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

#391

Post by CrazyPyroLinux » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

hrh wrote: post #338

monkeybutton wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how one could look at the current state of affairs regarding rampant misinformation online and say "yeah this is the best we can do without compromising our ideals". Its not good enough.

I think that's the real issue in all of this discussion: there is simply no will. It's too hard, it's too impossible, we've decided big tech has already won, we've ceded decades of open progress in tech to moguls who don't give the fuck about us, or we're so ideological that any step to the "left" or "right" is perceived as abdicating principles of freedom. My gp was a former-Jew (thanks anti-semites) that flew over…

Ironically, someone (6f8986c3) replied to this claiming to be Jewish and sharing his experiences...and his post was flagged and removed... In a thread about censorship.

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

#392

Post by totony » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #365

totony wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not one or the other, they can both care about their product identity, but by the same stroke arbitrate morality by doing so. (Product identity takes popular morality as an input).

By that definition, they're no more the arbitrator of morality than anyone else is by doing this

What do you mean? Not anyone has the power they do

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

#393

Post by nights192 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

hrh wrote: post #387

nights192 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I don't quite understand how Reddit--a bastion for young 20-somethings, among which leftism is a major demographic, could ever be construed as a Q-Anon stronghold. I feel as though this may more reflect your fears than the state of the site, and I feel as though so reflexively writing off a population that already largely agree with you illumines the opposite argument--that reaction to speech is largely…

You seem to be projecting onto me what you think I'm projecting. ;) I didn't call it a stronghold. There are certain subreddits that were aligned. The donald before it moved, conspiracy, conservative, etc. You ever see the greatawakening subreddit where they were acting like Trump was giving secret messages in speeches and calling for executions? If that exists on a site with leftism as a major demographic, what does…

I don't believe I am, though--you are, if I'm not mistaken, asserting that it's some prolific iniquitous undercurrent which these platforms are subtending in some manner. (Which would seem somewhat misleading to me, as your assertion that r/TheDonald moved was of their own volition, rather than a banning by the site.)

Any platform harboring content will, as a matter of course, simply through the caprice of a moderator, let slip by insane opinions--but opining that these are some growing tide and, more dangerously, representative of their moderate counterparts (a la the r/Conservative subreddit, which seems constituted of largely by-the-numbers right of centers,) seems disrespectful to all parties involved and serves only to distract from your central assertion that communicating these ideas will in some way seed wanton chaos. (Comparing the ideas directly to those that precipitated the tragedy of the Holocaust.)

Edit, as I'd written my reply to a previous version of your own: I am sympathetic to the idea that seeing these more fringe ideals is unfortunate--but the argument which I believe bears greater importance is that acting in this manner against them, striking them from the whole of our public discourse and pre-empting any who could, in some way, divine inspiration from the muck is far more deleterious to discourse. It serves all too easily as a means to silence disquiet and cast a veneer of unanimity.

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

#394

Post by hrh » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

CrazyPyroLinux wrote: post #391

hrh wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the real issue in all of this discussion: there is simply no will. It's too hard, it's too impossible, we've decided big tech has already won, we've ceded decades of open progress in tech to moguls who don't give the fuck about us, or we're so ideological that any step to the "left" or "right" is perceived as abdicating principles of freedom. My gp was a former-Jew (thanks anti-semites) that flew over…

Ironically, someone (6f8986c3) replied to this claiming to be Jewish and sharing his experiences...and his post was flagged and removed... In a thread about censorship.

He didn't do it productively, he made it into a rant about political parties; you can't get useful discussion on such a loaded topic like that.

That's another part of this...you can't just say whatever you want and expect there not to be consequences.

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

#395

Post by mythrwy » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #204

kbelder wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a marketplace of ideas. That's not anything that is ever going to change. Concepts spread and are accepted or they don't. The question is only how. Is it going to be by dictate? Is a church or government or institution going to enforce which ideas spread, or is it going to be free, spreading at the level of the individual? There is no moral alternative to the free exchange of ideas. The only alternative is a…

> or is it going to be free, spreading at the level of the individual? And what are the consequences of that? When people talk about the marketplace of ideas they tend to think of good, beneficial, ideas winning out over foolishness, conspiracy and just plain inaccuracy. This has been shown up as naive lately. And if we really are talking about the "marketplace of ideas" being raw, Darwinian, strongest wins, then are…

I feel you are possibly too cynical about the ability of people to (eventually) figure things out.

Because something is posted on the internet doesn't mean large numbers of people actually believe it.

There will always be "wrong" people. That will never change. But there is a degree of wisdom in crowds.

Proper education and "good" cultural values are extremely important and we haven't done so well instilling those lately.

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

#396

Post by mythrwy » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 2:58 AM 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.

Also the shock "wrongthink" things we see on the internet might not be a representative sample of what the general public actually believes.

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

#397

Post by CrazyPyroLinux » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

hrh wrote: post #394

CrazyPyroLinux wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, someone (6f8986c3) replied to this claiming to be Jewish and sharing his experiences...and his post was flagged and removed... In a thread about censorship.

He didn't do it productively, he made it into a rant about political parties; you can't get useful discussion on such a loaded topic like that. That's another part of this...you can't just say whatever you want and expect there not to be consequences.

It was no more of a rant than yours. But you disagree so you downvote and flag.

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

#398

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #330

cratermoon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

The Catholic Church felt the same way about Gutenberg's press.

Gutenberg's first mass-produced book was a Latin Vulgate bible. The 40 remaining copies are among the most valuable books in the world. Gutenberg also printed indulgences for the church. It's fair to say the Catholic Church absolutely loved Gutenberg. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07090a.htm

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

#399

Post by rat87 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #176

betterunix2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech absolutism has not worked very well. Usenet was overrun by neonazis and all the interested discussions moved to moderated newsgroups/mailing lists/forums. A genocidal terrorist organization made effective us of various social media platforms to recruit large numbers of people to their cause and the world is a better place now that they have been banned. Right now we are missing one of our best chances to…

> Right now we are missing one of our best chances to end the COVID pandemic -- widespread vaccination -- because too many people are spreading lies about the vaccine on social media. That's mostly a trust issue. If you silence their concerns you're just going to confirm that it's a grand conspiracy theory. You have to fight misinformation with the truth, with dialog, not with censorship.

the "concerns" are mostly coming from a small number of people that you probably wont be able to convince. Better to not use your platform to amplify them

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-doze...

Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows

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

#400

Post by Nevermark » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

Big tech censorship will not solved without addressing the other half of a problem with two sides.

Without systems that promote quality, non-ideological, nuanced, original, tolerant dialogue we will keep running into the false dilemma of unmoderated cess pools or heavy handed moderation.

If we are to avoid this dilemma we need systems that organically promote constructive, tolerant and inclusive communication, and original, nuanced, intelligent, non-ideological ideas, instead of the opposite.

This cannot be done by organizations whose profit incentive is aligned with user attention instead of user satisfaction.

Those organizations benefit from degraded communication until strong moderation is both continually demanded and decried.

---

On a side note, I am so disappointed in the constant framing of ideas as right or left. It dumbs society down incredibly to view so much through the filter of two (often arbitrarily correlated, historically shifting) clusters of supposedly disjoint options.

In the real world, communes work well sometimes, markets often work better at scale but not for everything, markets require "social solutions" like non-commercial criminal and civil justice systems, education and health could be explicitly tested and then managed as investments with a pay off of lower taxes (including for the rich) instead of as charities forced on the rich, etc.

The Right/Left and associated ideologies are all self-defeating when believed in isolation and the nuances of their ragged edges, their limitations, and constructive combinations ignored.