81–90 of 108 posts
I was not expecting Matrix and Urbit to be the two technological focuses of this article. Glad to see Washington DC has think-tanks who are al least literate in fediverse and P2P technology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own. They weren't pushed out, they walked out because their views weren't accepted. That's the problem with this line of thinking: people will only stick around if you're willing to accept their beliefs as reasonable to some extent. But nobody accepts that for ideas like Flat Earth or white supremacy, so they formed their own commu…
>They weren't pushed out, they walked out because their views weren't accepted none of youtube/twitter/reddit/twitch knockoffs existed (or had much traction) before massive purges on those platforms
What mass social media sites like Twitter and Facebook provided was an easier way for the less technologically literate to discover extremist forums (as well as extremist ideas generally) without having to know someone from those circles beforehand.
IMO, what happened is that Western culture over the past 60 years became increasingly cynical, including it's intellectual culture (e.g. post-structuralist, deconstructive ideas have come to dominate both the left and the right). So you have a mass of people who simply don't know what to believe, because everything is about "they" coming to get you or oppress you. Anti-corporatism, cultural wars, identity politics etc, etc. Then we take a massive population--educated and uneducated--which has internalized this notion that all "conventional" ideas are inherently suspect, and dumped them into cyberspace.
I'm reminded of this quote from Oliver Wendall Holmes,
> When the ignorant are taught to doubt they do not know what they safely may believe. And it seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.
Years ago I would have reflexively thought that sentiment oppressively paternalistic. Now not so much, partly because in reflection on my own life I can see how our culture effected how I processed ideas. I've learned (or relearned) to appreciate the fact that simply because Holmes often was oppressively paternalistic does not invalidate the central truths reflected in that sentiment.
I’m don’t understanding the claim of Matrix being decentralised. In the end I host a server and you talk with me. I give you the choice of choosing the authentication. For that I need an account at the authentication provider like Microsoft. So all authenticate with Microsoft. I create a user for them at my server which is still be needed to have the at least the timeline saved. At which point I have decentralisation…
Holy crap is this a stupid backwards article. First and foremost, like so many online, IT HAS NO IDEA WHAT "FREE SPEECH" ACTUALLY IS. > With this success came controversy. Critics of content moderation decisions came to view Section 230 liability protections as a de facto subsidy for censorious platforms to limit public speech or to be less than judicious in limiting speech These "critics" are either ignorant or mali…
No, free speech isn't just about keeping violence from search of truth it's about tolerating what you consider untruth. Rationalist philosophers that invented the concept were censored, excommunicated and their works were burned, would you say their censors were just expressing their own free speech?
Maybe we are missing some things.... What is different about Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIN? they all do social but Twitter has more abuse than the other two. Is that due to the structure involved? Or extend it further, is amplification bad because the ones doing the amplification are somewhat flawed in coping mechanisms? What I mean is we keep looking at social platforms as the problem, instead of seeing that the ar…
For example: the way Twitter works, an individual's reach is proportional to the number of their followers. This means that individuals can influence thousands of people with a single tweet. That's a lot of power, but that's also a lot of attention focused on one person. So it ends up cutting both ways: we see prolific tweeters able to spread their ideas really easily, but we also see witch hunts where huge groups all gang up on one person with devastating effect.
YouTube sees this for the same reasons, but the scale is smaller because creating videos and response videos take significantly more effort. LinkedIn could, but it doesn't because it's really a website for making yourself appear attractive to employers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something like "your ideas are completely wrong, but we won't mock you for them"?
Something like: This person gets put in my personal ignore filter, which over time will get better at predicting who and what I want ignored. I can always go back and review what's being ignored and make changes. Individuals and their content can be ignored separately, so "I don't like this topic" doesn't ban someone who I like to engage with on other topics. I'll also tag this person as a flat-earther so my computer…
> If a user engages in trolling, criminal activity, or abuse, they will be identified and ostracized. Furthermore, they will incur a financial loss, as their reputation will be ruined. Thus content moderation problems are addressed without ill-fitting and abusable corporate or government interventions. I'm sure that won't go wrong or impact certain groups at all. There's a lot of content on the internet today that I…
> We mocked, ostracized, and argued them out of common spaces until they created their own. They weren't pushed out, they walked out because their views weren't accepted. That's the problem with this line of thinking: people will only stick around if you're willing to accept their beliefs as reasonable to some extent. But nobody accepts that for ideas like Flat Earth or white supremacy, so they formed their own commu…
This works both ways. Queer and other minority groups identity weren’t always accepted as reasonable ideas so they made their own spaces until they were allowed back in.
> If a user engages in trolling, criminal activity, or abuse, they will be identified and ostracized. Furthermore, they will incur a financial loss, as their reputation will be ruined. Thus content moderation problems are addressed without ill-fitting and abusable corporate or government interventions. I'm sure that won't go wrong or impact certain groups at all. There's a lot of content on the internet today that I…
I googled Robin DiAngelo and expected to read about a far-right Jordan Peterson type. Instead I found that she's the person who created the term "white fragility". From her wiki page, I don't see any reason to compare her to a flat earther
Or is this me taking "far right" more literally than you meant it? Are you talking merely from your perspective, and not human history and all obscure corners of political thought?
Yep, Section 230 is built to protect big tech platforms. Unsurprisingly, everyone who writes articles claiming otherwise has a financial influence from a large tech firm. A lot of the extremism, radical political shifts, and domestic terrorism can be placed squarely on 230 and it's defenders. Big tech platforms aren't worth this much damage.
But without it, you can't even safely run your own local server, if you allow others to post there. It protects HN just as much as it protects Twitter and Facebook.
Section 230 provides blanket immunity, but it's important to consider what actually happens without it: People doing their actual best to operate a site aren't going to be arbitrarily lined up and shot, judges and juries will side with them and establish clear precedent. But bad actors like Google and Facebook truly depend on 230, because if taken to court, they would be found guilty of willful actions based on profitability.
Good case law literally doesn't exist for Internet content in the US because 230 broke it in 1996, but the law isn't software, it's a human process with core concepts like intent and reasonableness which are circumvented by corporate immunity laws like 230.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The action banning a piece of news MADE IT CREDIBLE in the eyes of the public. No. If that worked, necrophilia would be credible in the eyes of the public. It's banned so completely it isn't even mentioned except as an extreme fetish for people who are, presumably, mentally ill in the eyes of the mainstream. Banning necrophilia does nothing for it: It only finds purchase among a tiny few, the ones predisposed to go…
It is a non-sequitur. It simply does not follow. If it was intended as an analogy, it fails at several levels. Still, in the spirit of continuing this conversation, and extending this metaphor I will play along. Has necrophilia been reported in NY post touting its discovery or its relationship to current WH occupant? Have other publications later confirmed that necrophilia was indeed present[1] and was not limited to…
Not yet, but there's a long way to go until 2024.
Yes, I get that you believe in Hunter Biden's magic laptop. I think it's nonsense and that you've been duped, and you need to respect my beliefs, because trying to ban them will only make them more credible. Really, you're the one being unreasonable here.