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Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

technologyreview.com

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Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#11

Post by irishloop »

chrisco255 wrote: post #6
blueboo wrote: post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

Speech can absolutely be dangerous. Much of the run-up to the Holocaust was in dehumanizing and characterizing the Jews as money-sucking leeches bleeding Germany dry.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#12

Post by jachee »

macspoofing wrote: post #7
jachee wrote: post #4

Hate is an absolute. If you're not against it, you're supporting it. EDIT: So, I see I've angered the privileged, white, tech-bro, capitalists. Downvote away. Don't dare speak up about how hate is bad here. Got it.

>If you're not against it, you're supporting it. I can be 'against' hate speech, but still support someone's right to utter it. Also, whose definition of 'hate speech' are we using?

If you're supporting an attacker's right to denigrate, abuse, or harass other people, you're supporting violating the victim's rights.

One of these has a real social cost, and the other is just literal lip-service.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#13

Post by IBM »

Alex Stamos doesn't realize that the political tides have shifted. The technolibertarianism that has been prevalent in Silicon Valley since at least the 1990s is on its way out. Governments around the world are increasingly asserting their sovereignty, and that's not going to change. The internet is not a wild west where a bunch of tech people are free to do whatever they want, ignoring all the consequences and negative externalities they create.

It's a coincidence that John Perry Barlow died at the height of all this, but I think it's extremely symbolic that governments are asserting their power just as technolibertarianism's radical cleric passed away.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#14

Post by natestemen »

chrisco255 wrote: post #6
blueboo wrote: post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

speech is dangerous. hate speech promotes and incites violence.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#15

Post by OmarIsmail »

chrisco255 wrote: post #6
blueboo wrote: post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

Do you have evidence for this statement? What if you're wrong? There's evidence that you're wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#16

Post by mrkstu »

Cockroaches thrive in the dark corners. Sunlight is antiseptic. And forcing ideas/speech into those dark corners don't keep them from growing, it merely allows it to grow unobserved and un-countered.

Ideas are the only counter to other ideas and how we communicate those idea is via speech. Suppression only invites martyrdom on the behalf of those suppressed, increasing their credibility.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#18

Post by OmarIsmail »

This is already going down the path of "what is hate speech". Here is what I think is a pretty simple definition:

Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone.

Then the arguments become pretty simple: does a statement dehumanize someone? Does it indicate that they are any less human than another? That's a much easier discussion to have.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#19

Post by snackbugs »

onewhonknocks wrote: post #3
blueboo wrote: post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Why are those the only two options available?

Hate speech is made in full faith by a group that has dominance and power to influence others to harm groups who live under that dominance and power. How many gradations do you think there are between the two?

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#20

Post by eganist »

chrisco255 wrote: post #6
blueboo wrote: post #2

The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech. Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability. Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

> Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

This worked to marvelous effect when legitimate, unique net neutrality concerns were buried under an avalanche of duplicate anti-net-neutrality letters sent on behalf of people who were very much deceased.

The solution to this challenge likely needs a much more nuanced approach to it than just burying hate speech in more speech, because look how well that turned out.

Time bears us many more examples where your proposal was successfully inverted to hideous ends. The loudest have a very pervasive tendency to win.

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