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Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

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Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#121

Post by pathseeker »

krapp wrote: post #96
BonesJustice wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bless your heart. It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide. The only definition that matters is the one held by whoever will be deciding what gets censored and what doesn’t. How might your political adversaries choose to apply a filter on “violent extremism”? I could easily…

>It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide. Oh, ok. The powers that be. The shadowy cabal. The unseen hand which controls all aspects of society with absolute and arbitrary power. I thought I was going to be able to have a rational, intellectually satisfying discussion but on…

>I thought I was going to be able to have a rational, intellectually satisfying discussion but

But instead you lashed out irrationally, posted a definition that went against your point, and then dismissed the entire thread because you realized you weren't supporting your argument.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#122

Post by stcredzero »

kragen wrote: post #108
stcredzero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the media platforms and government censors are trying to set up a global censorship system — whichever platform steps up first to be JedgarTube will lose viewers to whoever's censorship implementation is a step or two behind. The market isn't going to do what we want, so we're going to implement it using centralized power instead. I didn't elect these big companies to censor the public discourse, and it's…

I didn't elect these big companies to censor the public discourse Well, there are things you can do about it, but I didn't want to get into that when describing the incentives that make it difficult or impossible for them to censor the public discourse unilaterally , but possible to do as a cartel . I think it's important for people to have a solid factual understanding of what's going on in order for their normative…

Well, there are things you can do about it, but I didn't want to get into that when describing the incentives that make it difficult or impossible for them to censor the public discourse unilaterally, but possible to do as a cartel.

If you are acknowledging that a cartel in collusion with the government is acting to censor everyone's speech, that's at least a start.

No, none of the cause-and-effect relationships I described depend on anything being bad. They function in exactly the same way regardless of whether that would be good or bad.

The sneaky conceit is that you've constructed a causal scenario that presupposes the undesirability of a supposedly inevitably caused future. If we had more commerce, more free speech, more sharing of culture, and more cultural change, we would have less extremism. History shows us this quite clearly. It's when big, centralized powers start mucking about with the lives of individuals, that extremism rears its ugly head and becomes a problem.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#123

Post by 50656E6973 »

krapp wrote: post #96
BonesJustice wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bless your heart. It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide. The only definition that matters is the one held by whoever will be deciding what gets censored and what doesn’t. How might your political adversaries choose to apply a filter on “violent extremism”? I could easily…

>It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide. Oh, ok. The powers that be. The shadowy cabal. The unseen hand which controls all aspects of society with absolute and arbitrary power. I thought I was going to be able to have a rational, intellectually satisfying discussion but on…

Claiming to want to have a debate about free speech only to default to strawman arguments, baseless dismissals, and arrogant ignorance; your ironic and authoritarian behavior exhibits their point: the meaning of speech is subjectively defined by the individual

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#124

Post by atoav »

odiroot wrote: post #52
ausbah wrote: post #21

Everyone decried censorship, but always fails to provide an alternative to try and stop extremism online.

The bigger problem is how selective is stopping the extremism in many venues. This is really worrying. Here in Germany it's very popular to talk about, chastise and silence "Nazis" (be it real or assumed), which sort of makes sense knowing Germany's history. From my perspective -- of a Slav whose people were exterminated en masse by real Nazis. At the same time various, frequently militant, extremists (e.g. anarchist…

> Mind you, Wahhabist groups were literally spreading their message just a few years ago (still in 2017) in front of shopping malls here in Berlin.

So do Neo-Nazis quite regularily. But the problem runs deeper. I find it acceptable for a society to say, that it doesn't want certain types of messages to be brought forward. E.g. if your political message is to basically disallow any other political message other than your own, why should society tolerate your message? Or if you are going in all inflamatory and start to divide people and spell out goals of genozide – why would any society that wants to remain civilized not in some form penalize that kind of behaviour?

As much as I am for free speech, censorship in any form (be it your collegues who stop interacting with you because of your shitty ideas) fulfilled certain societal functions and a lot of the change we saw in the recent years has also to do with the fact, that this censorship is not only gone, but the polar oposite: 30 years ago extreme opinions would have drowned out in the sea of mainstream opinions.

Today we have digital systems that penalize mainstream opinions and reward extreme opinions on the fringes. This leads to entirely different discourses and also ultimately to the need of more censorship to retain social stability.

The crucial question is how this censorship looks like once it comes (and it will).

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#125

Post by elken »

The Christchurch shooter amassed a cache of weapons, and also posted a copy of his manifesto and a link to his real Facebook account to 4chan.

The censorship/Facebook algorithms amplifying abhorrent content debate is one thing but I'm surprised by the lack of scrutiny of the security services over this. Especially for a member of the 5 Eyes. I can't help but feel this could have been prevented without any of the changes being proposed.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#126

Post by spamizbad »

Joakal wrote: post #104
brianmc21 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also consider the fact that even if you do support free speech speaking out against censorship of a terrorist organization is only going to lead to blowback because you are supporting the enemy.

First they came for al Qaeda content, Then they came for ISIS comtent, Then...

Basically this. It was Pandora’s Box.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#127

Post by pathseeker »

bilbo0s wrote: post #56
basetop wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather live with the remote threat of extremism rather than live in a censored world. Would you rather live in North Korea with no extremism? You have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism and yet you'd give up your right to free speech for some remote threat? That kind of thinking is the cause of north korea and nazi germany. Authoritarians always use remote threats to justify t…

> You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism... I know this is pedantic, but you got me curious so I went to check the numbers. Odds of death in mass shooting (US only): 1 in 11,125 Odds of death by lightning strike (US only): 1 in 161,831 So it seems that it's actually a lot more likely for an American to die in a mass shooting than it is for us to die in lightning strikes. Edi…

getting struck by lightning != death by lightning strike

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#128

Post by pathseeker »

floki999 wrote: post #48
ameister14 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US would be a laggard here regardless, given its enshrinement of free speech

Perhaps. Unfortunately absolute enshrinement of anything and the inability to critically evaluate when to allow for common-sense deviation from such enshrinement is a bit of a progress-stopper.

> common-sense deviation

Common-sense deviations, a.k.a. an exceptions to the rules are often ill-conceived acts of emotional stupidity that don't age well. If it was so obvious, why wasn't it part of the rule in the first place?

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#130

Post by bsder »

mortenjorck wrote: post #27

This is a very hard problem that YouTube and Facebook made for themselves by becoming the world’s largest advertising platforms. They depend on engagement for ad revenue, they designed world-class algorithms to promote this engagement, and it turned out that extremist content happens to be very engaging. And so the problem is, building an algorithm that blindly promotes whatever keeps users on the site, for all its c…

> They had the technology to create a monster, but don’t have the technology to stop it.

They don't have the incentive to stop it.

All you have to do is make posting have an actual price, no matter how nominal, and most of this goes away.

Unfortunately for their profits, it will wipe out 90+% of their user base. And it will kill virality cold (you won't forward something to your whole address book if it costs you a dollar).

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