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

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

#111

Post by chroma » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

xtreme wrote: post #56

OmarIsmail wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"should kill people" = "those people aren't deserving to live" = 1) either all humans are not deserving to live or 2) those specific humans are not deserving to live = if 2) country X are being dehumanized. if 1) do you consider yourself a human? A) yes, then why haven't you killed yourself? Since you haven't you think you're more deserving of life relative to everyone else and therefore are dehumanizing everyone but…

According to this interpretation, arguments supporting capital punishment is hate speech and should be banned.

These interpretations can also be flipped around. One could argue that not supporting capital punishment dehumanizes murder victims and their families. Then some tough on crime politician gets elected and speech against capital punishment is banned.

Remember that whenever you create a tool to silence people, you are building a weapon that can be used against yourself. As recent elections have shown, sane politicians aren't always in power. The only long term solution is to build a system that works even when your enemies are in charge.

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

#112

Post by halfnibble » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

neves wrote: post #83

Well, these unnamed "tech companies" are responsible for the proliferation of absurd lies that will elect a far right authoritarian candidate in my country, Brazil. The spread of this lies happens with the support of a well financed organization. I always thought that the Internet would be a democratic platform that would improve the debate in society. Maybe we would go back to a democracy without intermediaries. I w…

I just read an article today about a named tech company banning marketing accounts associated with said far-right candidate. But I don't think that will stop him from a landslide win. The knife was the opposition's best hope.

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

#113

Post by dwighttk » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #75

734786710934 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance Many people are demanding that Facebook do exactly this.

It’s even worse: many people are demanding Facebook monitor Messenger chats for abuses in Mayanmar while at the same time not wanting Facebook to monitor Messenger chats. This is just a perfect example of constant catch-22s I see in people’s expectations of tech companies. You can’t expect Facebook to both not monitor chat messages AND prevent chat messages that do harm. You can have one or the other.

wasn't it WhatsApp and message forwarding that people had a problem with in Myanmar? Not p2p.

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

#114

Post by pawelmurias » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

OmarIsmail wrote: post #15

chrisco255 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a wikipedia link, not evidence.

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

#115

Post by dwighttk » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

mundo wrote: post #103

This strikes me as a timely and important sentiment. When we demand that Twitter ban anti-semitic tweets, or that Cloudflare block white supremacist websites, or that Youtube deplatform Alex Jones, we are taking the power to limit speech (which the founders felt was too important to be wielded by the government) and handing it to middle managers at software companies. The de jure rule is "Freedom of Speech shall not…

Even Mastodon instances can get in on the banning.

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

#116

Post by Kapow » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

jachee wrote: post #98

mitchty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me simplify further, in the face of your ad hominem: Sorry? I attacked your phrasing and logic, not YOU. Its like you're wanting to get angry at nothing. I'm done here if you don't want to act civilized.

Okay, I clearly got a bit too passionate. Let me try and clarify, civilly: Hate speech is always an attack. Whether it's overt (Westboro, the N-word, Swastikas, homophobic slurs, etc.) or more subtle ("the 14 words", "88", etc). Supporting the "right" of someone to use hate speech is supporting their right to attack (and thus violate the rights of) others. Whereas, by preventing those attacks, nothing of value is los…

By these rules, you just committed an attack and violated the rights of others by saying "88". If you were banned to prevent this attack, nothing of value would be lost.

Oh, "but I wasn't SAYING it" you say? Who judges whether hate speech is excused by context? Facebook interns? AI algorithms? Sorry, the algorithm has pronounced you guilty, you are now banned.

That is the world you would create.

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

#117

Post by golemiprague » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

IBM wrote: post #13

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 negat…

[dead]

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

#118

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

snackbugs wrote: post #102

macspoofing wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, this definition eschews a common standard. Rather, violations are based on arbitrary criteria of "dominance" - which is popular with certain ideologues but has very little support in showing that this is actually a good metaphor for understanding our society. Anyway, in practice (and probably in your mind), this definition would entail grouping people by their skin color and labeling one group as extra…

>Rather, violations are based on arbitrary criteria of "dominance" - which is popular with certain ideologues but has very little support in showing that this is actually a good metaphor for understanding our society. I'm fascinated with why people don't acknowledge power structures as having any influence in how one part of society views another; that there is currently no hierarchy in society. You just haven't ever…

>I'm fascinated with why people don't acknowledge power structures as having any influence in how one part of society views another; that there is currently no hierarchy in society.

I didn't say anything of the sort. What I meant to communicate to you was that I don't see any evidence that the SPECIFIC (and arbitrary) power structures you choose to use, have any actual explanatory power. Typically, ideologues of your persuasion will attempt to explain any disparity in society like this. Those claims are almost always unfalsifiable and can be twisted and contoured to fit any data point.

Do you understand my point? There are many power structures and many hierarchies in our society. If you were to explain the particular status of a specific individual here are some characteristics:

- race

- ethnicity

- gender

- sexual orientation

- height

- IQ

- Extrovertness vs introvertness

- Disability Physical

- Disability Mental

- two-parent vs single-parent household

- household income

- geographic location of upbringing

- geographic location of present residency

- education level

- sense of humour

- religion

- political alignment

- marital status

- number of dependents

- hair color

- attractiveness level

- language

- athleticism

- etc. etc.

Ideologues of your persusain tend to argue, with ZERO evidence, that immutable genetic characteristics dominate all others, even though most evidence suggests the opposite. So it isn't about denying the idea that power structures and hierarchies exists, but rather denying the idea that the SPECIFIC power structures and SPECIFIC hierarchies you choose have any value for explanation.

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

#119

Post by delbel » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

OmarIsmail wrote: post #18

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.

Speech that outrages, offends or angers another person or group is actually the most humanizing concept available. Anger, being offended, being rude are human traits. No they are not very positive human qualities, but that doesn't make them "de-humanizing". De-humanizing is a completely different concept that can happen in a variety of situations, but one is where one group dominates society and prevents individuals from having (wrong or not) concepts that are contrarian or against their agenda. For example, falsely claiming offensive speech is de-humanizing and rejecting the ability for others to have "offensive" models of the world is in fact, a projection of de-humanizing wrongly re-wrapped as "de-humanizing" itself. There are other concepts in de-humanizing, that are beyond the scope of this. But cenosring speech or rejecting models (positive or negative) in the name of de-humanizing is actually a de-humanizing itself. Being angry is a right as a human. Imagine if we passed legislation making it against the law to be angry. That would be so outrageous and against every thing that is human we know.

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

#120

Post by mhneu » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

menacingly wrote: post #72

Putting aside that it's a slippery and malleable label to apply to undesirable speech, there is an elitism hiding in these ban-hate-speech arguments. The core assumption is that while _I_ am able to see these vile ideas for the lies they are, the unsophisticated masses must not be allowed to hear them, lest they fall prey. This is problematic in ways that used to be obvious to people in free societies, but for some r…

The issue is that the wealthy and also foreign adversaries are exploiting the algorithms to amplify speech that serves their interests. That typically does not serve the interests of average people.

The issue is how to avoid exploitation and manipulation.

When the KKK marched several decades ago, it got coverage in newspapers and media proportional to its influence in society. Today, the wealthy and foreign opponents can weaponize hate speech like this to fan flames of division for their own purposes. That is the problem.