Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bombthrower.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 264 posts

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

#131

Post by Ir0nMan »

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…

Until recently I thought we already settled this:

-People you believe are saying true things get to speak.

-People you believe are saying false things get to speak.

-People you believe are saying nice things get to speak.

-People you believe are saying mean things get to speak.

Everyone gets to speak. Individuals get to decide.

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

#132

Post by tzs »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #39
zozbot234 wrote: post #13

Mailchimp is "big tech" now? Can't these folks just throw a RSS feed together (hosted on the cheapest static webhost around) and tell people to subscribe to it? This is a big fat nothingburger if I ever saw one.

Because to a first approximation everyone understands, and can get, email, while maybe 5% of the population, if that, understand RSS feeds. My 80 year old aunt can read email. While I'm sure I could teach her to use RSS feeds, it would not be a task I would look foward to. And she has me. Most people don't have me, or anyone like me (or, likely, you, or the majority of other users of this site). What you're saying is…

Or they could use email but via someone other than Mailchimp, such as ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, Sendinblue, GetResponse, Moosend, EngageBay, Omnisend, Zoho, Mailjet, ConvertKit, Benchmark, AWeber, HubSpot, Constant Contact, DotDigital, Campaign Monitor, Sender, SendPulse, Klaviyo, Jilt, Autopilot, Drip, Keap, and probably many others.

Email is not like, say, Facebook where to reach someone on Facebook you need to send via Facebook. How you send email is largely irrelevant as long as you pick a provider that doesn't send so much spam that their outgoing mail gets blocked.

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

#133

Post by bumby »

WalterBright wrote: post #98
bumby wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There U.S. Constitution enumerates other powers for the government, including the power to tax and regulate commerce.

Sometimes I think people confuse what they wish/think the government role should be with what is explicitly defined within the social contract between the government and the governed.

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

#134

Post by theodorejb »

tstrimple wrote: post #101
WalterBright wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If anti-vaxxers just hurt themselves, there wouldn't be nearly as much animosity around these issues. They pose a legitimate risk to other people. Not just through direct infection of other people, but by offering themselves up as a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus.

Are you saying the vaccine only becomes effective if everyone has it? What good is it then, since we will never reach 100% vaccination?

The claim that unvaccinated people are a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus sounds like a Big Pharma talking point, rather than something with solid science behind it. My understanding is that environmental pressure results in mutated variants becoming widespread. Couldn't vaccines themselves cause this? The virus hardly mutated for a whole year, but then once inoculations became available it seems that more infectious variants are popping up left and right.

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

#135

Post by stereoradonc »

When companies market themselves as the "medium for public discourse", it is easy to cross lines between staying "neutral" or influence it the way they see fit. "Social Media" has served no useful purpose beyond generating these kind of moralistic arguments. We are better off without them.

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

#136

Post by umvi »

Ir0nMan wrote: post #131
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…

Until recently I thought we already settled this: -People you believe are saying true things get to speak. -People you believe are saying false things get to speak. -People you believe are saying nice things get to speak. -People you believe are saying mean things get to speak. Everyone gets to speak. Individuals get to decide.

That was until we collectively decided harm reduction is a greater cause than freedom preservation. Now any and all freedoms we previously had can be temporarily, permanently, or conditionally suspended in the name of harm reduction (saved lives, fewer offended, etc.)

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

#137

Post by devwastaken »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #129
devwastaken wrote: post #110

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. Other way around. Evil would convince you that leaded gasoline is fine, and that "good intentions" of regulating lead out of gas are evil because government power.

The architects of the really big atrocities, the holocausts, genocides and purges, argued them necessary for the greater good.

That's the excuse given, not the reason. It's like saying "evil starts with science papers" because some scientists affiliated with the nazi party published artificial information that made racism look scientific and correct.

The bigger justices, like the U.S. bill of rights - that's for the greater good. Having laws and order. That's for the greater good too. As are judges, police, government, etc. All the greater good that requires people to comply.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

gavinhoward wrote: post #111
tstrimple wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anti-vaxxers just hurt themselves, there wouldn't be nearly as much animosity around these issues. They pose a legitimate risk to other people. Not just through direct infection of other people, but by offering themselves up as a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus.

> They pose a legitimate risk to other people. This is not true, any more than it is for vaccinated people. Viruses will still spread through a fully-vaccinated population, and they will still mutate in a fully-vaccinated population. The CDC released a report [1] showing proportional numbers of cases coming from fully vaccinated people (74% of cases against 69% of the population fully vaccinated). Treating people who…

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by bobthebuilders »

axguscbklp wrote: post #85
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…

If I wanted to and could find the funds, would I in practice (as opposed to just in theory) be legally allowed to create my own financial services organization that would provide financial services like payment processing and banking to people who have been banned by other financial services providers for their theoretically legally protected speech? Honest question - I do not know the answer.

Yes. Legally you would. Now would your partners and customers and all the people who buy your products be ok with it? Hosting companies have popped up where for this exact scenario. Most businesses have a stack of (supply chain? vendors? dependencies?), and all of those people need to support you for you to stay afloat.

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

#140

Post by fighterpilot »

varelse wrote: post #113
fighterpilot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with social media companies kicking off anyone they please. I do have a problem when the lines between government and private get blurred, and a government can indirectly or directly influence the censorship decisions of private companies through threat of regulation, a revolving door, or by explicitly flagging certain posts. That's a grey area 1A violation in my mind.

When has any of this not been blurry? Tech gets all sorts of tax breaks to innovate. That's okay, but if they proactively kick people off the platform so as to head off government regulation, that's not okay? Or wait, let me guess, all tax breaks are good! How'd I do?

No, it's definitely not okay for a government to threaten a private company (through which most public discourse flows) into censoring its political opponents. It is no different in practice to a 1A violation.

The extent to which this happens at all can be debated. But the principle of the matter should be clear, if it is shown to be happening, it is certainly morally wrong, it's anti-democracy and (although it's difficult to prove in court) perhaps unconstitutional.

Here's an example of the grey area I'm taking about in my previous post. The executive branch is flagging posts for "COVID misinformation" to Facebook. We don't know who is doing the flagging or what criteria they're employing, and Facebook has an incentive to comply with the take-down requests so as to avoid potential costly regulation. The sum total of this is the government censoring speech (well, there's one layer of indirection, which is a compliant and scared Facebook) in a way that's completely unaccountable and not auditable.

Post reply on HN