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Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

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Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#101

Post by xadhominemx »

naasking wrote: post #70
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose to the extent these channels of communication recruit and radicalise, if they are shut down they will not be able to recruit and radicalise. The act of shutting them down might infuriate regular users of these channels, but they’re already radicalised anyway.

There is little evidence that radicalization happens online [1]. It seems to require in-person contact to really take root. [1] https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a...

This “study” has been proven to be obviously and demonstrably incorrect in the years since it was published. The authors should retract.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#103

Post by leetcrew »

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

there's at least one major reason to be skeptical of that result, and they mention it in their limitations section.

what they did was create a lexicon of hate speech terms from two large subs that were banned. they then counted the frequency of those terms in other subs after the ban. they found that usage of those terms dropped substantially, and concluded that the bans were effective at reducing hate speech.

if you're familiar with the dynamics of these sorts of subs, the problem with this approach should be fairly obvious. these subs tend to develop their own set of specific terms/memes (hate-related or otherwise). it may be the case that the bans were effective at reducing hate speech across the whole site. but it's also possible that the same people are still posting the same stuff coded differently. this study is far from the final word on the matter.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#104

Post by Darmody »

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

Then r/politics should be banned but it's one of the biggest subreddits instead.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#105

Post by wutbrodo »

y4mi wrote: post #28
wutbrodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the short term, I don't see how we force them to host actively harmful content without recategorizing their role in society. This recent flip from "Facebook et al aren't doing enough, put the screws on them" to "we can't force Facebook not to censor" is quite disingenuous. These companies and their founders are famously liberal, and were dragged kicking and screaming into ever more heavy-handed moderation, by bo…

They already were at that point, regardless of what people claim. Facebook had the ability to paint whatever picture they wanted as truth by controlling what their users saw at what time. And they utilized it proudly long before COVID to increase engagement.

Sure, and long before Covid, that was a valid (and much-expressed) criticism of them, as well as a general criticism of using non-federated platforms.

But expanding explicitly into deciding what users are allowed to see and express to each other is a million times worse than the type of banal malevolence that arises from "show people what they like to see".

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#106

Post by rjbwork »

N00bN00b wrote: post #90
faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

I'm being censored on Reddit myself. I'm not really sure why exactly. I suspect it has to do with having a NSFW tag on my account (that I didn't put there) that I'm afraid to turn off, because of the warning that's next to that button and it doesn't explain what "swearing" is exactly and if I turn it off and write "fuck" I might get banned. My account provides a lot of help to other people, it's highly valued by the…

I don't think I've ever seen an account with an NSFW tag/flair. Posts? Yeah. Subreddits? Yup. Possibly a flair for your user on a particular subreddit added by a mod for some reason? Sure. But not accounts. Can you link to this tag?

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#107

Post by commandlinefan »

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

> Banning hate communities does work though [0]

That's like saying banning smoking in the park reduces smoking because nobody's smoking in the park any more.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#108

Post by simonh »

inglor_cz wrote: post #79
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose to the extent these channels of communication recruit and radicalise, if they are shut down they will not be able to recruit and radicalise. The act of shutting them down might infuriate regular users of these channels, but they’re already radicalised anyway.

If ISIS can recruit in person by talking to vulnerable people in the right mosques, surely other extremists have backup channels as well.

But surely fewer channels means fewer recruits? Ultimately it's about what kind of content these platforms want to publish though.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#109

Post by stale2002 »

ggggtez wrote: post #15
BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

> You want the government to start mandating that a company

There is already an established history of requiring certain large communication platforms, to act a certain way.

They are called common carrier laws, and already apply to things like the telephone network.

Sure, they don't currently apply to other things, but the law could be updated, so that they do.

Philosophically, common carrier laws are uncontroversial, and already apply to major communication platforms, so you don't get to pretend like this is unprecedented.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#110

Post by jaywalk »

joshuamorton wrote: post #89
jaywalk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not a matter of most people being enemies of free speech I disagree. If you believe in censoring opinions and ideas, you do not believe in free speech. Period.

What makes something an opinion or an idea versus a threat or an obscenity?

"Someone should kill (some public figure)" - opinion/idea

"I'm going to kill (some public figure) tomorrow at (some event)" - threat

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