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Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

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Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#131

Post by keiferski »

somehnrdr14726 wrote: post #128
keiferski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in a literal sense, no. But they certainly have the ability to: - Exclude you from the largest (and nearly monopolizing) media channels. Good luck getting an online business off the ground when an AI filter bans you from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google search results. And good luck contacting Google support to contest it, which is notoriously absent for virtually everyone. - Have you socially ostracized…

Sticking to the consumer-side of the discussion, the BigCos aren't going to break the cycle. In fact, it's a capitalist crime to do so. Their flywheel requires a steady cattle population to surveil in the fields. When we choose as individuals to remain in their ecosystem, we choose the hidden fees of surveillance capitalism over more straightforward payment models. This is what gives BigCos the muscle to wield agains…

The government could do plenty of things (using laws written a century ago in the Teddy Roosevelt era) to encourage competition and break up de facto monopolies. They've simply been asleep at the wheel.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#132

Post by ceejayoz »

4ggr0 wrote: post #86
ceejayoz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would anyone get banned for being pro euthanasia? Because it's explicitly against the rules. "You may not promote or encourage suicide or self-harm." https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/glorifying-se...

Euthanasia is an official, assisted(!) suicide. We could technically label it as a plain suicide, but that's not what it is. It's an official procedure, assisted by doctors, and not allowed spontaneously for everyone. That would be like saying a limb amputation is illegal to talk about on Twitter, because amputating a limb equals to self-harm.

I am in agreement that there's a distinction. (I am also an advocate of legalizing euthanasia in a variety of scenarios.)

In my experience, social media moderation doesn't make much room for this sort of nuance.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#133

Post by dumbfounder »

koonsolo wrote: post #123
keiferski wrote: post #12

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

Alright, let's say you get appointed at Twitter to clean up this mess. You get full authority to do whatever needs to be done. How would you solve this? Your solution will be criticized by the other HN-ers here :D.

It should be criticized, why do you imply that is a negative? AI is just a tool, and it can be used incorrectly. In this case we have a policy that seems to be applied incorrectly. That is a simple problem to solve, require more review, or the ability to escalate. Don't make such decisions "final".

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#134

Post by mensetmanusman »

DanBC wrote: post #114
mensetmanusman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advocating for euthanasia is advocating for the government to force doctors to take someone’s life even against the doctor’s will. It’s an interesting form of violence.

No it isn't. It's advocating for removing penalities for ending someone's life in certain specific circumstances. Whether doctors make that choice will be up to them.

It’s both.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#135

Post by holistio »

chrisseaton wrote: post #125
holistio wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not equating the two things. I was illustrating how people come up with slogans that sound good for things that destroy lives.

> people come up with slogans that sound good for things that destroy lives Did you consider writing just this instead? Why use sarcasm for something that can be said plainly and straightforwardly instead?

No, I did not, at the moment. I trusted that my friends who know my track record regarding social issues will know that I'm not for either of the two things referenced via these slogans, quite the contrary.

Contrast can be a tool, and I could have written a long and boring essay on how sad and disgusting these phenomena are or just put them up against one another.

Do you think something like this would have worked better? I'm quite the RATM fan.

Some of those who said Arbeit macht frei Are the same who say All lives matter

This is is what I meant.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#136

Post by pgrote »

koonsolo wrote: post #123
keiferski wrote: post #12

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

Alright, let's say you get appointed at Twitter to clean up this mess. You get full authority to do whatever needs to be done. How would you solve this? Your solution will be criticized by the other HN-ers here :D.

>Alright, let's say you get appointed at Twitter to clean up this mess.

Announce a sale of intellectual and physical assets and close down. I would realize the company is a negative drain on society.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#137

Post by qubex »

_qulr wrote: post #110
onion2k wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The problem is very simple. Unless social media companies either stop moderating content, which will kill their profits because advertisers will run away, or pay people to moderate everything, which will kill their profit because it'd be wildly expensive, they'll continue to do the half-assed version of moderating they do now…

> So long as companies deal with errors reasonably it's all good. We all eagerly await this utopia. Or maybe expecting that is silly, given the many years of empirical evidence?

There’s plenty of counterexamples one who might wish to dismiss the idea that technology can reasonably manage things, but all things considered, given the number of _potential_ instance of mishap that do not regularly occur any the relatively minor consequences of the mishaps that do occur, I’d conclude that on the whole arguing the original poster’s position is not inherently ‘_silly_’.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#138

Post by flerchin »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #103
codetrotter wrote: post #4

I think being allowed to die on your own terms is a right that every human should have. And I think assisted suicide is a good thing. But I don’t understand why Twitter would block the Bishop for saying what he said. And the reason they gave, that it “promotes self harm”.. that’s straight up Kafkaesque.

Assume you are right, the way it is being implemented is by threatening doctors to pull the trigger. Humans are too stupid to implement this without horrifying consequences. In the Netherlands a ‘hilarious’ scene occurred when a doctor showed up and killed a patient who was screaming not wanting to die in front of their family. Apparently the patient was not in a mental state to decide not to die after previously bei…

Link or GTFO

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#139

Post by keiferski »

koonsolo wrote: post #123
keiferski wrote: post #12

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

Alright, let's say you get appointed at Twitter to clean up this mess. You get full authority to do whatever needs to be done. How would you solve this? Your solution will be criticized by the other HN-ers here :D.

Hmm. Obviously I don't have a perfect solution, but I've often thought that a "tagging" system would work better than a "moderation" system.

It would work like this: by default, nothing is moderated. Instead, every post/tweet/etc. has to be labeled by the user. There can be an auto-suggestion feature to make it a quick process.

Then, other users can choose which tags they want to view or hide. If you don't want to see content tagged with X, no problem. If you do, you can.

In my mind, this would solve a few problems:

1. Justifiably ban people that try to circumvent the tagging system. You aren't determining whether their speech is allowed or not, merely ensuring that they follow the very basic rules of the site. This is much simpler than relying on an AI to interpret a nuanced comment and then moderate it.

2. Allow everyone to say whatever they want. No one will feel silenced.

Again, I'm sure there are holes in this idea, but I think it might be a better approach.

Re: Twitter locks out Irish Bishop after he criticized euthanasia

#140

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

somehnrdr14726 wrote: post #63
keiferski wrote: post #12

Why does it matter if the flagging is automatic? Does that somehow make it more acceptable? The popularity of this view makes me wish more people read Kafka. A future tyranny might end up not being Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but a kafkesque nightmare where people are lost in a world of AI giving out absurd punishments. [1] Kafka's book The Castle [2] is essentially about this, although I think his aph…

One difference is that Twitter, Facebook, Google, are not governments and have no real authority over you. They only have the power you give them by choosing to stay in their ecosystem. Therefore it's a strain to refer to them as officials. If you're worried about them _becoming_ officials, then act now. Leave these platforms and convince others to do the same.

> If you're worried about them _becoming_ officials, then act now. Leave these platforms and convince others to do the same.

the assumption that we do still have agency, and can exercise power as a collective "by voting with our feet/wallet" is wrong. we (some isolated heroes and activists who care) might be able to throw some spanner into the works or otherwise help things unravel at a slower speed. But things will still unravel in the same way as Jacques Ellul documented and predicted in "La Technique"[0].

To get rid of them is not possible because the only way out we can imagine is regulation which will further cement their position and status quo. There is no future in which these companies and power structures will not be around. I think it is more likely we see the end of the world than to envision a world where these platforms don't exist (maybe not among everyone my age but certainly among everyone 20 years younger than myself who has never experienced society without the Internet/Web)

[0] The Technological Society https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...

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