Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#51

Post by ksec » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

kaplun wrote: post #21

karl11 wrote: post #3

Just to make sure I understand this — the argument is that in order to combat authoritarianism, Silicon Valley companies should censor more content?

The problem is not that everybody can access information. The problem is that click-bait false information is pushed by ranking algorithms more and more in front of the eyes of people who are ready to believe in them. The information bubble then is making people more and more radicalized.

All the news / post / article I read on Facebook or Twitter are retweets / forwarded by people I followed. It means ultimately I am the one who is actually selectively sourcing all these information. "ranking algorithms" just rank them in better orders.

It doesn't matter how good your blackbox algorithms are. Junk in And Junk out.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#52

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #14

whitepaint wrote: post #6

Aren't governments (especially Germany and Australia for what they are doing at the moment) way more scarier than big tech? I am not scared of Google or Facebook at all. I am, however, scared of governments. Especially seeing how the pandemic was handled and how little resistance the handling got from the citizens.

Those governments (and the ones in the US) are at least beholden to voters. Large companies have no accountability, and if they disrupt the democratic process, they have no consequences either. Mark Zuckerberg is the authoritarian ruler of an extremely powerful entity that, in some countries, is more powerful than any local government.

They're "beholden to the voters" only in an aggregated sense. Most democracies are representative, so if there's an elite consensus around an issue, it's easy to end up in a situation where a few unpopular policies get enacted or a few popular policies don't. This is ultimately too niche of a topic for many people to be single-issue voters about.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#53

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #46

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private platforms can choose not to amplify hateful shit.

who gets to decide what is "hateful shit" ?

> who gets to decide what is "hateful shit" ?

The people who are being asked to use their private resources to amplify it.

That's called freedom of speech (and freedom of the press.)

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#54

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #28

> How can you have election integrity if you don't have integrity of facts? This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts. No matter what standard you use you will have cases where reasonable people disagree. Historians argue about interpretation of facts all the time. There is no universal objective truth. You can argue that you don't need absolute integrity and just clamp down on the fringe stuff but that just s…

> This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts.

That's wrong. If the election is on November 2nd that is an objective fact.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#55

Post by gpm » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #46

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private platforms can choose not to amplify hateful shit.

who gets to decide what is "hateful shit" ?

The people choosing whether or not to repeat it. I.e. the people that make up the tech companies.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#56

Post by khazhoux » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #12

karl11 wrote: post #3

Just to make sure I understand this — the argument is that in order to combat authoritarianism, Silicon Valley companies should censor more content?

A better interpretation would be that Silicon Valley should stop algorithmically promoting anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian content.

So much emphasis on "The Algorithm" these days?

How about: the spread of dipshit articles won't stop until dipshits stop sharing articles.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#57

Post by perl4ever » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

1cvmask wrote: post #5

If they were going to give their award to a truly deserving recipient it would have been the tortured and imprisoned journalist Julian Assange who is an advocate of free speech and an independent media and voices. Instead they gave the awards deliberately to censorship advocates. It's the journalistic equivalent of giving war criminals and killers of children Nobel Peace Prizes like Kissinger and Obama. https://www.h…

I don't understand why one would be surprised at the recipients of the Peace Prize.

Alfred Nobel made his fortune from producing weapons and oil.

Rehabilitating the reputation of people responsible for vast numbers of deaths seems exactly appropriate for the Peace prize when that's its purpose from the beginning.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#58

Post by Krasnol » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

yes_man wrote: post #42

Democracy has always faced the problem that come elections, every living soul has one vote, but not every soul is equally equipped to be critical about information they are exposed to. The solution is not to inhibit freedom of thought and speech, it is to teach new generations of people to be more critical. Ultimately in the long run democracy and free societies are always more likely to triumph against authoritarian…

The problem here is that we're in a situation where those most gullible are sure that they are the most critical. As with everything in this weird world, "critical" has been peaked beyond recognition and turned onto itself. The word became meaningless in the online and later offline discourse. There isn't even a way to communicate the issue to those which needs education as every contingency for education has been co-opted into this ridiculous reality they (and ultimately we all) live in.

Unfortunately this reality is quite profitable.

As cliche as it may sound: we need an outside the box view on the whole thing and I don't even know who or what that could be which would look from outside this box we're trapped in.

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#59

Post by throwawaylinux » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #43

karl11 wrote: post #3

Just to make sure I understand this — the argument is that in order to combat authoritarianism, Silicon Valley companies should censor more content?

Private platforms can choose not to amplify hateful shit.

Hateful shit should be okay if it's directed against people you accuse of being nazis, right?

Re: Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

#60

Post by voz_ » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 11:12 PM UTC

Nobel Peace prizes? The one that Obama got for drone striking Pakistani kids? Or the one that Arafat got for bombing Israeli kids? Oh no, wait, the one that Kissinger got for bombing Vietnamese kids, must be that one, right?