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Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

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Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#221

Post by hef19898 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #211
toomanybeersies wrote: post #67

Slide 66 is particularly interesting, and articulates an observation that I've made: > Tech firms are performing a balancing act between two incompatible positions > 100% commit to the American tradition that prioritises free speech for democracy, not civility > 100% commit to the European tradition that favors dignity over liberty, and civility over freedom It is a very American view that unrestricted freedom of spe…

As a European I have to admit that the American model is vastly superior. Europe had laws to protect "civilty" even before the great wars. American democracy is also more successful in general. Europe just had the "luck" that censorship didn't become very necessary. In some places it was used extensively and those places are no more today. And lastly, stripping someones voice implicates directly stripping someones di…

As a fellow European I have to disagree. Hiostorically speaking, pernal freedoms have been alot higher in Europe than the US (since the time something like personal freedom became athing), slavery was abolished by Great Britain and France way before the War of Independance for example. Also, where exactly is the US democracy more successfull overall? We do have free election in Europe, don't we? And we don't have such things like aelectoral college, not even in Germany where we don't elect the Chancellor directly (that the separation of legislative, executive and judicative powers works better in the US than in Germany with regards to the first two the excepotion proofing the rule).

Cesnrship was used extensivle by every European nation during WW1 and WW2, France convicted journalists of treason during wWW1 and Britain was very restrictive as well during WW2. Both places still exist.

Again, no one is stripping me of my voice in Europe. With the notable exception of redicals within their respective bubbles, there freedom of speech is treated as a direct threat. The existence of these bubbles and the hate speech coming from them has to be freedom speech on the other hand. But hey, extremist always want it both ways. Logic thinking isn't theirs strength, self dilusion is much more comfortable, isn't it?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#222

Post by ggggtez »

Aunche wrote: post #129

It's interesting that this document calls Arab Spring "the high point in positivity" of the internet. From what I understand, most countries are even worse off now. Libya in particular is still stuck in civil war to this day.

If you go back and read articles from that time, you'll find that Twitter, Facebook, VPNs, and other technology was used to help organize grass roots rebellions against dictators.

Obviously it didn't make the middle east and northern africa a bastion of democracy like western viewers may have hoped, but no doubt that many people tried to make their countries a better place through democratic revolution. Just because they didn't succeed 100%, doesn't mean that the revolution was a mistake.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#223

Post by yread »

Aunche wrote: post #129

It's interesting that this document calls Arab Spring "the high point in positivity" of the internet. From what I understand, most countries are even worse off now. Libya in particular is still stuck in civil war to this day.

Tunisia and Egypt are arguably doing a bit better though.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#224

Post by tomp »

enraged_camel wrote: post #209
evilturnip wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are thousands of conspiracies floating around. Should we consider them all harmful and ban them? Who decides when a conspiracy becomes harmful? Should we ban flat-earthers from posting their views? After all, if everyone believed it, we would set science back countless centuries. The way to combat false ideas is with truth; a culture that is always searching for the truth. That can only be facilitated by unhind…

>>The way to combat false ideas is with truth This is extremely naive. As the saying goes, a lie can go around the world before the truth can finish putting on its shoes. edit: maybe rather than downvoting (which is a type of censorship) y’all should provide a response.

I don’t think bad feelings count for “actively harmful”. Also, you can always just not read the internet to avoid bad feelings.

NSA surveillance was a conspiracy theory before Snowden, so I don’t think the “conspiracy theory” accusation warrants censorship.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#225

Post by tomp »

fzeroracer wrote: post #68
evilturnip wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are thousands of conspiracies floating around. Should we consider them all harmful and ban them? Who decides when a conspiracy becomes harmful? Should we ban flat-earthers from posting their views? After all, if everyone believed it, we would set science back countless centuries. The way to combat false ideas is with truth; a culture that is always searching for the truth. That can only be facilitated by unhind…

Do you consider American culture to be one of the more free ones? If so, then why do these conspiracies exist? Why have flat-earth conspiracies and anti-scientific dogma thrived? Why do we have a president that outright denies scientific fact? If combating false ideas with truth worked, then surely these problems shouldn't exist in America, the land of the free. In the arena of free speech, only the values with the m…

Politicians always play with the truth. E.g. Obama repeated the “pay gap” lie because it served his political agenda.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#226

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

webkike wrote: post #210
aalleavitch wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of all restrictions on a child’s behavior are simply enforced by their parents.

That’s the point. That used to be enough. Now just giving your child access to a computer could seriously tamper with their mental health

By the way, is there any evidence of this? Or are such claims perhaps similar to how old people never understood new things and claimed that "punk rock and heavy metal could seriously tamper with kids' mental health"?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#227

Post by tomp »

fzeroracer wrote: post #100
Karunamon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the paradox of tolerance. We can say that unhindered speech is the way of countering harmful speech, but then I ask you: What led to the rise of such harmful speech today? You point at anti-science conspiracy theories as a failing of free speech, and you're probably right, but what would you have us do otherwise? A world in which some central authority dictates that certain opinions are never allowed to be ex…

You live in that world right now. We have a central authority that says 'you're not allowed to call black people certain words'. I always ask this but do you believe that was a mistake? Do you think people have that specific right to exercise their freedom of speech? Obviously there are degrees of harm to speech. We've already collectively determined this as a society. And to me, anti-vaxxers are a great example. We…

> you're not allowed to call black people certain words'

It’s actually much worse, the restriction itself is highly racist; only blacks are allowed to use the “n-word”, while whites (and other races I presume) aren’t.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#228

Post by tomp »

sagichmal wrote: post #114
lurquer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating hurt feelings with 'harm' is sophistry. If your speech causes harm, you can sue for damages. A person's belief that Sandy Hook is a conspiracy harms no one. A person can say or believe what they want and I for one couldn't care less whose feelings it hurts. I'm sure King George's feelings were hurt by being called a tyrant. And, I'm sure there were sniveling nimrods who wrung their hands in virtuous concern…

Nobody has said anything about hurt feelings. They are speaking about the families of children killed at Sandy Hook, and the maleficent antagonists who harass them with lies.

So what’s the harm to the families, except bad feelings? Was anyone actually (physically) hurt?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#229

Post by tomp »

adventured wrote: post #108
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, now let's apply your example to something a bit more violent. People that believe black people are sub-human and deserve less rights. At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders? At a certain point we deemed as a society that those sort of views are considered bad. Do yo…

Nobody has to tolerate such opinions. Facebook, Twitter, etc. have block / unfriend options. It's extremely easy to avoid sites like Daily Stormer (or whatever the infamous white supremacist site is called?). I intentionally don't hang out with racists, bigots, etc. It's the exact same manner of avoidance. You have to do it in real life, I don't see why the same premise wouldn't hold online. Don't spend time in such…

HN is doing “filtering” more than “censorship” - there’s a setting that lets you see flagged comments (greyed out), so the filtering is almost completely transparent, it cannot really be called censorship.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#230

Post by bad_user »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #189
chaosite wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a position. This document is showing the hole in that position -- an outright attack (elsagate) aimed at children. A cursory inspection by the parent sees the child watching a harmless Peppa the Pig video, while in fact she's watching snuff. This is a problem that Google has to address somehow (because that is what is demanded of them), while not censoring things aimed to adults. That's why the conclusion is…

That isn't a hole, it's an iterative process. Parents didn't know there was snuff on YouTube Kids. As soon as they find out, their kids are not allowed to use it anymore and with declining viewership, whatever garbage feedback loop allowed that to happen is destroyed.

You're not a parent.

As a parent, I don't have time for this shit, so I did not ban such movies. I banned YouTube, all of it.

People put their trust way too much in free market competition. You know, if consumers were actually conscious of their choices and free market competition actually worked for pruning the weeds, we wouldn't have diabetes or obesity or pollution or global warming.

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