basically makes ad-supported services impossible, since somebody will inevitably implement an ad-free client for the service. (Or even worse, a client that just shows their own ads instead). Do you think we're really willing to go back to a world where the only free (as in money) services are ones that are being subsidized?

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

#285

Post by Nursie » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #279

Nursie wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. You missed that I was drawing a distinction between what is commonly thought of as the market place of ideas - in which rational discourse and honest debate enables people to learn, compare, agree and disagree, find greater truths, learn, etc…

> with actual vaccine science Who decides what that is? Plenty of actual scientists publish papers in actual science journals that conflict with each other and with official public health advice. The whole vaccines cause autism idea came from what looked like actual vaccine science. Knowledge isn't actually that sure. Sometimes the authorities are wrong. Remember when bread was at the bottom of the food pyramid? > bu…

So there’s no way at all, to your mind, to distinguish millions of shitposts about “The covid vaccine causes infertility, and contains 5G chips” from, for instance, genuine risk information?

We truly are swimming in a world in which nothing is true. Or you are anyway.

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

#286

Post by Torwald » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #250

devwastaken wrote: post #78

I'm not concerned. If I ran a platform serving out qanon BS I'd ban and log their details. Terrorists don't get protections from a private company, nor should they. People don't understand just how insane these groups of people have become. Without FBI interference these terrorist groups would have murdered multiple state governors and carried out plenty of bombings. I'm not going to "be neutral" to such people. 1. G…

>Plenty more that I can't remember off the top of my head. You should familiarize yourself with the rest of post-War 20th century history in the United States, then. Far, far more deadly and dangerous "conspiracy theories" existed before the internet and caused actual deaths of sitting politicians. It's the Presentism of all of this that is making people forget how pernicious it is, letting these powerful organizatio…

> Far, far more deadly and dangerous "conspiracy theories" existed before the internet and caused actual deaths of sitting politicians.

Care to name an example?

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

#287

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #278

amelius wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice One of the problems is that we don't all get the same information. > 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. Frankly, the latter idea is ridiculous to me. You've bumped into the exact same problem that exists with our democracy. Do…

> Do you want our future determined by a few well-informed, rational people? Or do you want it determined by an ignorant, short-sighted mass? "I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by verdverm » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #244

Enragement equals engagement. If that's the world you want, good news, that's the world we have now. And the magic of AI and recommender systems has disrupted that old and stupid model of if "it bleeds it leads" to get you outraged faster and with far less effort than it used to take in the old and stupid days. But that's not the world I want to live in personally and if it takes some imperfect even sometimes ham-fis…

Perhaps our generation must suffer during an evolutionarily difficult time so that we do not end up in 1984?

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

#289

Post by mousepilot » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #167

mousepilot wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still there are folks that cannot deal with anything outside of Facebook, ie., cannot run a regular browser because they simply don't know how. We have CLEARLY reached such technical ineptitude.

Ineptitude might be the correct description assuming that one should have a certain level of tech savvy to participate online but should that really be the case? Apple not long ago ran a "what's a computer?" ad because participation in the use of computer powered tools no longer requires an understanding of how those tools work under the hood. While that might be disappointing to us geeks, for most people it's a good…

Thats the point. The parent comment bemoans this because there are of course other ways to stay in touch. I'm just pointing out that for some folks Facebook is their internet. Given this, are we saying Facebook is now subject to being a utility that can't boot people off?

I mean you won't get stranded with your truck because you made an off hand comment you didn't realize would offend someone right? (Heh unless you're riding in someone else's truck)

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

#290

Post by markoman » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #278

amelius wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice One of the problems is that we don't all get the same information. > 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. Frankly, the latter idea is ridiculous to me. You've bumped into the exact same problem that exists with our democracy. Do…

> Do you want our future determined by a few well-informed, rational people? Or do you want it determined by an ignorant, short-sighted mass? "I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."

Instead of making a snarky smear upon the faculty of what is probably the most coveted university in the world, why don't you just come out and make an informed argument on what you find so wrong with them?

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Issac Asimov