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

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

#91

Post by geofft »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

OK, but, we already have social/legal/cultural norms for deciding what thoughts are bad and what thoughts are good. Here are some things I can't do via Mailchimp for either legal or cultural reasons (see also https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/):

- Advertise pornography

- Plan attacks against the United States government

- Advertise medical cures that the government doesn't approve of

- Sell counterfeit products

- Pump and dump a stock

- Reveal the identities of CIA operatives

All of these are thoughts, just as much as advocating against vaccines or for alternative cures or what-have-you are thoughts.

Who gets to decide any of the above?

Would it be a good idea to set up society such that all of the above thoughts are protected speech?

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

#92

Post by cblconfederate »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

> who gets to decide what's misinformation?

Whoever wants to. and then people can compare the competing arbiters and decide who would earn their trust. That used to work with mass media until the internet came along. Now we no longer have multiple newspapers, but "The Newspaper" , "The TV" and "The telegraph" (Twitter?), like 2-3 news sources in total which are basically politically aligned. The name of the game changed from "popularity and copy sales" to "the network effect". I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet, but perhaps at some point people will realize that the network effect is evil and it will get a bad name.

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

#93

Post by bena »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #52
StuntPope wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the anti-vax material in that post?

The part where he says that being snarky to vaccine deniers is literally just as bad as racism. > “Covidiots”, “Deniers” these are not rational counter-arguments, they’re slurs. Anybody employing them is not engaging in discourse but rather bigotry and prejudice. This is as inexcusable as racism. Over the past few years many have been challenged to examine their own biases and privilege, in certain contexts for perfe…

If the guy you responded to is not the author of that piece, he's connected to the site in some way.

I do not believe his question is in good faith, but is an attempt to deflect any criticism by instead forcing his critic to defend and explain in detail any such criticism before he even attempts to defend his half-baked ideas.

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

#94

Post by closeparen »

Barrin92 wrote: post #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 is…

That part isn’t the problem. But the part where we make it clear that by carrying the wrong speech, tech companies are sticking their necks out for antitrust enforcement and other regulatory curtailment, is a bit worrying.

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

#95

Post by bumby »

WalterBright wrote: post #90
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

Most evil in the world is perpetrated not by evil people, but by people with good intentions who believe they know what is best for others, and believe that justifies forcing it on those others. > So, who gets to decide? Each individual gets to decide for themselves.

I think you’re right in your assessment of “evil” but pragmatically wrong (or maybe just oversimplifying) the solution.

When there are large asymmetries (for example, in information or risk) regulation can be warranted. For example, most people feel regulating fissile material is prudent because the risk of it coming into the wrong hands is too high to just let unchecked freedom ring when it comes to owning it or not.

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

#96

Post by wizzwizz4 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #92
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #75

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinio…

> who gets to decide what's misinformation? Whoever wants to. and then people can compare the competing arbiters and decide who would earn their trust. That used to work with mass media until the internet came along. Now we no longer have multiple newspapers, but "The Newspaper" , "The TV" and "The telegraph" (Twitter?), like 2-3 news sources in total which are basically politically aligned. The name of the game chan…

> I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet,

The internet, centralising… what went wrong?

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

#97

Post by achenatx »

Since the beginning of forums there have been trolls and misinformation. There has always been the option to ignore, either by not replying or by blocking an offender from their view. However my experience has been that 1) people are almost universally incapable of ignoring trolls. 2) it is somehow almost impossible for people to stomach banning a troll knowing the troll is still posting.

The closest system that seems to work is for people to downvote whatever it is they dont like and for that to cause posts to have lower priority.

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

#98

Post by WalterBright »

bumby wrote: post #95
WalterBright wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most evil in the world is perpetrated not by evil people, but by people with good intentions who believe they know what is best for others, and believe that justifies forcing it on those others. > So, who gets to decide? Each individual gets to decide for themselves.

I think you’re right in your assessment of “evil” but pragmatically wrong (or maybe just oversimplifying) the solution. When there are large asymmetries (for example, in information or risk) regulation can be warranted. For example, most people feel regulating fissile material is prudent because the risk of it coming into the wrong hands is too high to just let unchecked freedom ring when it comes to owning it or not…

The problem with fissile material is the potential for hurting others. Stopping hurt of others is a reasonable function of government.

Legal adults, however, have a fundamental right to hurt themselves.

Yes, I know there are grey areas.

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

#99

Post by bena »

tzs wrote: post #66
zug_zug wrote: 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.

It would be funnier if it weren't so common. Everything is a cudgel to people like him. Fallacies exist, not to introspect on one's own arguments, but to assail arguments you disagree with. Data exists only so long as it supports your conclusion and any data to the contrary or supports other conclusions is wrong. Never defend, always attack.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #30
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #2

There was another submission a few minutes ago in the same light. It linked to an article about how Big Tech companies are censoring doctors and decide what is accurate medical information. It was removed.

Just to be clear, when you see [flagged] on a submission it means that users flagged it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

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