Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#251

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #219

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

Nobody asked for content moderation, why are they trying to create this complaint out of thin air? If there’s a channel I don’t like, I’ll leave it/unsubscribe.

Many people are calling for moderation, just not the people in the groups to be moderated. The callers don't want to protect the people in the group, they want to protect people from the group they want to moderate.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#252

Post by valval » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #197

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

Hard to tell if you are asking in good faith, but the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page has a perfectly serviceable definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics >Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left…

[flagged]

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#253

Post by foldr » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

valval wrote: post #252

foldr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to tell if you are asking in good faith, but the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page has a perfectly serviceable definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics >Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left…

[flagged]

When someone says “far right” they usually mean roughly what the Wikipedia article describes. I don’t see any reason to suppose that the phrase is being used in a novel or unusual sense in the article, so I wonder if the question is being asked rhetorically. But if the poster really just wants to know what “far right” means, then the Wikipedia article explains it.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#254

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #16

barbazoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem across the spectrum. "Don't say gay" and the whole book banning business across the US come to mind. Is there legislation anywhere implementing "left wing censorship"?

That was about introducing sex ed to third graders. Have third graders put down their toy cars, dolls and blocks yet? And then you have a Cal governor suinf a school dist demanding they teach the curriculum he believes is correct. So you have an example of two governors, one on each side, tellig districts what to teach But, the thing is, liberals _used_ _to_ espouse free speech as long as it was legal and defended it…

Don't say gay is now law for high schoolers in Florida too. The "third graders" rhetoric was always a falsehood, the law was designed to be used for all ages of students.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#255

Post by mdhen » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #205

Aeolun wrote: post #204

Signal just works. Thst’s the only thing I need it to do, and it does it beautifully.

Can't you only install it on a single iDevice?

No, you can have it on multiple devices. It just won't be able to grab any chat history when you first add it to a be device

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#256

Post by ctrlp » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #170

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

Proud Boys would be a good example. Not sure why they have to single out the right though. I guess every periodical has to take a stance on politics. The original source just said: """ Employees worry that, should Signal fail to build policies and enforcement mechanisms to identify and remove bad actors, the fallout could bring more negative attention to encryption technologies from regulators at a time when their ex…

"former user researcher" sounds like someone who was a subversive presence at Signal trying to make sure "bad actors" could be disciplined in the service of whatever politics he favors. People shouldn't underestimate that such people are in all the media orgs now and will keep pushing until the surveillance state is pervasive. Wired is just pushing propaganda and cherry-picking quotes to support its pre-determined narrative.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#257

Post by mcpackieh » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #206

XorNot wrote: post #46

Signal would be a lot more pragmatic if they would develop a funding model based on selling something for actual money, rather then subsisting off donations. Sell "Signal for Business" accounts or something so I can stop having my bank or local government depend on SMS to communicate with me. I know a number of doctors who'd really love to be able to use Signal to talk to their patients (and would tell them to instal…

If they sell anything at all, it exposes them to the local regulations of wherever they are taking money, and then the survival of the org and technology becomes dependent on the income, which has conditions attached to it. Saying Signal should sell something is like recommending someone develop a drug habit.

Signal Foundation is incorporated in America, so they're already exposed to American regulations. They could sell things (tshirts or exclusive client features or something) in America without exposing themselves more than they already are.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#258

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

tetrep wrote: post #18

barbazoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem across the spectrum. "Don't say gay" and the whole book banning business across the US come to mind. Is there legislation anywhere implementing "left wing censorship"?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of legislated PC terminology for government workers somewhere (but, ironically, what first comes to mind is the banning of "Latinx" by Sanders). What about NYC protecting fat workers from being fired? Body-positivity and similar things tend to be "left" in the US.

>I wouldn't be surprised

No, this is absurd. You don't get to imagine injustices by "the left" just because you don't like them. Right now the right is actively censoring teachers as private individuals. Where is this happening from left wing politicians?

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#259

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #215

katbyte wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may have been the intent (which I seriously doubt) but in practice it means teachers cannot even mention their same sex partners or even that gay/trans people exist because that could be considered “sex ex” by a parent who doesn’t want their children to know gay people exist (and for the record it is not sex ed) Hence the use of the phrase “don’t say gay”

I would government employees to not talk about sex, their partners, their bedrooms, and all manner of topics to 5-9 year old kids.

That bill would penalize the teacher if their gay significant other brought their forgotten lunch to school, the kids asked "who was that", and the teacher attempted any answer.

It has nothing to do with sex. Republicans in florida have quite clearly criminalized same sex couples doing normal things.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#260

Post by vdqtp3 » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #41

XorNot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm real uncomfortable with comparing kinetic weaponry to communications encryption. These aren't even remotely similar things in damage scope. The argument in favor of private communications is in fact predicated on this: no one can actually cause damage just by communicating. Damage might happen as a result of it, but there is no information so dangerous that the transmission of it must be known up front, and shoul…

Not only only that, there is something so intrinsically human about communication, and something so vulnerable about having every word archived. How does it go? "Give me a sentence from and honest man and I'll find a way to hang him?" or something. To be clear, I 100% believe that self defense is also intrinsic to being a mobile animal, and everyone has the right to be their own first line of self defense. But most p…

> so intrinsically human about communication

I think it's interesting that all of these discussions imply that there is nothing essential about the right to self defense [even from governments] using the most effective tools possible.