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

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

#411

Post by acituan »

root_axis wrote: post #124
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.

> 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.

> the contents of Facebook is a corporate business decision, not a reflection on morality.

Are you suggesting business decisions are exempt from having moral consequences? Are the decision makers somehow less culpable as long as it is "just business"?

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

#412

Post by oliv__ »

hrh wrote: post #401
nights192 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 moderato…

I think the number of discussions that are off-limits should be very small and platforms should be much much more transparent. However, if allowing certain discussions means also allowing other discussions, I'm not broken up if sites like reddit were to ban a subreddit like conspiracy or at least try to reshape it to something much more objective. If the owners a property decide certain views are abhorrent, that's th…

Who decides what's off limit?

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

#413

Post by hrh »

oliv__ wrote: post #412
hrh wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the number of discussions that are off-limits should be very small and platforms should be much much more transparent. However, if allowing certain discussions means also allowing other discussions, I'm not broken up if sites like reddit were to ban a subreddit like conspiracy or at least try to reshape it to something much more objective. If the owners a property decide certain views are abhorrent, that's th…

Who decides what's off limit?

Whoever makes that decision for each platform.

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

#414

Post by emerged »

renewiltord wrote: post #44

Nah, I’m actually totally on board with big tech censorship so long as the government doesn’t act as an authority to fuse censorship across all platforms and instead acts to ensure that cartelized blackballing doesn’t happen I.e. a ban from Facebook shouldn’t cause an auto-ban from Twitter. Otherwise, I don’t care. Kick me off your platform. It’s your house and you have a right to not share it with me.

That sounds dogmatic and short sighted to me.

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

#415

Post by rndgermandude »

clucas wrote: post #231
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.

I think this gets you into really weird places really quickly. How do you not end up with a censorship department of the government, that is tasked with writing moderation rules? It probably wouldn't be called a censorship office, but that's what it would be: a government office determining what can and can't be posted on social media. This seems entirely antithetical to the idea of the first amendment. Do you have a…

The legislatures are already the "censors" and the executive the once enforcing "censorship". And there is an "appeal" process to some degree in the judiciary branch. The legislatures already write the "moderation rules" for entire societies.

Unlike the big companies who are only beholden to their share holders - and sometimes only really that one shareholder called Mark - the legislatures are beholden at least in theory to the citizens (who vote) in our democracies and at least in theory are curtailed by things like the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and equivalent constitutional documents and human rights legislation in other places.

Is leaving it to legislatures to make the rules a perfect solution? Certainly far from perfect, in my humble opinion, at least in practice with all the lobbying, corruption and self-interest going on. But it still beats leaving such extremely significant decisions of what can and cannot be said to the rulers of some big corporations.

Facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, etc will also never get tired to tell everybody that they are not publishers and do not "edit" or "curate" information on their "open" platforms and thus fall under 230 and are not liable. All the while they constantly curate and edit and purge.

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

#416

Post by oliv__ »

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" 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)."

I couldn't agree more. While no-one can deny that we are all born with different capacities (intellectual or otherwise), the argument that some people are essentially incapable of taking care of their own lives is a very slippery slope and a cynical one at that, viewing humans as incapable of learning or improving. I find it truly repulsive.

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

#417

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Isamu wrote: post #255

Does anyone remember the days when internet media companies didn’t want to censor anything? Because after all it costs more and puts them in a position where nobody is satisfied? And do you remember when they were called onto the carpet by repeated congressional committees for… Allowing copyright violations? Allowing terrorists’ messages? Allowing misinformation relating to elections? Allowing hate speech? Now censor…

> Do you remember when you were incensed by the inaction of media companies

Not even a little bit. Some of us have been ideologically consistent that censorship is not helpful.

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

#419

Post by boring_twenties »

User23 wrote: post #363
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…

> 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. This has been well known for a couple thousand years at least. Aristotle comprehensively covered it in his Rhetoric [1]. There have always been people who can only be persuaded by rhetoric and not by dialectic. If anything, ou…

Are we sure that most, or even many adults are well-versed in things they were taught in school? My experience suggests otherwise. I would honestly struggle with trigonometry or biology today, both subjects I excelled at in school. Funny enough, in my facebook feed today there are numerous people failing to answer "50+50-25*0+2+2" correctly.

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

#420

Post by ashtonkem »

PontifexMinimus wrote: post #103
ashtonkem wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’ll never happen for the same reason why basically nobody runs their own online services today. Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services, which is why dropbox beats out all the self hosted alternatives by orders of magnitude.

> Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services If it was more convenient to roll your own, then I contend that many people would, and many more would have accounts on friends' servers. The difficulty shouldn't be any higher than the cost of a Pi server and spending an hour setting it up -- all of which is perfectly possible to achieve technocally.

I believe that you are completely misguided on why people choose to not self host. I don’t think it’s about convenience, they just don’t care about the same things you care about.

There is a ton of easy to use self hosted software out there, some of which I run. Compared to their SaaS alternatives though they are extremely unpopular. For a lot of people “buy a raspberry pi” will always be too complex, too expensive (you’re competing against free), and too much long term hassle. Much easier to use the free service that everyone else uses which will be continuously updated with new features automatically.

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