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Nobel Peace laureates blast tech giants and warn against rising authoritarianism

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

#191

Post by chiefalchemist »

christophilus wrote: post #150
chiefalchemist wrote: post #139

Has Nobel bar been lowered? I can't tell if this is a misunderstanding of the current state of the world, hypocrisy, or a combination of both. The State (as well as traditional Media), regardless of country, is losing its power and influence. Big Tech knows more and thus is able to influence more. The USA and other "democracies" are not immune to this shift. If nothing else, Covid has swung the pendulum back a bit, o…

When was the bar high for the Peace prize? It’s seemed like a misnomer for a long time. Someone else mentioned Arafat and Kissinger being notorious examples.

Good point. Obama is worth adding as well.

But aside from that flaw, the rest is ok.

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

#192

Post by spurgu »

seany wrote: post #120
markvdb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friendlier reading. Social media algorithms amplify whatever is most profitable to amplify. Unfortunately, amplifying sh t flinging turns out to be the most profitable. Social media companies have encoded this preference into their algorithms from the very beginning and optimised - a/b tested- for profitability along the way. Social media are deliberately hiding gems under piles of - pardon my french- sh t.…

You can say shit on the internet...

Fuck that. We're mostly adults here. You can say whatever you want as long as you're not being a dick.

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

#193

Post by klyrs »

pessimizer wrote: post #122
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…

> I don't care if someone was a felon or you think they're not informed enough (who decided that?). I don't even care if somebody is currently in prison; I think every prison needs a polling place and facilities for on-site journalists/reporters who are covering what is going on inside. If your elections could be significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, you live in a failed state.

> If your elections could be significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, you live in a failed state.

The prisoners make up about 0.5% of the population of the US. That's bigger than the margins we saw in several swing states in the last few elections.

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

#194

Post by thoraway66 »

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?

If the content leads to destabilizing social life for the majority, passing laws that give government control of peoples health, advocates for violence, then yeah.

Freedom from some other twats mental illness means more to me than their freedom to be a twat.

Stop oversimplifying like a child. There are real impacts to enabling systemic bias.

If you want moral relativism because maybe subjugating people out of your view is ok, why waste effort when you’re the cohort being abused?

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

#195

Post by shkkmo »

F6F6FA wrote: post #77
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…

How can you have integrity of the justice system if you don't have integrity of facts? What you call torture, is the isolation and lack-of-stimulus we put all prisoners through. This treatment is not specific to harass Assange, but Assange and his team wants special treatment specific to Assange. Assange is different in many ways. A journalist normally does not convince a suicidal army recruit in Iraq to search the l…

> What you call torture

It has been called torture by a large number of people, including Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. You can dispute the definition, but it has a strong basis in international law.

> A journalist normally does not convince a suicidal army recruit in Iraq to search the local network for more encrypted files he and his team can crack themselves.

Journalists do a wide variety of things, sometimes those things are unethical, that doesn't stop them from being journalists.

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

#196

Post by lostmsu »

toss1 wrote: post #177
lostmsu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is censorship by definition. The question here is if this form of censorship is currently permitted or not permitted by law, and if it should or should not be permitted by law.

No, it is an editorial decision. When a newspaper editor decides a story has insufficient credible sources, or lacks any of a variety of qualities that constitute good and responsible journalism, and so does not publish or broadcast it today, that is an editorial decision, it is not censorship. When an algorithm or human decides that a story has the same qualities, or that it has insufficient 'engagement metrics', an…

I guess you missed this debacle:

> There are also a few websites, whose entire domain is banned in Facebook Messenger. It was discussed here previously. thedonald.win is a political example of such censorship.

Besides, "no, IT is a X" is not a valid counterargument to "IT is a Y" unless "is a" is a relationship of IFF (which it is not in this case) or X and Y do not intersect (which they do).

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

#197

Post by lostmsu »

krapp wrote: post #175
lostmsu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you theory is exceptionally hard to disprove, as someone would have to come up with a huge number of individual examples to have "statistical significance". There are also a few websites, whose entire domain is banned in Facebook Messenger. It was discussed here previously. thedonald.win is a political example of such censorship. I think The Pirate Bay links are banned in Facebook itself.

>Then you theory is exceptionally hard to disprove, as someone would have to come up with a huge number of individual examples to have "statistical significance". It isn't my theory. The right claims the entirety of social media has been engaged in an orchestrated conspiracy to purge non-leftist speech from their platforms in favor of pushing a radical socialist agenda for years, and that this is so widespread that i…

> And I'd bet dollars to donuts something other than mere political speech was involved in each case. I can think of reasons why Facebook wouldn't want links to pirated software on its platform other than political bias, for instance.

You chose to ignore the part about thedonald.win, that basically disproves your point.

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

#198

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

prohobo wrote: post #107
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private platforms can choose not to amplify hateful shit.

As in stop pouring gasoline on pathological behavior (attention hijacking, emotional triggering, propaganda, etc.) through dark patterns/algorithms? Or censor everyone who has heterodox opinions? You should make a distinction here, because I think most people assume you mean censorship.

Both. If you don't like the way these platforms moderate then don't use them. I don't.

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

#199

Post by shkkmo »

toss1 wrote: post #91
anjbe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite free speech laws, it has always, and under pretty much every legal system, still been illegal to utter certain types of speech, such as yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, or inciting riot. It is never absolutely free. And that sentiment—that very example, even—has been used to justify expansive restrictions on speech that nobody would or should put up with today, such as opposing the military draft. “Whe…

Of course that sentiment (against yelling "FIRE!") has been misused, just as with any sentiment. Similarly, the "No Censorship Ever!" sentiment is being abused to justify spreading weaponized dezinformatsiya at massive scale and speed, resulting in literally killing people (starting w/deluded COVID victims and Rohinga muslims,+++), for profit. That is THE POINT here - that it can not be absolute in either direction,…

> Of course that sentiment (against yelling "FIRE!") has been misused, just as with any sentiment.

Except in this case, the origin of that phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a US Supreme Court Case in 1919 that upheld the prosecution of of an anti-war protestor for pamphleting against the draft. This is the approach to free speech that is being referenced when people use this phrase in argument.

> Similarly, the "No Censorship Ever!" sentiment is being abused to justify spreading weaponized dezinformatsiya at massive scale and speed, resulting in literally killing people (starting w/deluded COVID victims and Rohinga muslims,+++), for profit.

For someone arguing against absolutism, you see to think in very absolutist terms about supporters of free speech. Very few advocates of free speech advocate for no restrictions on speech.

Censorship should not be the first tool you reach to do deal with misinformation. Algorithmic censorship carries huge risks and can cause great damage, much like algorithmic amplification.

Censoring alleged misinformation and propaganda is a common and widely used tactic of authoritarian governments around the world. Normalizing that censorship makes it easier for am authoritarian leaning administration to push us in that direction. It is extremely dangerous.

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

#200

Post by throwawaylinux »

smt88 wrote: post #168
throwawaylinux wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian content? Would questioning the validity of an election be an example of it?

Questioning the validity of an election would not be an example. Saying that all elections are rigged unless my guy wins, threatening election workers, etc. -- that is authoritarian.

So basically what the democrats and corporate media did from 2016 to 2020. Or is it that you/they are the deciders of exactly what constitutes bad behavior and by some incredible coincidence they always happen to define it so precisely and arbitrarily as to not be subject to it themselves?

That's a great way to not be authoritarian and anti democratic I guess, is to anoint yourself the decider of what is authoritarian and anti demicratic. Especially when you can move the goal posts around as necessary. How about inventing wild conspiracy theories, lying to voters, and recruiting your corporate media allies to spread these baseless claims that your political opponents are traitors who colluded with spooky foreign enemies to gain power?

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