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Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

bombthrower.com

61–70 of 264 posts

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#61

sometimes I wonder how people and politicians would react to a user-friendly decentralized and distributed social network with strong crypto in the right places and no hierarchy. if such a thing were ever made, it would be very difficult to monitor or moderate.

It'll immediately fill up with pirated content, porn, porn of dubious legality, spam, and harassment, ensuring that all the normies would stay on Facebook.

It'll be a social network for people who were banned from all the other social networks, which is not a great town to live in.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#62

sometimes I wonder how people and politicians would react to a user-friendly decentralized and distributed social network with strong crypto in the right places and no hierarchy. if such a thing were ever made, it would be very difficult to monitor or moderate.

That's what Mastodon is. It looks good and is about as easy to sign up for as it gets with a federated network. I don't think there's much demand for it. A lot of people seem to overestimate how relevant decentralization is to the vast majority of users.

The inherent complications or disadvantages of decentralization aren't worth it for most people.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#63
post #8

I remain confused as to why anyone thinks they have unlimited first amendment rights on social media. It sounds a lot like thinking one has first amendment rights at a private employer. Let's clear this up right now. TLDR: you don't unless you explicitly do. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/setting-the-record-straigh... Edit: keep bringing those freethinker(tm) downvotes. It won't change the law one bit, but I guess…

> Edit: keep bringing those freethinker(tm) downvotes Sauce. Goose. Edit: Maybe you should start your own tech news site. Or if that's too hard, why don't you apply to work at YC and work your way up to a position where you control the moderation for this site? Once again: Sauce. Goose.

You're assuming I'm not okay with the content moderation of Hacker News. You should never assume.

If anything you should jump with joy at the rights of people who disagree with this article to flag it and at your right to register discontent without any substantive argument as to why you are registering your discontent with but a simple down vote.

That's freedom of speech in action! And while my tone here is sarcastic, I believe sincerely that this moderation system is currently superior to any of the ham fisted bad AI deployed on either of the two leading social media sites.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#64

I think this article spot-on. In my opinion, there is very little (but not zero) actual misinformation on the Internet. Most of what we call “misinformation” is an influence campaign by one side, which is thoroughly disliked by the opposing side. When Big Tech labels something “misinformation” they are essentially taking one side or the other on the issue at hand.

This comment shows the power of disinformation — pure lies like “the election was stolen” or “vaccines cause autism” if repeated enough become “differences of opinion” with two different “sides.”

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#65
Not sure if there's a more eloquent name for these kinds of "throw enough shit and hope some of it sticks" arguments but the article is very confused, from claiming ad hominem attacks are as bad as racism, to ranting about millenials and throwing in WMD's in Iraq for good measure.

The actual key issue is somewhere in the middle of that article:

>"When tech companies take it upon themselves to arbitrate what is or isn’t misinformation, or taking action based on events that occur outside of their own platforms what they are doing, at its core, is adjudicating international law"

No, it isn't. It's a private company determining how and who it conducts business with. Being a 'patrician' of your own property is completely fine and in fact a basic right, and if you don't like Mailchimp's content policies, go to a competitor.

Unless someone explains to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with, I don't want to read any essay length pieces any more about the Gulag archipelago, Orwell or how his friend being cancelled by Mailchimp is like being stuck in Soviet Russia.

And to preempt the inevitable "but they're so large!". This is not an indicator of anything. Tech companies are large yes, but competitors are, as Google actually correctly put it at one point, one click away. Size is not an indicator of market power, inability to chose alternatives is.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#66
post #35

I'm also gonna flag this, after careful deliberation. I'm gonna leave a comment, because I'm not the shadow powers that be, I'm just a dude who thinks this is an incohesive rambling that's a waste of everybody's time and, despite the promising title, ultimately rehashed flame-baity non-tech non-news.

It was kind of amusing that in his section giving examples of what he said were various logical fallacies in the "vast majority of all media narrative around COVID-19" he committed several of those same fallacies, plus a few more.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#67
post #61

sometimes I wonder how people and politicians would react to a user-friendly decentralized and distributed social network with strong crypto in the right places and no hierarchy. if such a thing were ever made, it would be very difficult to monitor or moderate.

It'll immediately fill up with pirated content, porn, porn of dubious legality, spam, and harassment, ensuring that all the normies would stay on Facebook. It'll be a social network for people who were banned from all the other social networks, which is not a great town to live in.

it could, but the internet in general is like this and everyone still uses it. imagine if user/content discoverability is impossible without a fingerprint or token.

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#68

I think this article spot-on. In my opinion, there is very little (but not zero) actual misinformation on the Internet. Most of what we call “misinformation” is an influence campaign by one side, which is thoroughly disliked by the opposing side. When Big Tech labels something “misinformation” they are essentially taking one side or the other on the issue at hand.

> there is very little (but not zero) actual misinformation on the Internet. It’s not the amount to take issue with but the spread of its influence. Anti-vaccine ideology was given a platform by big tech and now we have an endemic disease because folks believe that nonsense and let it hold sway over their medical decisions. Edit: for folks voting this down I’d be interested in a rebuttal or at least an explanation of…

I have downvoted you because you seem to believe that if there were no anti-vaccine sentiment, SARS-2 would not exist, which is patently absurd

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#69
post #23

The title's been editorialized: Actual title is "When dissent is misinformation, fallacies become facts"

I think the title is distasteful, but the title tag of the article matches the hn title and is also the first title displayed above the fold (on a mobile browser, at least).

Re: Big Tech are supposed to be the plumbers, not patricians of internet discourse

#70

Not sure if there's a more eloquent name for these kinds of "throw enough shit and hope some of it sticks" arguments but the article is very confused, from claiming ad hominem attacks are as bad as racism, to ranting about millenials and throwing in WMD's in Iraq for good measure. The actual key issue is somewhere in the middle of that article: > "When tech companies take it upon themselves to arbitrate what is or is…

> [explain] to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with

The explanation for this is the same explanation for why eminent domain exists. If you own a piece of land that will be in the middle of a busy road, in the US you likely can't construct that part of the road yourself and charge people or arbitrarily restrict people from using it - you likely will have to sell it to the US government.

I'm not trying to argue about if this is the ideal way to do things, but the more society views tech companies owning platforms like landowners owning parts of roads, the more government control.

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