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Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

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Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#111

Post by nyxxie »

Does anyone truly believe that regulation is going to fix that in a way that leaves people the ability to freely express their thoughts -- something that is and should be a human right?

I think the real issue here is that social media has moved us to a place where people's real thoughts are visible to all, and the problem we need to solve is how society will work now that the genie is out of the bottle. Social media isn't the cause, it's helped us see the world more clearly.

Solving that problem is going to mean empowering people with the knowledge and tools to assess the quality of information they read and make decisions backed by critical thinking. This is a problem that needs to be solved by society, and expecting a governing body to prescribe to us how our society is meant to think is no solution.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#112

Post by mistermann »

clarkevans wrote: post #85
Kalium wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! Is there something Congress should be doing? Perhaps it's not the thing for them to be involved in.

It's not clear to me what the role of Congress should be, perhaps the appropriation of funding to explore/build technologies and legal structures that are more distributed and less subject to concentrations of power. Paul Frazee's 2018 JSConf EU talk on "Formalizing User Rights on the Web" makes an important observation: technology doesn't just interact with civics, it actually drives civics; it defines what the civi…

I think the proper "role" of congress is to send a message to silicon valley: fix the mess you've created, or we're going to fix it for you.

That there's a serious problem has been obvious for quite some time now, and Silicon Valley has hardly even tried to do anything about it. More likely, they've tended to tune their algorithms to best profit from it.

I'm a small government guy, but if they continue with this disingenuous "we had no idea!" song and dance for much longer, I'd fully support bringing a very big hammer down on the bigger players.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#113

Post by mistermann »

burlesona wrote: post #28
sykhic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by my Facebook feed Americans are perfectly capable of vicious, polarized discourse without foreign influence. It's gotten quite bad in the U.S. Common political discourse has devolved into a back and forth of insults, hyperbolic accusations, and sometimes just plain insanity. I agree with you that this will probably be something that will last a while. If only we could get people to realize that believing so…

This problem can cut both ways. Ie. if one dismisses the other person as the political equivalent of a "flat earther," they're not questioning their own assumptions or seeking to understand why the other person could feel something so strongly. Having lived in both deeply red and deeply blue states in the US, I think most people aren't as crazy or as far apart as they think they are. But many of the people who have l…

> Having lived in both deeply red and deeply blue states in the US, I think most people aren't as crazy or as far apart as they think they are

A good article along those lines:

https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/complicating-t...

" Intractable conflicts feed upon themselves. The more we try to stop the conflict, the worse it gets. These feuds “seem to have a power of their own that is inexplicable and total, driving people and groups to act in ways that go against their best interests and sow the seeds of their ruin,” Coleman writes. “We often think we understand these conflicts and can choose how to react to them, that we have options. We are usually mistaken, however.” "

" Once we get drawn in, the conflict takes control. Complexity collapses, and the us-versus-them narrative sucks the oxygen from the room. “Over time, people grow increasingly certain of the obvious rightness of their views and increasingly baffled by what seems like unreasonable, malicious, extreme or crazy beliefs and actions of others,” according to training literature from Resetting the Table, an organization that helps people talk across profound differences in the Middle East and the U.S. "

If you're looking for it, you'll see this behavior everywhere online, including HN, and it's getting worse.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#114

Post by maxxxxx »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
maxxxxx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First stop blaming the Russians and then tell your parties to work for the country and for themselves. I think best would be if people stopped calling themselves "Republicans" or "Democrats" and stopped identifying with a party.

> First stop blaming the Russians No, not going to stop blaming the guilty, including the Russians. > and then tell your parties to work for the country and for themselves. I've found that politicians in both major parties have the second part down pretty pat, so I’m more concerned with the first. > I think best would be if people stopped calling themselves "Republicans" or "Democrats" and stopped identifying with a…

"I see no reason for people not to identify with the major party that best represents them,"

But they have to keep their party accountable. I see it so many times that people complain about something when the other party is in party and as soon as their party has the power it's perfectly fine. Sometimes this reminds me of "Doublethink" in 1984.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#115

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ams6110 wrote: post #105
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #21

This leak looks like a trial balloon. I'm fascinated by the notion that requiring disclosure of people's physical location, as well as demanding that they prove their identity, would be conducive to an online culture of free and healthy expression. These proposals seem to be aimed at intimidation and breaching the privacy of each and everyone, rather than at the surveillance-like operations and propaganda-enabling st…

So, my local paper had a comment section that was dominated by the typical hysterical, unhinged, anonymous arguing between far right and far left partisans that we see in a lot of online discourse. They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic.

> They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic.

Real name policies eliminate specific categories of speech.

One of those categories is trolling, which naturally makes everybody very happy. The problem is that some of the other categories are really important.

If you require real names then people with minority views are afraid to present them, even when they can make a major contribution. People won't disclose relevant inside information, including malfeasance, because they face being fired or abused until they quit. People won't say anything against the interests of anyone in a position of power over them.

It's basically a mechanism that gets rid of the Nazis and SJWs by getting rid of anyone critical of the government or existing power structures. The resulting debate is unquestionably a lot more polite, but politeness is not the only consideration.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#116

Post by buth_lika »

ams6110 wrote: post #105
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #21

This leak looks like a trial balloon. I'm fascinated by the notion that requiring disclosure of people's physical location, as well as demanding that they prove their identity, would be conducive to an online culture of free and healthy expression. These proposals seem to be aimed at intimidation and breaching the privacy of each and everyone, rather than at the surveillance-like operations and propaganda-enabling st…

So, my local paper had a comment section that was dominated by the typical hysterical, unhinged, anonymous arguing between far right and far left partisans that we see in a lot of online discourse. They changed to a "real name" policy and now the comments, while much reduced, are also much more thoughtful and tend to stay on-topic.

Okay, but what about political dissidents, people in abusive relationships, people in backwards areas who aren't heterosexual, just play shy people, and many others?

I don't have a clear cut answer myself, because on the other hand, anonymity opens the floodgates to so much manipulation that also ends up hurting real people, and that will only get worse as technology gets refined in those directions. Those that want to control and manipulate won't give up easily either way, there's totalitarian "victory" possible in either direction:

Tie everything anywhere to a real name, and people will ultimately police their own thoughts, because wanting to say things you can't say sucks, so they'll stop wanting that, the one thing they have control over. Keeping foggy and dynamic what is and what isn't allowed to say will make people shrink to the smallest possible attack surface that still allows basic physical survival.

Go the other route and make everything accessible to (super advanced) bots, make it impossible to confirm anyone's identity or follow any money trails, and with enough of that people can be be manipulated by an overwhelming, yet fabricated social consensus, and herded into bubbles.

Of course, the worst of both worlds is also possible.

Anyway, anonymity online gets a very onesided rap. Some of my fondest "internet memories" were exchanges were with total strangers. Maybe I just remember those differently (I don't really think of online interactions with real life frieds as online interactions), because they always came out of the blue, or because they seemed to mean more, since we both know we'd never meet again and were being open or helpful just for the sake of it, with the reward being purely personal gain (even joy is gain), not social capital.

> Why do we travel? Among other things, to meet people who don't think they know us once and for all; so we may experience once more what is possible for us in this life.

-- Max Frisch

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#118

Post by slg »

foolrush wrote: post #110
atomi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it isn't libel/slander or 'fighting words', we do allow it in the physical world. Shouting words at someone is not illegal.

Depending on the words, it is entirely illegal in many countries around the world. The USA is behind the curve on that.

I don't want to make a value judgement by using a word like "behind", but I do think most Americans are simply not aware of how extreme our country's stance on free speech is compared to the rest of the world. Countries like the UK, France, and Germany seem to function just fine with their more restrictive laws on speech.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#119

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mikeash wrote: post #101
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also held that slavery was fine, until it wasn't. We have major problems in this country and the failures of our legal system are prime among them.

Slavery was fine under the law. Once the Constitution was amended to prohibit it, the Court had no problem upholding that.

The Constitution was amended to explicitly prohibit Congress from making laws abridging the freedom of speech as well.

What's relevant is the Supreme Court reconsidering a previous decision without any change to the Constitution, but that too has happened before, e.g. Brown v. Board of Education.

Re: Leaked white paper proposes U.S. Congressional regulation of social media

#120

Post by maxxxxx »

crazynick4 wrote: post #72
dragonwriter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First stop blaming the Russians No, not going to stop blaming the guilty, including the Russians. > and then tell your parties to work for the country and for themselves. I've found that politicians in both major parties have the second part down pretty pat, so I’m more concerned with the first. > I think best would be if people stopped calling themselves "Republicans" or "Democrats" and stopped identifying with a…

It would be more accurate to say 'the Russian government and affiliated parties' (or just 'Russian government', if you're into the whole brevity thing). Most Russians don't care what happens with American politics. We don't blame 'the Arabs' for 9/11, right?

That's pretty pedantic. With "Russians" it's pretty clear in this context that it means the government. When somebody in another country complains about Americans it's most likely about the government and not all people.

If 9/11 had been planned by a government we would also say the "Iraqis" and not the "Iraqi government".

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