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

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #20

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.

> 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. This worked to marvelous effect when legitimate, unique net neutrality concerns were buried under an avalanche of duplicate anti-net-neutrality letters sent on behalf of people who were very much deceased. The solution to this challenge likely needs a much more nuanc…

Post by jachee » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

Kapow wrote: post #116

jachee wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

snackbugs wrote: post #138

macspoofing wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Every reply of yours so far has hinged on my definition of terms being arbitrary. I'm strictly talking about well-defined terms. Maybe you have never examined them because you never needed to interface with them in practice, or maybe you do understand them and are just arguing in bad faith to defend a more abstract belief. I won't make any assumptions about that.

Post by soule » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #109

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…

Modest proposal: The government should appoint a Department of Truth to review and approve all social media posts in a country to eliminate election misinformation.

Post by mrweasel » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28

mrkstu wrote: post #16

Cockroaches thrive in the dark corners. Sunlight is antiseptic. And forcing ideas/speech into those dark corners don't keep them from growing, it merely allows it to grow unobserved and un-countered. Ideas are the only counter to other ideas and how we communicate those idea is via speech. Suppression only invites martyrdom on the behalf of those suppressed, increasing their credibility.

There is evidence that deplatforming works ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... )