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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)

#221

Post by rscoots »

cratermoon wrote: post #199
drooby wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines what speech is harmful or wrong? Democracy is a system in which your party loses elections. And when they lose, do you want them dictating what you can and can’t say? No one has a monopoly on the truth. In fact, our greatest scientific discoveries (the closest thing we have to Truth) have been forged by “offensive speech”. The ability to offend actually helps minimize misinformation.

> Who defines what speech is harmful or wrong? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28698642

I notice those lists do not include the exact same materials.

So you've proven the point that there is debate to be had on these matters.

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

#222

Post by blitzar »

fallingknife wrote: post #155
Pils wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That research was published by a libertarian think tank in 2013. Since then, there have been numerous examples of lone wolf terrorist attacks where the perpetrators appeared to have no offline contacts with extremist groups. See: New Zealand shooting, Pittsburgh shooting, etc.

There were also lone wolf mass shootings before the internet, so what does this prove?

That radicalisation does not exclusively happen face to face and that it can be conducted on line, by newsletter, by book, by carrier pigeon.

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

#223

Post by PerkinWarwick »

nescioquid wrote: post #164
PerkinWarwick wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you just want to dismiss the observation. I'm not and I'm willing to give it a chance. I'm just not seeing a strong correlation. What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. Put together a group, grab some of that sweet power through mass. The more ambitious ones fight their way up the power structure. Special bonus points if you can take over an existing seat of power.

> What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.

That's a good point.

Perhaps the temptation is to choose philosophies that have the appearance of power. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll of your boss, Mr. Scrooge for example.

Some acquaintances of mine did that at their job once and it worked a charm. The boss was permanently off on sick leave within a month. Maybe there's something to it.

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

#224

Post by fighterpilot »

notchFilter54 wrote: post #211
fighterpilot wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you consider the town square a centre of inspiration for mass shootings" Before the internet, yes, definitely. Maybe not mass shootings specifically because that seems to be a recent fashion trend after Columbine, but violent extremism in general. How do you think Hitler managed to secure over 40 percent of the democratic vote in the early 1930s? How did Osama Bin Laden recruit extremists who were willing to put…

I appreciate your honesty in believing the public square is a center of inspiration for mass shootings. I believe quite the opposite. It has been a place for the public to plan self defense, both to organize themselves in defense from natural disaster, hostile forces, wildfires, and anyone who seeks to do them harm. It is a place for the public to engage in the marketplace of ideas and inspirations, which ultimately…

Hitler convinced almost half the country to vote for him because of speech that drummed up resentments stemming from the Versailles Treaty and the depression, channeling and anthropomorphizing those resentments towards Jews, the lugenpresse, the military establishment, and so on. So you've missed my point, which is that town square offline speech can directly cause pathological outcomes when it is weaponized by bad faith actors.

The belief that sunlight is the best disinfectant is nothing more than empty sloganeering and it flies in the face of everything we know about social contagion and the willingness of humans to be led astray by tribal hatred.

Town square offline speech didn't lead specifically to mass shootings historically only because this particular medium of terrorism is a modern fashion trend, so it follows that it's a phenomenon that's going to be motivated online more than offline in the modern context.

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

#225

Post by _qbjt »

Some of the comments in this thread seem intentionally bad-faith or ignorant to how much hate and abuse actually exists on these platforms. The Internet fucking sucks. I stopped using social media because I'm trans and I don't feel like there's a place for me online anymore. No matter where I go, including large platforms like Reddit and Twitter, I'm inevitably subjected to someone expressing their grievances about trans people or the LGBTQ community. There's a part of me that wants to reply and give my perspective, but it's like I can't even have a voice online without the fear of people belittling and harassing me, sending me abusive messages, trying to doxx me, telling me to kill myself or scouring through my profile to try to find whatever they can add to their "cringe compilation" or Kiwifarms thread about how degenerate and disgusting trans people are. My mental health is more important than participating in the shitfest that is online discourse so I just avoid it. I post on Hacker News and a few other places where people are generally respectful, but other than that I've given up on having conversations with strangers online.

I'm an artist and a software dev, I have a lot that I want to share with the world but I don't think I'll ever get the chance to. This world is cruel and these online platforms and social media algorithms amplify that to the point where it feels like the only way to win the game is to not play. Personally, I don't feel one way or the other about online censorship at this point. I think social media has ironically ushered in a culture of anti-social behavior and maybe it's time to move on to something else.

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

#226

Post by dang »

PerkinWarwick wrote: post #223
nescioquid wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.

That's a good point. Perhaps the temptation is to choose philosophies that have the appearance of power. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll of your boss, Mr. Scrooge for example. Some acquaintances of mine did that at their job once and it worked a charm. The boss was permanently off on sick leave within a month. Maybe there's something to it.

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

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

#227

Post by notchFilter54 »

fighterpilot wrote: post #224
notchFilter54 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your honesty in believing the public square is a center of inspiration for mass shootings. I believe quite the opposite. It has been a place for the public to plan self defense, both to organize themselves in defense from natural disaster, hostile forces, wildfires, and anyone who seeks to do them harm. It is a place for the public to engage in the marketplace of ideas and inspirations, which ultimately…

Hitler convinced almost half the country to vote for him because of speech that drummed up resentments stemming from the Versailles Treaty and the depression, channeling and anthropomorphizing those resentments towards Jews, the lugenpresse, the military establishment, and so on. So you've missed my point, which is that town square offline speech can directly cause pathological outcomes when it is weaponized by bad f…

And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

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

#228

Post by jancsika »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #151
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare: "My followers, I order you to go out and kill this man" vs "I wonder if the world would be a better place if this man did not exist" However you define free speech, anyone can order someone killed while being acceptable to your rules.

Defining free speech is easy, adjudicating it is sometimes hard. In this case, a threat requires the intent to compel (note that compulsion != persuasion). Determining whether "I wonder if the world would be a better place if this man did not exist" is intended to compel or not is harder. But most free speech absolutists will be pretty content if we get to a point where the thrust of the free speech debate concerns i…

> But most free speech absolutists will be pretty content if we get to a point where the thrust of the free speech debate concerns itself with outlier cases like this one (rather than "is it 'hate speech' to criticize woke excesses?" or "to use a Chinese word that sounds vaguely like an English racial slur?").

In your absolutist world how do you stop the trolls on the current incarnation of social media from flooding the medium with references to these outlier cases until it triggers censorship?

When those same trolls continue pentesting the medium until they trigger censorship on less direct references, you're going to be left with examples functionally equivalent to the ones you are comparing to above.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

notchFilter54 wrote: post #227
fighterpilot wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler convinced almost half the country to vote for him because of speech that drummed up resentments stemming from the Versailles Treaty and the depression, channeling and anthropomorphizing those resentments towards Jews, the lugenpresse, the military establishment, and so on. So you've missed my point, which is that town square offline speech can directly cause pathological outcomes when it is weaponized by bad f…

And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by fighterpilot »

notchFilter54 wrote: post #227
fighterpilot wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler convinced almost half the country to vote for him because of speech that drummed up resentments stemming from the Versailles Treaty and the depression, channeling and anthropomorphizing those resentments towards Jews, the lugenpresse, the military establishment, and so on. So you've missed my point, which is that town square offline speech can directly cause pathological outcomes when it is weaponized by bad f…

And your argument is that if the venues hosting Hitler's speeches had Reddit's moderation policies then Hitler would not have been elected?

You're trying to draw analogies between modern technology and the old town square. You should stop doing that because instant distribution to a billion people isn't the same thing as a speech to a thousand.

I provided examples of speech in the old town square leading to pathological outcomes, but we are in a very different regime now and analogizing too much isn't helpful.

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