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Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

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Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#181

Post by bedhead »

fallingknife wrote: post #158
faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

Also important to note that Reddit doesn't ban hate. They ban unpopular opinions. If you want to see hate, go to r/politics.

Yup. These platforms are all perfectly 100% fine with hatred as long as it's the right kind.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#183

Post by Cd00d »

naasking wrote: post #70
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose to the extent these channels of communication recruit and radicalise, if they are shut down they will not be able to recruit and radicalise. The act of shutting them down might infuriate regular users of these channels, but they’re already radicalised anyway.

There is little evidence that radicalization happens online [1]. It seems to require in-person contact to really take root. [1] https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a...

I'd like to recommend this podcast about online radicalization, produced by the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/column/rabbit-hole

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#184

Post by icyfox »

idiotsecant wrote: post #159
icyfox wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things do help. Most members of these communities get radicalized by virtue of other content they’re already browsing. If you remove the communities and force individuals to leap from Facebook to some no-name forum, they’re far less likely to engage. This phenomenon is mirrored elsewhere as well where small interventions can lead to big impacts: see suicide rates in Britain after removing carbon monoxide in the…

I'm not convinced we should think it's acceptable for you or I to decide who does and does not get exposed to information that will 'radicalize' them because you and I may have wildly different opinions of what constitutes a radical opinion. Humans sometimes develop stupid opinions, and that is OK. They're allowed to do that. They aren't allowed to act on those opinions in a way that constitutes a crime, which is why…

I define a radical group to be some collection that seems to be consistently peddling false material for their own ends, with an overly provoking tilt that makes it easy to go viral. Some specifics out of the past year would be vaccine misinformation, prejudice that incites racial violence in Myanmar, organizing an occupation to the capital in the US. Shouldn't we put a stop to these communities if they sway people to start peddling this information themselves?

At least in the US, free speech is most free within public forums. But even then we already define some speech that is too dangerous if it's known to lead to poor outcomes. You can't yell fire in a crowded room, not because yelling fire is inherently a crime, but because it's going to incite people to a detrimental ends.

Plus social networks don't have a constitutional obligation to be town squares where free speech can spread unfettered. You have to draw a line somewhere. And as the people who write the algorithms that can amplify or bury content on these networks, I think it _is_ our obligation to at least set parameters on what constitutes good/healthy content interactions on these social platforms and what doesn't. The ML algorithms have to optimize over some loss function.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#185

Post by jessaustin »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #122
brandonmenc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What changed in 2020? Liberals started doing it.

> " Liberals started doing it. " Let's be precise; the left started doing it. We are literally discussing how big parts of the political left in the US is moving away from the liberal ideals and philosophy that it once embraced and championed.

There should be a term for this, when conservatives in USA have so little exposure to actual leftists that they confuse MSNBC, the Democratic Party, and censorious anklebiters with "the Left". Here's a hint: actual leftists aren't cheering on the persecution of Assange, like everyone on MSNBC is.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#186

Post by R0b0t1 »

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

They're measuring success based on referencing the community they just banned people from, aren't they?

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#187

Post by greg7gkb »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

I'm super tired of people conflating civil rights + first amendment protections with the idea that speech anywhere, by anyone, on any platform, deserves to be protected.

The goal of the first amendment is to protect the citizens of America from laws created by congress / government in limiting speech. That is nowhere near what we are talking about when we're talking about _any_ speech conducted on a private platform.

In fact, it's interesting to me that the argument has recently been spun around such that some politicians are claiming that social platforms are violating their first amendment rights by blocking or banning. This has nothing to do with the intent or language of the first amendment.

In my mind, you can be the most fervent civil rights advocate and still believe that Twitter/Facebook/etc can ban anyone they want for any reason. Even more so if you believe in free enterprise and the rights of a business to act in the way that they best see fit.

I understand that platform bans have more implications and repercussions than I'm outlining here in simple terms but still the conflation is frustrating to me.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#188

Post by xadhominemx »

thereddaikon wrote: post #171
xadhominemx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the conclusions of the study? Do they comport with events of the past 5 years? Not at all

If you are going to claim a study is bunk then link another study proving it. empty statements like that prove nothing. that's not science.

This study was not really science. They interviewed a few people and then applied their own qualitative analysis to conclude that people cannot be self radicalized fully online. Since they published the study, there have been several major terrorist attacks perpetrated by individuals fully radicalized online.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#189

Post by chroem- »

cratermoon wrote: post #170
chroem- wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all fun and games until the Ministry of Truth refers your case to the Ministry of Love.

- Performative Hate Speech Acts. Perlocutionary and Illocutionary Understandings in International Human Rights Law: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334199177_PERFORMAT... - Oppressive Speech: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/000484008023703... - Why We Should Ban Oppressive Speech Acts: https://publicseminar.org/essays/why-we-should-outlaw-oppres...

The speech in your post is oppressing me right now. Cease and desist your verbal oppression or else I will use state-sponsored violence to end your oppressively free speech.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#190

Post by klyrs »

jaywalk wrote: post #174
klyrs wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders allowed for rights to be revoked when the "weather" got extremely bad: agree or disagree?

Agree.

I said earlier, the debate here is over what constitutes "fair weather". Glad we agree.
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