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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

#241

Post by ralusek »

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…

And this isn't even limited to the hypothetical. Just in the last year we've had completely egregious examples of abuse of misinformation classifications. An article about Hunter Biden's laptop, posted by the oldest newspaper in the country, the New York Post, weeks before the election, got them banned from Twitter and Facebook. Any mention of Hunter Biden's laptop would get the post flagged as misinformation and banned.

Now, I don't care about Hunter Biden's laptop. What I do care about is that this was absolutely not misinformation. And then the same happened again for the lab-leak hypothesis. Given pants-on-fire dismissal and declared "debunked," when it wasn't then, and has been shown to very clearly not be now.

So, yes, the abuse of the authority is obvious in the hypothetical, but the relegation to the abstract isn't even necessary to condemn the legitimacy of these self-proclaimed institutions.

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

#242

Post by ralusek »

secondaryacct wrote: post #147
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 disagree: we live in societies and can vote. In my country we decided that trading, joking, lauding, repeating anything nazi can be prosecuted: so we do prosecute it, a judge decides, according to past judgment and his opinion of the law, and done. No need to give everyone the job to be clever - we can actually blacklist any opinion we dont want to see circulated and vote on it.

The problem is that you're not conceiving the boundaries of the system properly. It's best, when creating an authoritarian provision to remove liberty, to assume that the control of such an mechanism is under the control of a faction you're least aligned with. This is why the US is liberal before it's a democracy. It has meta code defining the boundaries of the democracy, and in the case of speech, asserts that the liberty to speak supersedes any democratic authority.

Obviously people looking for an expedient authoritarian mandate to limit speech within the boundaries of what they consider to be acceptable see the existence of free speech as the allowance of that which is outside their boundaries, but they don't actually understand the purpose. The purpose is a hedge against tyranny with a trade-off. People get to say horrible, stupid, counterproductive things, but your political enemies don't get to constrain your ability to express yourself.

I also don't understand why the rest of the world is so eager to see this right stripped in America...I would feel extremely claustrophobic if there was no place on earth in which free communication wasn't enshrined in law. Even if Europeans want to mandate their own speech, they still benefit from the hedge against tyranny by such a place as America existing.

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

#244

Post by tangjurine »

Barrin92 wrote: post #77
tangjurine wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [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…

Eminent domain exists because land use is exclusionary . Land owners have the ability to hamper development by exercising coercive power. If AT&T or your phone provider start to cancel you, you have a pretty good analogy. Services and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. Mailchimp however does not sit on mail-land. There is nothing that…

> [Owners of services] and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible.

I agree. But fungibility isn't a binary thing, it's a spectrum. And how society chooses to regulate goods and services also varies between extremes.

> Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine.

Owning a piece of land that will be in the middle of the road doesn't mean the government can't build a different road right? Both google and the landowner just make it harder.

> Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace.

Couldn't your arguments could be applied just as well against standard eminent domain? I feel like you are saying something analogous to: Most businesses derive their value from the goods and services they developed, not some sort of logo or piece of land they own. That's why the government shouldn't be able to take anyone's land.

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

#245

Post by raxxorrax »

acituan wrote: post #198
motohagiography wrote: post #148

I'd take it a step futher and borrow an adage to say platforms and media mainly say they are fighting misinformation to convince you that the rest of their content is meaningful. Base reality is, they all make money on selling your attention to advertisers, and they need for you to believe that your encounters with them are "real," serendipitous, and that you aren't just being managed like an animal in an existential…

I agree with your thesis in general with several nitpicks; > Sure, there are true believers who think abusing trust and technical power to shape narratives is honest and necessary work Narrative warfare exists and is not a single agent game. I am not saying this makes narrative shaping defendable , but in the absence of some meaning-making work opportunist opponents will happily fill in the vacuum. This is the slippe…

There is no Evil Incorporated®, but there are certainly moneyed interests in every major industry and countless examples of more or less directed propaganda campaigns from oil to defense contractors.

I agree with the solution though, which shouldn't rely on platform moderation whose customers are advertising and PR. The platforms won't have leverage against their own customers here.

This isn't nihilism, nihilism would be ignoring the problem. And on angle to tackle the specific problem of parties wanting to clean up the net in their purpose was the insistence on neutrality and laissez faire moderation.

I think it still is the best course but requires education like you suggested.

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

#246

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

curmudgeon22 wrote: post #221
Arainach wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. A vaccine is not an antibiotic; the presence of one does not cause virulent strains. Vaccinations trigger the body's immune response to the virus; nothing else. They provide for a more effective response faster, but do not otherwise provide any forcing function. Mutations and variants occur all the time as the virus reproduces. Variants are not a response to any vaccine; they have appeared primaril…

I think it's too soon to say yet if the vaccines encourage mutation. But my understanding is quite a few of the significant variants come from places where there was significant vaccine testing: - Brazil (Gamma) - South Africa (Beta) - India (Delta) - Alpha (UK)

The causation may be backwards here. You need a decent enough medical system both to run clinical trials, and to detect variants.

Interesting theory though, I don't think it's true right now, but potentially there may be evidence I'm not aware of.

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

#247

Post by refenestrator »

michaelmrose wrote: post #222
refenestrator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last one is a choice of descriptive words, not an objective truth. Personally, my bar for 'insurrection' involves at least one gunshot. You can differ! But it's not objective.

Insurrection defined: a violent uprising against an authority or government. They violently forced their way into our capital with the idea of intimidating the government to prevent them from handling the lawful business succession insofar as counting and acknowledging the lawfully cast electoral votes. This isn't subjective its the simple literal dictionary definition of the word.

It's an editorialization of the word. Any riot involving a fight with cops would qualify if you stretch it that far.

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

#248

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

You are refering to freedom of association and you are correct that platforms should be able to choose their customers if they want to. If they do that however, they will be held to account for their choices they make in contrast to platforms that allow more freedom of opinion. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Some people say allowing certain content is a statement of endorsement. "Silence is violence" and similar argumenents, but I disagree with that line of reasoning.

"Throwing shit at people and hoping it sticks" is something I do associate with accusations of racism to be honest.

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

#249

Post by refenestrator »

irrational wrote: post #231
refenestrator wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That last one is a choice of descriptive words, not an objective truth. Personally, my bar for 'insurrection' involves at least one gunshot. You can differ! But it's not objective.

There was a gunshot. A woman died! Why only a gun? What about the police officers that were beaten?

A gunshot by the alleged insurrection. Getting shot does not make one an organized rebellion attempt.

In a nation with as many guns as America, especially in the right wing demographic, I'd expect some shooting and a lot more organization before I upgrade from 'riot'. Insurrection is just political spin. Look at that picture with the goofball holding the speaker's podium and tell me these people were serious.

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

#250

Post by motohagiography »

raxxorrax wrote: post #245
acituan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your thesis in general with several nitpicks; > Sure, there are true believers who think abusing trust and technical power to shape narratives is honest and necessary work Narrative warfare exists and is not a single agent game. I am not saying this makes narrative shaping defendable , but in the absence of some meaning-making work opportunist opponents will happily fill in the vacuum. This is the slippe…

There is no Evil Incorporated®, but there are certainly moneyed interests in every major industry and countless examples of more or less directed propaganda campaigns from oil to defense contractors. I agree with the solution though, which shouldn't rely on platform moderation whose customers are advertising and PR. The platforms won't have leverage against their own customers here. This isn't nihilism, nihilism woul…

There is no Evil Incorporated, nor is there a conspiracy, but when you are a company who has all of them as clients, from energy, chemical, lobbyists, to pharma, defense, and political organizations, it is a who's who of really serious baddies. This is normal, except your business is shaping the attention of children and young people based on the intentions of these organizations.

I'm sure the platforms manage their ethics, but this idea that we should trust them with moral authority because they deal with evil more than anyone else should be more suspect. I think it is far more likely that they are compromised by interests than resolute defenders of principle. At the end of the day, social media companies are just euphemistic peddlars of nuanced variations of porn, and a we probably shouldn't be relying on them for judgment on the quality of public discourse.

Censorship (to say nothing of the co-ordinated censorship between platforms) is a blunt instrument with a lot of side effects, and people are surely going to start up their own version of something, I'm saying we should think a lot harder about these issues, because we really don't want to be around when people finally get sick of it and start erecting their own platforms.

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