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

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

#161

Post by pdonis » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #149

jasode wrote: post #3

>a workable plan that enables more free speech, [...] That approach: build protocols, not platforms. To be clear, this is an approach that would bring us back to the way the internet used to be. The early internet involved many different protocols—instructions and standards that anyone could then use to build a compatible interface. As I've commented before[1][2], discussing protocols and advocating for them is a pop…

I think what many don't realise is that it is precisely the "unfree" parts of HN that make it attractive. And by that I don't mean centralized technical or organizational structure, but rather stuff like a culture of downvoting destructive, inflamatory or snarky comments, a good and mostly invisible moderation, a strong focus on certain topics etc. To have a good discourse it totally helps if that one guy over there…

> To have a good discourse

...is not the primary purpose of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Which may be a better way of stating the root problem than focusing on either protocols or platforms.

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

#162

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:44 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…

> From what I recall the 2016 election was frequently attributed to some vague accusation of hacking from Russia but the same standard was not applied at the time, nor is it applied today. The people espousing this view were eventually proven inconclusive in all the different inquiries into the matter, and they were far more influential than a man who sells pillows.

Your recollection seems at odds with reality. There has been a Senate inquiry with conclusions at odd with your recollections. The Mueller report came to conclusions at odd with your recollections. A reminder: that report, while not indicting the president or his team in anything in particular, found what it considered incontrovertible evidence of Russian interference designed to favor the election of Trump. The Senate report came to the same conclusions, even more strongly stated.

As for your claim that the people espousing this view being "far more influential than a man who sells pillows", I think you'd need to establish a metric for "influential", since it is far from clear precisely what you mean.

Furthermore, the sense that some people had regarding Russian interference in the 2016 elections never resulted in violence or death (certainly not directly). Nobody claimed that the election had been "stolen" (that's a direct quote from a large number of people regarding the 2020 elections). There was just a sense of unease and disquiet that the election may not have been fair but the result was accepted anyway.

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

#163

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #150

zrm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If HN is overrepresented by vanguards of decentralization and free speech, why are a lot of us here on HN instead of running USENET nodes and posting to a newsgroup such as "comp.programming.hackernews" to avoid being moderated by dang? Because the point isn't to have no moderation, it's for the power of "moderation" not to be vested in a small number of oligarchs pressured by angry mobs spurred on by media compani…

> Because the point isn't to have no moderation, it's for the power of "moderation" not to be vested in a small number of oligarchs pressured by angry mobs spurred on by media companies with bad incentives to want to damage their political opponents and market competitors. This is not a statement many people who have been angry recently would agree with. Trump would've gotten himself banned from any of the forums I h…

>This is not a statement many people who have been angry recently would agree with.

Well, what "angry people would agree with" is a pretty strange basis for an argument, anyway...

>Trump would've gotten himself banned from any of the forums I hung out in from 2000 to now. Not for being conservative, for being an asshole.

And that would be neither here nor there, cause your forums are not so massive as to shape public opinion and influence elections and news.

In smaller, disperse and diverse, discussion platforms, you would be entitled to think that he should be banned for "being an asshole" and even ban him from your forums, while others would be entitled to ban others that say the same or worse things from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

When one side, in a major public-opinion-influencing service can ban a whole side of the political spectrum though, and even the sitting president, that's a problem.

It's actually analogous to election influencing - same as if 9 out of 10 channels in TV only carried the views from one party and not the other(s).

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

#164

Post by pdonis » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

froh wrote: post #126

fareesh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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).

This is true. However, the part nobody wants to talk about is that it didn't just happen in Germany.

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

#165

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #143

mcguire wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point did those who made the "vague accusation of hacking" storm the United States Capitol in a coup attempt?

Do people really believe that it was a coup attempt though? I see people framing it that way but always assumed it was political exaggeration

What term would you use for an event, even if if doomed to fail, that involves at least hundreds of people outside (and then inside) of the building where the vice-president is present, chanting "Hang Mike Pence" ? Do you think it's just some of kiddie protest party? Do you think they didn't mean it? Do you think that because it wasn't 100,000 people it doesn't count? Do you think that because they didn't have the army on their side, it can't be an attempt at a coup?

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

#166

Post by fareesh » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #129

fareesh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am curious as to whether the predictable counter-argument of "private organization with prerogative" will shift in the wake of the recent Robinhood fiasco.

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

#167

Post by dang » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #75

JacobSeated wrote: post #33

This take is inaccurate and a myopic understanding of free speech. Moderating social media, and the internet is in fact, doable, and absolutely necessary. This has nothing to do with "censorship". The debate is actually easily settled if you understand what is happening with free speech online. What typically happens in conspiracy-circles, is that people are radicalized because the disinformation is simply not challe…

That your (thoughtful, IMO) response is being downvoted into oblivion by the same people who purport to want "free speech" is sort of perfect.

Please follow the site guidelines, which ask you not to post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The GP comment is no longer in a downvoted state, let alone "oblivion". Meanwhile comments like yours linger on as uncollected garbage even after they have been falsified. The thing to do instead is to give a corrective upvote and move on. Most often, fair-minded readers do enough of that to restore thoughtful comments to a non-negative state. In egregious cases, you can always give us a heads-up at hn@ycombinator.com.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=...

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

#168

Post by WClayFerguson » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #105

WClayFerguson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left wing is still not wanting to rise up against censorship because they believe it's still benefiting them, since BigTech (+M5M) is their leftist ally...for now. What they need to realize is that once you give Tyrannical Control over to your leaders (governments, or BigTech censors), because you consider them benevolent today, it's foolish because they won't be benevolent forever. Our founding fathers knew powe…

> Our founding fathers knew power corrupts, but today's 20-somethings seem quite unaware. The government has to be able to actively respond to the problems of the moment, and those problems will constantly change. A handcuffed government only benefits the already-powerful. The dirty secrets of the "but the founding fathers!" argument are that (a) they knew they weren't creating a perfect set of rules in the Constitut…

Our founding fathers and subsequent forefathers fought wars to protect our freedoms, and sadly the current generation don't value or even want to preserve that freedom. Good times create weak men, and weak men will happily surrender to Tyranny.

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

#169

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

unishark wrote: post #155

pfraze wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty biased take on what's been happening. The 2020 election's fraud claims were thrown out by courts. They were entirely evidence-free. Even Lindsey Graham gave a concise speech on the night of 1/6 explaining precisely how false those fraud claims were. The 2016 election involved Russia hacking the DNC and leaking their emails, which became a centerpiece of the election debate ("Hillary's emails!"). It a…

There were nationwide protests against the election result in 2016. They blocked the highways here in california. People also disrupted confirmation hearings back then.

Those protests mostly fizzled out with a week or two of the election results (even before all state results were certified).

"Disrupted confirmation hearings" seems fairly different to me from "smashed windows and doors to gain entrance to the US Capitol while hundreds of people chanted "Hang Mike Pence!".

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

#170

Post by afinlayson » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

100% This is why phone and internet work together. Imagine if AT&T said Verizon couldn't call its customers or couldn't connect to other websites? Yet Facebook doesn't have a way to connect to Twitter, meaning they own the whole sandbox ....