Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#451

Post by kavalg » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #439

marcus_holmes wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, I wouldn't agree with you, as journalists (and here I mean real journalists) are often members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct This is a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Clearly there are professional journalists who are not adhering to the code of conduct. So clearly you will claim that they are not "real" journalists, and that journalists are only "real" journalists if they adhere to t…

> Yes, having someone champion a Flat Earth is a good thing. Groupthink is a very real danger. Just because someone thinks of absurd stuff, doesn't mean this fixes groupthink. To combat groupthink requires critical analysis, and safety - that is, the group must allow for people who make different (but still logical) points that go against the grain. However, flat earthers do not fall into this category, because they…

> I think the populous, in general, really just need to learn the scientific method, and how one discerns truths using evidence (and not fall prey to confirmation bias etc)

Good luck with that. Even at the university where I teach this looks like an uphill battle.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#452

Post by jahearn » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

exceptione wrote: post #405

bigger_inside wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be the public perception: only one side demands censorship. This isn't quite true and only shows you how well one side is at publicizing that they're being censored, which, ironically, means they're censored -less-. Palestinian accounts on facebook have been deleted for years when they were trying to report on occupation. Facebook also deleted all the accounts of Nicaraguan socialists trying to counter…

I am not sure about your reasoning. Parent is talking about vaccine opposers, while you are talking about Nicaraguan socialists and Palestinians. Could we really draw such lines?

Parent seemed to not be talking about vaccines, but that censorship only was being applied to one "side."

So this comment was intentionally describing issues that are from different sides to point out that (A) it doesn't only happen to the "right," and (B) the fact that we hear about it so much from the "right" might actually be because they're censored less. Then (C) they describe that this is potentially even an intentional pattern used by more middle-leaning "left" to justify censorship against the "right" and then leverage against their own, more radical, side.

Not necessarily defending the idea, but comment seemed relevant to the parent, to me.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#453

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

rhaksw wrote: post #99

Moderation should be fully reviewable. I made a site to do this for reddit [1]. As of this hour, user pages [2] work best because the archive service is down. Subreddit history pages [3], which show where the community and mods have disagreed the most, also still work. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq [2] https://www.reveddit.com/y/rhaksw [3] https://www.reveddit.com/v/worldnews/history

Agreed. But I suspect that places like HN reply too much on "shadow" moderation methods. Also: I think while it's understandable why you can't see who downvoted/flagged a post, I also see this a weakness when the mechanism is abused - I think that there is no "skin in the game" to flag is an issue.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#454

Post by kavalg » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #375

zriha wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists have been serving the interests of moneyed elites since well over a hundred years. It's good that they finally have some competition, even if it means that flat earthers also get a voice. Well, I wouldn't agree with you, as journalists (and here I mean real journalists) are often members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct. Random people on Facebook or influencers doesn't have tha…

> members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct Laws exist, so there are no crimes? > Thanks to investigative journalists, you have things like Pandora papers. Yes, but that’s their point - not everyone is exposing things, because the elites control the media. Do remember that the Panama Papers whistleblower got mysteriously car-bombed. Here’s a viral modern-day example: https://www.vox.com/polic…

This is scary.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#455

Post by geraneum » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #389

zriha wrote: post #331

First online media that removed editor for the homepage and put an algorithm to decide which article is more important than other (based on clicks and shares), we got Kardashians, flat earth believers and everything went sideways. As someone who is 15 years in comms, public relations and media relations, for me, influencers were journalists, not some kid with 1 million followers on Instagram or TikTok. Now they are i…

I'm watching "Dopesick" at the moment, and I'm beginning to understand why people don't trust medical professionals and Big Pharma. Any call to trust journalists should be met with hoots of derision - I've worked with journalists and they (as a general rule) are not interested in "the truth", or in balance, but in creating a good story that will generate interest and go over well on Twitter. There is a fundamental co…

In most dictatorships, many journalists are usually horribly mistreated. They get jailed, “commit” suicide, or vanish i.e. NK, Iran, Belarus, etc.

Unfortunately those governments’ tone and narrative is similar to what you’re saying here (based on my personal experience). Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying you are the same or you have the same intentions. It’s a different context. But this narrative, without rooting out the cause, leads to the rise of those dictatorships.

My point is that the problem is the system that incentives a group of people to game it as, you rightly mentioned, in order to be more successful. They have to get the most viewers, reader, clicks, impressions, you name it. It’s all the same.

The ways things work lead to emergence of toxic “journalism” and rotten social media platforms. These are side effects.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#456

Post by dontcare007 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

cloutchaser wrote: post #250

givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear leads to a loss of freedom. When we're afraid, we give power to politicians that promise deal with it swiftly. Pre-pandemic, the right had a monopoly on fear-based politicking. Then the pandemic hit and the left finally got their turn to exercise it. Has the war on terror stopped? No? When do we get to hop onto a plane without undressing ourselves? Oh, but now there's a war against viruses? So you have to undres…

While the right certainly had their fear based issues before the pandemic, it’s a bit of a stretch to say the left didn’t. Trump was going to become a dictator. We had 12 years to go living on earth 4 years ago. Apparently almost everyone is a white supremacist… I could go on. Why didn’t Obama revoke the patriot act if he was so on the side of non fear? Or allow more whistleblowing.

Heck, 20 years ago we had 10 years until climate change killed us all.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#457

Post by tremon » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #363

givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear leads to a loss of freedom. When we're afraid, we give power to politicians that promise deal with it swiftly. Pre-pandemic, the right had a monopoly on fear-based politicking. Then the pandemic hit and the left finally got their turn to exercise it. Has the war on terror stopped? No? When do we get to hop onto a plane without undressing ourselves? Oh, but now there's a war against viruses? So you have to undres…

Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful. Back in the 60s-80s, the world managed to use the fear of pox to eradicate the disease from existence - and most did so by instituting a vaccine mandate. Back in the late 70s/80s, the world managed to use the fear of acid rain to ban sulphur emissions (LRTAP convention). In the early 90s, the world managed to use the fear of ozone to ban CFC…

Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful

Disagree. Fear is not the only motivator, and it's a particularly bad one, because it spurs immediate action rather than exploration. Fear of sailing into the unknown is also what kept Europeans in the dark about the American continent for centuries.

What "fear" motivated the construction of the LHC at CERN? Wasn't it fear that caused a lot of people to advocate loudly against turning it on and performing experiments with it?

Overcoming fear drives progress (but it is by no means the only driver). Giving in to fear just leads to regression.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#458

Post by loughnane » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #244

ziroshima wrote: post #4

No doubt, these censors and would-be censors have the best of intentions. But you've really got your head up your own ass if you convince yourself that you are protecting people by deciding the information that is appropriate for them to be exposed to. I just don't understand the shortsightedness, the naivete, or the willingness to discard the principle of free speech.

Imagine you have free speech. Yay! Now what? Why was this so important again? Free speech is not an end goal. It's a tool that serves a purpose. In the relationship between a powerful government and a collection of individually vulnerable citizens, it pushes the power balance farther toward the individual. Is the goal to give all the power to the individual? No, that's not the goal. The goal is to have some sort of e…

I rank free speech very highly, certainly more than just a tool. My reasoning is this:

1. Some things are good in themselves, some for the sake of other things, some both.

2. Thus there must be an ultimate good that is good only in itself

3. “Happiness” seems to be to be that ultimate good.

4. “What is happiness” takes more than a sentence, but my money is that it’s closely related to things that are unique to humans.

5. That rules out much, but “reasoning”, particularly to the degree that we do it, is clearly unique.

6. I therefore identify the ability to reason as a core aspect of the happiness.

7. Given that we are naturally social creatures, it’s a short step to say that communicating our reasoning to others is a necessary consequence of the reasoning itself.

The result is that I see free speech as one of the top goods in a society. One in the neighborhood of the ultimate good and so indispensable in living a complete life.

To enshrine it in law for everyone rather than let individual power dictate who gets de facto FOS is to state that everyone deserves a full human life.

It’s not a mere tool or means to some other minor end.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#459

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #457

mschuster91 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful. Back in the 60s-80s, the world managed to use the fear of pox to eradicate the disease from existence - and most did so by instituting a vaccine mandate. Back in the late 70s/80s, the world managed to use the fear of acid rain to ban sulphur emissions (LRTAP convention). In the early 90s, the world managed to use the fear of ozone to ban CFC…

Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful Disagree. Fear is not the only motivator, and it's a particularly bad one, because it spurs immediate action rather than exploration. Fear of sailing into the unknown is also what kept Europeans in the dark about the American continent for centuries. What "fear" motivated the construction of the LHC at CERN? Wasn't it fear that caused a lot o…

> Disagree. Fear is not the only motivator, and it's a particularly bad one, because it spurs immediate action rather than exploration.

For many problems, the longer you let them sit around the worse they become. Linearly accelerating problems, yeah, you can usually get by with sitting them out.

But exponentially accelerating problems (climate change, infectious agents, consumer debt) require immediate and harsh response, otherwise they become so much more difficult to resolve. The key issue is that most people lack the basic education to understand exponential functions, even after two years of a pandemic.

> What "fear" motivated the construction of the LHC at CERN?

None.

> Wasn't it fear that caused a lot of people to advocate loudly against turning it on and performing experiments?

Indeed, but that one was a "false equivalency" media issue. Crackpots got a lot of media presence despite their claims being outright invalid from the start or being absolute niche opinions, simply because their unfounded fear brought in a lot of clicks from an ignorant and uneducated public.

Coincidentally or not, we have seen the same media issues in the COVID crisis, particularly with Fox "News"/OAN/"News"max in the US or the Axel Springer/Murdoch tabloids in Europe.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#460

Post by marcellus23 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #436

dools wrote: post #240

The funny thing is that everyone commenting here thinks that we're headed towards an authoritarian nightmare, but for different reasons. It's not until you sit with someone and nut out what they mean by "authoritarian" and "censorship" and so on that you realise you're completely morally and politically opposed to them. This shallow political take is what allows so many strange bedfellows to unite on the "political r…

I would like to hear a long-form version that actually spells out your argument. I think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because politicians worldwide seem to be interested in tearing up the democratic process. Others seem to think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because YouTube takes down some videos. These things don’t seem comparable to me, but your comment makes me think I’m missin…

They’re interrelated - YouTube is an arm of the media industrial complex as much as the New York Times is. What it chooses to broadcast or not affects the public consciousness.