Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#121

Post by numtel » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #92

nickff wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I would contend that profit is at least partially the intention of these actors, largely indirectly by people who are invested in stock markets." Profit is definitely one motivation for censorship, but there has been plenty of censorship in non-profit-centric situations. Communist countries and other government actors have been leaders in censorship, with no obvious profit motive.

OP is clearly referring to censorship in the "admin bans you from their website if you say things they don't like" sense, not the "government throws you in jail if you say wrong thing" sense. These conversations tend to become unproductive and devolve when folks conflate these two senses of the word censorship. IMO, we should use "content moderation" for the former and "censorship" for the latter, congruent with hist…

Thanks for the clarification. The article was talking about shutting down Facebook so that is the source of the reference.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#122

Post by pdonis » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #110

I say Bah to the entire censorship debate! My critique of Substack is that our lesson from the last ten years is simple: speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. Our problem isn't censorship. Our problem is that our political/economic/relig…

> speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking.

No such platform has ever existed. How would you propose building one?

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#123

Post by remarkEon » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

geekpowa wrote: post #90

remarkEon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This largely has to do with the social media ecosystem in which these traditional companies find themselves, where social media is the primary vector for information access for the majority now (HN is an extreme outlier where people may actually read things beyond their "news" feed). "quietly fixed" in that sense means "NYT reports one thing and it goes viral, corrects/updates/adds context later post-virality and, be…

Are we blaming traditional media companies for the content overload shitshow we now find ourselves living in? If NYT could provide a remedy, what would that remedy even look like? Wikileaks' ascendancy was on the narrative that traditional media is broken and untrustworthy. At the time I brought into that and the premise that they were disrupting this traditional industry and remaking it better. Now I realise like al…

>Are we blaming traditional media companies for the content overload shitshow we now find ourselves living in?

I am absolutely blaming them for this shitshow, yes, if we're defining content overload as the self licking ice cream cone of viral news.

What happened here was a parallel evolution. On social media, whatever got the most eyeballs got the most clicks and thus the most ad revenue, and engineers tuned the algorithm to exploit this.

Traditional Media sees this, and strives to do the same but the difference is that they are (and now arguably were) speaking from a position of moral and institutional authority, and have since diluted their brand and standing with clickbait, stories that were published without proper vetting, getting things outright wrong etc etc. That's their own God damn fault. Nothing was stopping say NYT from developing their own Substack or a version of it.

>Older and wiser now and I realise personally that the trust problem is something much more than something for 'others' to step up and fix, but substantially in how I myself consume content.

Again, you post on HN. You're an extreme outlier with the self awareness to know that certain media consumption habits are unhealthy and likely divinate a worldview where a reality forms based simply on what's in your newsfeed and not any underlying truth.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#124

Post by throwawaylinux » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #85

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #12

We don’t have a trust problem. We have a lack of trustworthy people in positions of power problem. I see how one can be easily confused. But we (the People) don’t trust politicians or business leaders because they have show repeatedly they’re not worthy of trust.

That exactly is the trust problem. Why would trustworthy people even try to gain power, if the public assumes that those in power are untrustworthy and corrupt? And why would those in power remain trustworthy when the incentives are clearly in favor of abusing your power and the public assumes that you will do that anyway? It's a vicious cycle, but a virtuous cycle would also work in the same way. Reality shapes peop…

> That exactly is the trust problem. Why would trustworthy people even try to gain power, if the public assumes that those in power are untrustworthy and corrupt?

To improve society.

> And why would those in power remain trustworthy when the incentives are clearly in favor of abusing your power and the public assumes that you will do that anyway?

They were never trustworthy to begin with if they do that.

Trustworthy does not mean "acts to benefit themselves over others at every opportunity".

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#125

Post by throwawaygh » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #122

throwawaygh wrote: post #110

I say Bah to the entire censorship debate! My critique of Substack is that our lesson from the last ten years is simple: speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. Our problem isn't censorship. Our problem is that our political/economic/relig…

> speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. No such platform has ever existed. How would you propose building one?

It's an interesting thought exercise and I have some experiments I have to get running. Instead of half-assing a bad answer, I'll think about this in the shower for the next few days and try to return to this later with an actually well-thought out answer.

But to be honest, my intent was mostly critique. If you're taking VC money and running a for-profit entity where your paycheck comes from getting folks to talk about divisive topics, I view you as part of a profoundly horrible problem and assume that your position on the censorship spectrum to be mostly about market positioning.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#126

Post by OrvalWintermute » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:21 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #41

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then says masks don't help Actually, they said this: Masks don't help Masks do help, but save them for the healthcare workers Masks do help, get one, a cloth one is fine. Masks do help, double-mask Mask do help, but you need N95 masks Given that even with a properly fitting N95 mask that is form fitting you can still smell everything right through it, I think a properly fit, and negative pressure tested N100 or P10…

A mask someone could wear for hours will never block all smells. Even in a N99 you still smell gases and other small things

You are comparing very different standards e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part...

N95 – Filters at least 95% of airborne particles. Not resistant to oil.

Surgical N95 – A NIOSH-approved N95 respirator that has also been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a surgical mask.

N99 – Filters at least 99% of airborne particles. Not resistant to oil.

N100 – Filters at least 99.97% of airborne particles. Not resistant to oil.

R95 – Filters at least 95% of airborne particles. Somewhat resistant to oil.

P95 – Filters at least 95% of airborne particles. Strongly resistant to oil.

P99 – Filters at least 99% of airborne particles. Strongly resistant to oil.

P100 – Filters at least 99.97% of airborne particles. Strongly resistant to oil.

Additionally, see https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-42/part-84

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#127

Post by daveevad » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #120

daveevad wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a pointer to that definition I'd love to read it. I mean that earnestly.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/public_benefit_corporation The platforms where we talk online should be most analogous, legally, to a library or city hall.

I've wondered in the past if something like 1st.gov shouldn't exist, basically a Twitter clone protected by the 1st Amendment payed for by the citizens of the United States.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#128

Post by version_five » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #110

I say Bah to the entire censorship debate! My critique of Substack is that our lesson from the last ten years is simple: speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. Our problem isn't censorship. Our problem is that our political/economic/relig…

> prohibited from profit-seeking

A more pragmatic goal might be that they are not ad or attention driven. It's the fight for attention (specifically "content" as a ruse to get you to see adds) that has led directly to the current censorship problems, as well as many other issues, in part because its created these big platforms that try to make everyone watch ads that are lightning rods for interests that want to control what people say.

I don't think subscription models suffer from the same problem, because their "content" is the actual product, not the bait, and so the communities they support are very different and their attack surface is smaller.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#129

Post by adolph » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

ksdale wrote: post #72

usernomdeguerre wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it works. In fact it works for a population of 5 times our size (China). So it seems to me that the only people who have their heads up their asses are us, who seem to think that censorship is a childs model for maintaining power and influence. In our technological society censorship can work better than ever before. Frankly, imo, in the absence of effective accountability for ones' words or deeds, censor…

I think it's far too early to pass judgment on whether it works in China. Lots of very oppressive states have lasted for decades, apparently successfully, until they implode spectacularly. Less than a century ago, many in the West sang the praises of communism as (unkown to them) a million people died in the Gulag. Things aren't always as they appear.

Preference falsification is the act of communicating a preference that differs from one's true preference. The public frequently conveys, especially to researchers or pollsters, preferences that differ from what they truly want, often because they believe the conveyed preference is more acceptable socially. The idea of preference falsification was put forth by the social scientist Timur Kuran in his 1995 book Private Truths, Public Lies as part of his theory of how people's stated preferences are responsive to social influences. It laid the foundation for his theory of why unanticipated revolutions can occur. The concept is related to ideas of social proof as well as choice blindness.

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

More about Kuran:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/11/wh...

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/4-timur-kuran-economic...

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#130

Post by ksdale » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #112

ksdale wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silver lining of this awkward middle ground is the certainty that censorship is the wrong way to go. We may be doomed if people remain so easy to manipulate, but if you really believe that censorship is counter-productive, then education is the only path out.

Ugh, no! I mean, yes, but also, stop getting sucked into this stupid debate. It's a red herring.

And I guess to expand on my position, I don't think this debate is stupid. The way through, in my mind, as naive as it may seem, is to be basically like substack, and acknowledge that providing a platform is a big responsibility, one they don't take lightly, that the goal is increased trust overall, and that that goal is primarily served by being as content agnostic as possible. Acting in good faith with no expectation that people will return the favor is the way to build trust.