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

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

#221

Post by orthecreedence »

Vraxx wrote: post #183
mrkstu wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't in any way expect that Twitter has reviewed a tweet for content and approves of the content therein. Equally so for Facebook et al. The platforms ubiquity makes them the Hydes Park / Public Square of the modern age- if anything they should be regulated to be content neutral rather than be encouraged to silence certain viewpoints.

That's just not true though when you consider that these platforms have algorithms that will determine which posts get more visibility than others (trending is the most obvious of these). I don't think this would be even half as much of a debate if we had an electronic platform that could actually be the modern public square of the US, but instead we have only private entities attempting to provide this, and they are…

> If we actually had a government run system

We do! Buy a domain, point to your home server, and go to town. Any unlawful messages you spew will be met with seizure of your domain and/or servers, but otherwise you're free to promote or discuss any ideas you see fit.

If you're talking about a government-run social network, that's an interesting idea. I was actually talking about this with someone a few days ago, but with regard to a government run (or government funded) news/journalism publication that reported on facts (as opposed to felings and clickbait).

I think these government-run services would eventually become victim to people's calls for them to be removed...either they are too biased, or not biased enough. A social network in particular...I cannot imagine a social network built and run by the government that ANYBODY would actually want to use.

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

#222

Post by basch »

snowwrestler wrote: post #34

"Tech companies" is just way too broad a designation to use here. No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance, or Verizon to police hate speech in SMS. No one expects AT&T to police hate speech in a phone call. What people are concerned about are the newsfeeds and timelines, specifically. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube love to pretend that their newsfe…

>No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime

facebook DOES censor Messenger.

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

#223

Post by mundo »

dwighttk wrote: post #115
mundo wrote: post #103

This strikes me as a timely and important sentiment. When we demand that Twitter ban anti-semitic tweets, or that Cloudflare block white supremacist websites, or that Youtube deplatform Alex Jones, we are taking the power to limit speech (which the founders felt was too important to be wielded by the government) and handing it to middle managers at software companies. The de jure rule is "Freedom of Speech shall not…

Even Mastodon instances can get in on the banning.

I'm a lot more sanguine about communities muting someone because they don't like that person than about companies muting someone because it's profitable to do so.

You can hypothesize a future in which Mastodon gets very popular, and in which a single for-profit node or a coordinated group of such nodes monopolize it and end up wielding censorship power similar to traditional centralized social media sites, but that's not what it's designed to do and there's no reason to assume it's a fait accompli.

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

#224

Post by snowwrestler »

snowwrestler wrote: post #65
tux1968 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definition of "works" since the analysis doesn't consider unintended effects or potential adverse long-term consequences. This all seems joyful while the technique is being applied to those with whom we disagree, less so once the technique has been turned on you yourself. Defending free speech means defending those we disagree with, and maybe even hate.

Deplatforming is about deciding which ideas are granted resources (pushed above the cultural baseline), not who is punished for speaking (pushed below the cultural baseline). People without platforms are still free to speak. If dang banned me from HN I could still go stand on the corner and read my posts aloud and no one would arrest me. Free speech does not mean I'm entitled to someone else's platform.

I have to admit it's pretty funny that I'm getting downvoted to gray.

Am I being censored or deplatformed? ;-)

I'll see myself to the corner...

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

#225

Post by pnw_hazor »

blueboo wrote: post #169
archerface wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're supporting an attacker's right to denigrate, abuse, or harass other people... Did that person's comment say that they support those things? Weird, I didn't read that... When it comes down to the fundamental rights of an individual you can't pick and choose when something is an unalienable right and when it is not. We can either have free speech (warts and all) or we can live in a world that dictates what…

But you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. And if stoking panic in the easily-panicked is something you ARE okay with forbidding, why is it then ok to stoke hatred in the easily-manipulable? I guess that wart makes this a world you want nothing to do with, because of slope's slipperiness...

No law or censor is stopping anyone from yelling fire.

Censorship is prior restraint. Stopping speech before it is utterred, read, or heard because reasons.

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

#226

Post by geodel »

zaidf wrote: post #75
734786710934 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance Many people are demanding that Facebook do exactly this.

It’s even worse: many people are demanding Facebook monitor Messenger chats for abuses in Mayanmar while at the same time not wanting Facebook to monitor Messenger chats. This is just a perfect example of constant catch-22s I see in people’s expectations of tech companies. You can’t expect Facebook to both not monitor chat messages AND prevent chat messages that do harm. You can have one or the other.

This is the doublethink the most people like to indulge in. The free speech I like must be protected at all cost and that I do not like should be handled via glib statements: 'free speech is not free reach', 'private companies are not obliged to give platform to anyone' and so on.

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

#227

Post by basch »

mundo wrote: post #220
manfredo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pennsylvania Chronicle isn't a platform. It's a publisher. Readers' letters getting published is the exception, not the norm. The ideas discussed here would be more like a telecoms provider specifically refusing to do business with someone because they disagree with their politics.

What's the difference? AFAICT the idea that when a website gets big enough it becomes de facto infrastructure and gets governed by different rules is pure imagination.

There are rules that treat telecoms differently precisely because there is opportunity for market failure.

The argument is, that some software companies have crossed into becoming a telecom like entity. A market failure exists, where consumers may need protecting.

Obviously, current laws dont treat facebook, google, or microsoft that way.

Do we feel the same way about gmail/outlook starting to censor emails that google/microsoft dont approve of?

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

#228

Post by padolsey »

Fellshard wrote: post #180
padolsey wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not. And the specific reason they are not, is the algorithmic timeline and content suggestions. I think the more pertinent reason here is that these platforms have broadcast capability (immediate communication with many people) as opposed to p2p capability (traditional SMS or phone calls). Even if Twitter was strictly chronological, without any algorithmic mutation, we'd still presumably be insisting they p…

Not really. One involves a neutral role, in which subscribed feeds are delivered to users without modification or filtering. The other involves an active role on the part of the platform for any number of reasons: increased engagement, removal of voices that may cause perceived damage or lack of trust in the platform itself, or other, more ideological reasons. I've noticed an intentional avoidance of distinction, lat…

The public wouldn't buy the 'neutral' aspect, as every mechanism that a platform provides, is in some way biasing the type of content that is broadcast. Twitter's RT feature, which requires no curation or modification of actual content by Twitter, still biases content to that, perhaps, which is most divisive or simplistic. Broadcast technology, even without algorithmic bells and whistles, is already a biased technology. I think we might in-fact agree, but to me, there is no crucial ethical difference between a chronological twitter and a algorithmically mutated one, for in either case, the very platform itself (its existence, its design) pre-biases the type of content that will flow through it, and thus we'd end up with content that would make us consider policing it.

So, in your words, I would say, it is somehow fundamentally impossible for a technology to be "passive".

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

#229

Post by jshevek »

marknutter wrote: post #132
eganist wrote: post #20

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. 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…

Unless of course you're the side of the debate that was opposed to Net Neutrality. Then free speech worked out quite well, didn't it?

This is a good example of why free speech is necessary. I've always considered myself a strong supporter of "net neutrality". Yet there were instances in the last 5 Years where the policies or positions labeled by many, particularly in the media, as net neutrality were not those that I would support. It was only as a result of robust debate and the free expression of contrarian views that I was exposed to critical facts exposing the misleading use of the phrase "net neutrality."

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

#230

Post by bilbo0s »

51lver wrote: post #208
bilbo0s wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. In the end, even most of these hypothetical distributed social network instances would have the de facto rule: > Don't say anything that would upset the advertisers...

What advertisers? I haven't seen any on mastodon. In fact, I think the network would be actively hostile to their presence.

We're talking about a world where the distributed social network instances replaces the facebooks and twitters of the world.

And be assured, in such a world, the advertisers would move to the distributed social network instances.

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