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Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

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Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#11

Post by csense »

Censorship isn't something I'm in favor of, but I think the idea Berners-Lee has is something different. Any given content has "viral coefficients" that determine how fast it replicates and how likely it is to die out before penetrating.

His idea's to make a social network where toxic content's has lower viral coefficients. Censorship is certainly one path to this goal -- simply kill any objectionable content before it has a chance to spread.

How else could you make a piece of content less likely to spread? Display it less prominently. Warn people that it spreads negativity and they shouldn't propagate it. Automatically identify filter bubbles and occasionally include content with an opposing viewpoint.

The real problem is some/all of these measures may cost you users. How do you lower the viral coefficient of toxic information in your social network without lowering the viral coefficient of your social network itself?

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#12

Post by vkou »

mythrwy wrote: post #9
kesselvon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paradoxically, if you want to defend freedom of speech, you can't allow ideologies that are anti-free speech to spread "e.g. the new resurgence in authoritarianism and fascism"

Sure you can. In fact, you must. As long (and this is very important) as it remains speech.

At what point did fascism in Italy and Germany turn from speech to action?

At what point would you have been OK with suppressing fascist speech? (A lot of people answer "September 1st, 1939" to that question.)

At what point was it too late to stop? ("September 1st, 1939" was years too late.)

What makes you sure that it doesn't cross that point, before you have the moral consensus to suppress it?

We've been down this road once before. The last time around, it killed fifty million people. In politics, the line between speech and action is far murkier then these absolutes.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#13

Post by garysieling »

csense wrote: post #11

Censorship isn't something I'm in favor of, but I think the idea Berners-Lee has is something different. Any given content has "viral coefficients" that determine how fast it replicates and how likely it is to die out before penetrating. His idea's to make a social network where toxic content's has lower viral coefficients. Censorship is certainly one path to this goal -- simply kill any objectionable content before…

I've been building a search engine for lectures (https://www.findlectures.com), so I've spent some time comparing search results vs. youtube.

They seem to weight popularity heavily, which makes sense if you're trying to sell ads, but it means a lot of toxic content rises to the top (e.g. conspiracy theories, or tons of short videos denouncing the video of a well known figure, which becomes un-findable).

I'm banking on being able to improve this for my niche use case with more quality measures, although time will tell if this pans out. E.g. if a speaker has spoken at prestigious conferences, written a book, what Wikipedia says about that, or that they've invested in better production quality, including closed captions, better audio/video.

For the filter bubble problem, I think that being able to see lists of talks without the machine learning what you "want" is potentially a superior experience. I suspect that if you start by filtering to just the higher quality material, you can potentially get a good cross-section of different viewpoints, just by using text text analysis.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#14

Post by BuuQu9hu »

vkou wrote: post #12
mythrwy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. In fact, you must. As long (and this is very important) as it remains speech.

At what point did fascism in Italy and Germany turn from speech to action? At what point would you have been OK with suppressing fascist speech? (A lot of people answer "September 1st, 1939" to that question.) At what point was it too late to stop? ("September 1st, 1939" was years too late.) What makes you sure that it doesn't cross that point, before you have the moral consensus to suppress it? We've been down this…

The line between speech (ideas) and action is perfectly clear. Don't pretend it isn't.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#15

Post by dTal »

BuuQu9hu wrote: post #14
vkou wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point did fascism in Italy and Germany turn from speech to action? At what point would you have been OK with suppressing fascist speech? (A lot of people answer "September 1st, 1939" to that question.) At what point was it too late to stop? ("September 1st, 1939" was years too late.) What makes you sure that it doesn't cross that point, before you have the moral consensus to suppress it? We've been down this…

The line between speech (ideas) and action is perfectly clear. Don't pretend it isn't.

No it isn't. Speech is action. It has consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#16

Post by vkou »

BuuQu9hu wrote: post #14
vkou wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point did fascism in Italy and Germany turn from speech to action? At what point would you have been OK with suppressing fascist speech? (A lot of people answer "September 1st, 1939" to that question.) At what point was it too late to stop? ("September 1st, 1939" was years too late.) What makes you sure that it doesn't cross that point, before you have the moral consensus to suppress it? We've been down this…

The line between speech (ideas) and action is perfectly clear. Don't pretend it isn't.

So, I ask you - at what point fascism in Europe could have been stopped? At what point did fascist speech, rallies, and demonstrations turn into action?

Was it after they seized power? They were so appreciative of free speech, that they immediately repressed it.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#17

Post by dahdum »

csense wrote: post #11

Censorship isn't something I'm in favor of, but I think the idea Berners-Lee has is something different. Any given content has "viral coefficients" that determine how fast it replicates and how likely it is to die out before penetrating. His idea's to make a social network where toxic content's has lower viral coefficients. Censorship is certainly one path to this goal -- simply kill any objectionable content before…

Who gets to define what thought is "toxic" and what is not? I don't see how you can define it algorithmically.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#18

Post by mythrwy »

vkou wrote: post #16
BuuQu9hu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line between speech (ideas) and action is perfectly clear. Don't pretend it isn't.

So, I ask you - at what point fascism in Europe could have been stopped? At what point did fascist speech, rallies, and demonstrations turn into action? Was it after they seized power? They were so appreciative of free speech, that they immediately repressed it.

Fascism in Europe could have been stopped in the 16-1800's when Britain and France gobbled up the world as colonies. They could have left a piece for Germany and Italy to occupy as these societies unified some years later. Or they could have not colonized at all.

Alternatively maybe it could have been stopped by preventing the industrial revolution. Or by preventing Germany and Italy from uniting as countries at the end of the 1800's/early 1900's. Or by preventing banking interests from lending to industrialists. Or by preventing the Viking invasions. Or preventing the collapse of international papal authority. Or by preventing the rise of papal authority in the first place. Or giving the Chinese first dibs on East Asia. Or giving native Africans gunpowder. Or by any number of other means.

Point being, you seem to think 1)Fascism in Europe during the second world war is the worst event to happen to mankind ever and attempting to prevent it re-occurring justifies any means, even those with potentially worse outcomes. And 2)Fascism arose strictly because some guys popped in out of nowhere and started talking.

What about Pol Pot? What about Stalin? What about the church during the Middle Ages? What about the conquests of Islam? What about the massacres in Medieval China? Events very simply don't happen in a vacuum, (in spite of the popular culture/ public school view of history).

The dangers of those who want to prevent free speech because it offends someone far outweigh the dangers of letting the marketplace of ideas decide which ideas are worth considering. I don't find the rise of the alt-right (which I don't support btw) nearly as alarming as I find the number of young people who think offensive speech should be legislated against or banned. Which is truly an authoritarian and disturbing trend.

Re: Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says Tim Berners-Lee

#19

Post by csense »

dahdum wrote: post #17
csense wrote: post #11

Censorship isn't something I'm in favor of, but I think the idea Berners-Lee has is something different. Any given content has "viral coefficients" that determine how fast it replicates and how likely it is to die out before penetrating. His idea's to make a social network where toxic content's has lower viral coefficients. Censorship is certainly one path to this goal -- simply kill any objectionable content before…

Who gets to define what thought is "toxic" and what is not? I don't see how you can define it algorithmically.

Defining it's tricky, and it is hard to see how to do it algorithmically. But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

I think Reddit does something interesting with upvote / downvote ratios, I don't remember the specifics.

It might also be the case that toxic content spreads differently, or there's some other measurable way to separate it. Data and experiments to measure user behavior will probably be needed to develop an algorithm.

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