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Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

rnz.co.nz

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

#151

Post by kragen »

stcredzero wrote: post #122
kragen wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

What leads you to believe that I presuppose the undesirability of people supposedly inevitably having access to Martin Luther King? Perhaps you aren't from the US, so you don't understand the cultural context of my example of extremism? Or did you mean that I am claiming that the formation of a censorship cartel is supposedly inevitable? I wasn't claiming that; I was claiming that in the absence of a censorship cartel, people will tend to move to platforms whose recommendations aren't censored, and so they will have access to Martin Luther King and other extremist content.

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

#152

Post by CodiePetersen »

incompatible wrote: post #148
CodiePetersen wrote: post #143

This just sounds like a giant can of worms that is going to blow up in people's faces. Remove for a moment any potential future government alignments, just so we aren't talking about hypothetical fictitious governments. Let's just examine the governments currently signed to it. Indonesia has harsh religious laws, crack downs on illegal reporting, and literally raids on LGBTQ gatherings. The Senegal government arbitra…

Are you suggesting that certain countries would describe LGBTQ activities as "terrorist and violent extremist content"? I don't think they would need to, they have special anti-LGBTQ laws already.

Correct and now they have the moral authority and excuse to continue doing it. That sort of support, especially when you can say from a podium "The world is behind us in this effort" is a powerful tool for governments to use. Imagine being gay or lesbian and hearing you might as well give up because the whole world is against you.

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

#154

Post by fzeroracer »

stcredzero wrote: post #111
krapp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The powers that be. The shadowy cabal. The unseen hand which controls all aspects of society with absolute and arbitrary power. Actually, this does seem to be the case with a somewhat reduced context of just media/social-media/tech in 2019. Journalist collusion is well documented. Big company manipulation of local journalists is documented. We have seen indications of CEOs of different companies cooperating to suppre…

Free speech is not an absolutist position and it does not exist. There is no single country on this earth, past or present, which has held an absolutist free speech position. Yes, that includes America.

It may be enshrined in our constitution, but that has never stopped us from selectively applying constitutional rights to different classes of citizens or people we consider to be non-people. The real problem is pretending that an absolutist position exists and acting like we're becoming more free when the reality is that violent bigotry is rising while we complain about the imaginary slippery slope into fascism whenever someone decides to take action against them.

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

#155

Post by kragen »

skybrian wrote: post #147
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…

Except that advertisers are not interested in sponsoring extremist content, so you could argue the incentives go in the other direction.

YouTube permits a lot of demonetized videos they don't dare to sell advertising on, or (previously) that YouTubers wouldn't give permission to sell advertising on, because the alternative of erasing the videos would send the YouTubers and their viewers to DailyMotion or Vimeo. As long as the demonetized viewers occasionally watch a non-demonetized video, or the sometimes-demonetized YouTubers occasionally make non-demonetized videos, YouTube makes more money that way.

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

#156

Post by sonnyblarney »

I find it problematic that there have been oodles of very classical kinds of 'terrorism' and 'extremism' on Social Media since the start.

ISIS has been recruiting with absolutely brutal kind of stuff on Twitter, etc..

But now we have this nutbar thing in New Zealand and it's a 'global action'?

Aside from the complications mentioned in some other comments ...

... the Jacinda / Trudeau / Macron triumvirate I think were looking in the wrong places.

So it's probably good that we're taking action, and just beyond repulsive that that some massacre was broadcast live on Facebook, but I hope we accomplish do this without too many existential issues.

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

#157

Post by sonnyblarney »

BonesJustice wrote: post #25
ausbah wrote: post #21

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

What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness.

Well, broadcasting your massacre of 20 people online would be one kind of 'extremism'.

So there's that.

Surely it can get tricky (and it will) but we have to do something. This is not new, we always have. Every nation has some kind of hate law, applied one way or another.

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

#158

Post by tomp »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #109
bilbo0s wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Not all mass shootings stem from extremism. Gang violence also falls under the same definition. Also from the business insider: "There is no broadly accepted definition of a mass shooting. The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which four or more people, not including the shooter, are "shot and/or killed" at "the same general time and location." Another source suggests that death rat…

> Another source suggests that death rate from "Islamic terrorism" in the US is somewhere around 1 in 3,500,000.

Yeah, that can't be right. Or, it can be, if one only takes into account years after 2001, when at least 3000 people were killed, or 1 in 100 000 US residents.

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

#159

Post by incompatible »

uabstraction wrote: post #41
ausbah wrote: post #21

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

Moderating discussion forums is not censorship.

Ironically, I've rarely seen a thread with so much downvoting as this one. Is trying to grey-out a post the same as wanting to censor it? I just went through and upvoted most of the posts that were grey.

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

#160

Post by 75dvtwin »

uabstraction wrote: post #41
ausbah wrote: post #21

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

Moderating discussion forums is not censorship.

I was thinking about it. Making up filters to filter other people expression, using rules that are not explicitly enumerated in Governing laws -- is selective censorship.

Making up speech/expression filters that are explicitly enumerated by governing laws, is censorship too -- but this one is not 'selective', instead it is mandated.

So the opposition that people have on these topics, is towards 'selective censorship', not the 'mandated' one.

The next argument for 'selective sensorship' -- is that a private business can make up their own rules.

My view is, yes, private business can -- but then, the content where selective-censorship was applied, cannot be available publicly without a fee.

So, if Facebook wants to do selective-censorship, then ok --

however, that filtered content should be available only to people who selected to participate in explicit business relationship with Facebook.

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