Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#121

Post by solus_factor » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

When you look at the state of things, you should realize that things evolved to be this way _for_a_reason_.

What specific reason or reasons might not be clear, but those reasons and forces nevertheless exist.

Calls to return "back to roots" are quite naive, for example, "let's abandon governments and have private police!". No, we have what we have for a reason.

Same with the state of the Internet. "Let's all go back to protocols! Remember gopher? Let's all do that!".

You cannot "unroll" progress. You cannot go back and live like the Amish. Well, you can, in a tiny weird closed community, while the rest of the world continues to march on.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#122

Post by jjcon » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #107

colllectorof wrote: post #8

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy." 10 or 15 years ago people looked at web 1.0, saw many good communities and valuable conversations and said "we need to protect free speech". Today people loo…

I remember watching a very strange segment on American news about a man who owns a mattress and pillow company who was banned from Twitter because he continuously expressed his disbelief in the legitimacy of the election result of 2020, and was organizing various events along this theme. From what I recall the 2016 election was frequently attributed to some vague accusation of hacking from Russia but the same standar…

I do think there are stark differences between 2020 and the 2016 elections BUT I still agree with everything you said.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#123

Post by mcguire » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

WClayFerguson wrote: post #60

betterunix2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The entire summer long while buildings burned, and entire cities looted by violent murdering thugs it was called "peaceful protests". Then when some actual peaceful protesters go to a legitimate politically organized rally in clown outfits in Washington brandishing American flags and are literally ushered into the buildings by security it's portrayed by the lying media as serious military coup attempt. To quote Biden…

Since no one else mentioned it,

"The entire summer long while buildings burned, and entire cities looted by violent murdering thugs..."

Could you provide some evidence for "entire cities looted by violent murdering thugs"?

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#124

Post by Ambolia » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

solus_factor wrote: post #121

When you look at the state of things, you should realize that things evolved to be this way _for_a_reason_. What specific reason or reasons might not be clear, but those reasons and forces nevertheless exist. Calls to return "back to roots" are quite naive, for example, "let's abandon governments and have private police!". No, we have what we have for a reason. Same with the state of the Internet. "Let's all go back…

The same could be said about decentralization of information sources. And big tech seems to be trying to contain it rather than embrace it. Maybe not because they want, but because they get political pressure.

If big tech can't embrace those new decentralization currents because of political pressure, people will look for them somewhere else.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#125

Post by mcguire » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #85

betterunix2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not have to carry all newsgroups, and the last time I used a free Usenet node they explicitly did not carry any binaries (too much traffic and too much liability). The reason nobody uses Usenet is that unmoderated newsgroups were taken over by nazis and trolls, and moderated newsgroups have no particular advantage over forums as far as "free speech" goes. (Though I take issue with the idea that moderation some…

> The reason nobody uses Usenet is that unmoderated newsgroups were taken over by nazis and trolls Some of the sci.* hierachy was taken over by the mentally ill and crackpots. They aren't hateful or intentionally trolling with their insistent claims that they have discovered free energy, come up with new insights into the evolution of human language, etc., but the effect on fruitful discussion was much the same.

At some point, trolling becomes indistinguishable from mental illness and crackpottery.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#126

Post by froh » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #107

colllectorof wrote: post #8

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy." 10 or 15 years ago people looked at web 1.0, saw many good communities and valuable conversations and said "we need to protect free speech". Today people loo…

I remember watching a very strange segment on American news about a man who owns a mattress and pillow company who was banned from Twitter because he continuously expressed his disbelief in the legitimacy of the election result of 2020, and was organizing various events along this theme. From what I recall the 2016 election was frequently attributed to some vague accusation of hacking from Russia but the same standar…

Maybe it also stems from the global diversity of the employees in said companies.

To the European eye the idea of allowing any and all public utterance feels like a free ticket to disaster.

Deliberate and carefully crafted representation of "reality", and indirect communication via various "trusted channels" is part of winning elections anywhere.

The carefully and orchestrated use of mass media in the 1920s and 1930s, skillfully crafted to lead the electorate to certain political choices, was later used to even accept certain political atrocities (internment camps in the beginning, war and industrial mass murder later).

So to protect the electorate (!) from being grossly misled, many European countries in the aftermath of the 1940s decided to counterbalance the freedom of speech with rules what is not freedom of speech.

And yes, the details are tricky and courts have to decide.

Is that ever in the public debate in the USA? Reasonable limits to free speech?

Here is a fairly straightforward example from the German penal code:

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__130.html

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#127

Post by carapace » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

> Moving us back toward a world where protocols are dominant over platforms could be of tremendous benefit to free speech and innovation online.

Let's say I agree with this, what's the next step? What's the "call to action"?

> It would represent a radical change, but one that should be looked at seriously.

Okay. Looked at by whom?

I would say we already have the protocols (Napster was founded in 1999, P2P protocols are old enough to drink.) Then what?

(My own cynical reaction is that people like what they have and deserve what they get. But I recognize and admit that that is not a productive area of discussion.)

Given that pirating movies is unfashionable now, what could some P2P protocol offer that would entice people away from FAANG? (Assuming that that would be a net benefit to humanity and the world is itself more of a hope than something you could prove one way or another. Does anyone have any sort of science that could even begin to predict the results of any of this?)

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#128

Post by Ambolia » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #57

I read, and re-read the article and I am yet to understand how a protocol will help what the author describes in the first few paragraphs. (BTW very nicely walked around that hot bowl of mess!) First, Usenet was just as much of a dumpster fire as Reddit et al. in some branches ( alt. I am looking at you). The rest (comp. soc. sci. etc) were heavily self moderated. Second, I am not sure the author is clear on what is…

I don't think zero-moderation is possible, at a minimum you'll have to ban bots and spam. The larger problem is concentration of communities in 3-4 big providers, there was heavy moderation before, but it was easy to move to a different community if you didn't like it.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#129

Post by throwaway894345 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #107

colllectorof wrote: post #8

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy." 10 or 15 years ago people looked at web 1.0, saw many good communities and valuable conversations and said "we need to protect free speech". Today people loo…

I remember watching a very strange segment on American news about a man who owns a mattress and pillow company who was banned from Twitter because he continuously expressed his disbelief in the legitimacy of the election result of 2020, and was organizing various events along this theme. From what I recall the 2016 election was frequently attributed to some vague accusation of hacking from Russia but the same standar…

While I agree, one predictable counter-argument is that Twitter et al are private organizations with a legal prerogative to ban whomever they like (freedom of association). This is true, but we should think about how this was intended to work and the property that this was designed to protect: the original idea was that you had a decentralized network of communities that could individually excommunicate whomever they liked (freedom of association) but any individual was still allowed to participate in the broader network, the public square. Now, social media has become the de facto public square--a small group of social media companies hold dominion over an overwhelming amount of our speech--worse, these companies coordinate with each other to behave as a single large entity. We shouldn't get distracted by the fact that Twitter is a de facto public square and not a de jure public square, because we want to protect the functional property. We can do that either by regulating Twitter like we would regulate the public square, or we can do it by breaking up this powerful trust of corporations (I favor the latter).

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

#130

Post by tomatotomato37 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

colllectorof wrote: post #8

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy." 10 or 15 years ago people looked at web 1.0, saw many good communities and valuable conversations and said "we need to protect free speech". Today people loo…

The problem is that this speech control isn't just used for cleaning the cesspool but is now demonstrably used to protect the elite. Just this week we have escalated from just blocking hate speech and violence to blocking people who are inconveniencing Wall Street.