All this shows is that Google has become a zombie company. It is more interested in building moats and pleasing politicos to solidify their position than in actually doing useful things.
Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
241–250 of 304 posts
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#242Has anyone else ever wondered how some of the numbers about internet compares to a real world? Like, * "2.6 million tweets contained anti-Semitic speech during the US presidential election" - how many conversations there where, in real word, about the same topic and contained anti-Semitic speech? * "26% of American users are victims of internet trolling" - how many are victims of trolling in real word? Or in schools?…
I took that to be the point -- we tend to be at our worst online, thanks to the unique combination of anonymity (I can say whatever I want with as many accounts as I want, without meaningful consequences) and absence of social cues (there's nobody around me, so I have no incentive to soften my language or weaken my opinions). In other words, the way we talk online is not normal. Even outside of the free speech debate…
You could also see it as the inverse. Online we talk as we really are, saying what we really think, and thus the quality and depth of the discussion will inevitably be higher and deeper than in the 'real world' where we are faced with relentless groupthink, desire to conform, self-censoring to avoid unrelated career blowbacks and so on.
Moreover online people can take the time to write something good (not saying they usually do of course), whereas in-person debates usually suffer from being shallow, filled with interruptions, half baked ideas, people getting artificially upset to try and 'win' and so on.
I'd actually like to see far more experimentation and research in online commenting and discussion forums. There's really been very little movement in this space since CmdrTaco retired.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#243HN seems super strongly opposed to Google providing censorship in China. Do they feel the same way about Google applying it to the rest of the world?
There's a strong difference between state mandated censorship and a company voluntarily censoring content on their platform. A company has the absolute right to prohibit any content on their platform that they so choose. There's freedom not to use Google services. Calls to regulate independent companies are purely ludicrous. If Facebook said tomorrow that any positive mention of, say, Paul Graham, would result in imm…
This may be true for companies that are not monopolies (arguable, though). However, Google is clearly a monopoly and once you're a monopoly, many activities that are fine for other companies are no longer fine.
Also note that fascism is about political control of all the things. It doesn't mean than the government runs all the things, but controls all the things. With Google in bed with a single party, and exercising its power on behalf of that party, we're in a very dangerous situation.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because real centrists like google know all that Libya stuff was a right wing conspiracy theory to prevent hillary from running for president /s In all seriousness, it's quite abhorrent how foreign policy interventions by progressive leaders are shoved down the memory hole while we are always wide awake when a conservative does something.
Are you suggesting that Libya should be remembered along the same lines as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? If you're being serious you should really review the last couple decades. In what world does the intervention of Clinton and Obama equal the Bushes? Even Clinton's Iraq endeavor was downplayed by the GOP at the time as a distraction from Lewinsky. But the real reason Libya isn't in the public's forethought is sim…
> Are you suggesting that Libya should be remembered along the same lines as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?
At least on some level if your concerned about the results of regime change by western powers.
> But the real reason Libya isn't in the public's forethought is simple fact we didn't invade and rebuild the country. Its not hard to figure out why its not treated the same as Bush's wars.
No, we just let them build it then we came in and destroyed it and left it militias to fight over the rubble. Why did we do that again? Because as far as i remember libya was not posing a threat to the US.
Compared to afghanistan which you could at least argue there is some kind of threat of terrorists like ISIS setting up a state that had declared war on western countries.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#245> The Arab Spring was the the high point of this positivity - a visceral example of the power of digitalised free speech. Yes, millions of refugees is obviously not the consequence at all.
This is a reasonable point to make as a consequentialist with 20/20 hindsight.
But it's fair to value the act of getting freedom from oppressive regimes as a good in itself independent of the power vacuum it creates. And it's fair to assess a movement based on its priors of a possible positive outcome, rather than the purely retrospectively once they haven't come to pass.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#246dignity/civility should be a self determined value rather than one instated by authority. it is impossible to create a universal standard of conduct that will be adequate for everyone and we don't need to. you can call me a faggot or tell me to kill myself as much as you like and i really wont care at all, i want to see everything short of direct and malicious efforts to cause me real life harm (and arguably i want to know about those too). on the flip side you have older users who may be completely averse to course language or any interaction that falls beyond tv standards of etiquette, things that are relatively tame by internet standards may be completely offensive to them. how do you create a set of standards across your product that are adequate for both use cases without artificially limiting appeal to a single audience?
empower users with the tools to define their own experiences and, if they so choose, filter out what they don't want without assuming what that is. perhaps you could even let users display their version of a content rating so that others could see what content they will and will not filter rather than the communication breakdown that emerges when some messages are opaquely censored. you could even use an honorific system to better determine what is an adequate level of filtering between two users. you might not want to hear 'i'm gonna fucking kill you' from a total rando, but if it comes from your spouse you probably should. don't tell the customers what they want when you don't know the answer.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 suc…
go try to listen to a death in june album or play manhunt or voice any opinion the state considers dangerous and tell me how free you are.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds all fine and well but half the time I utter a conservative opinion I'm accused of being a "russian bot".
Now the cat is out of the bag, freedom of speech is just a lofty ideal that only worked when all media was controlled by corporations that chose what people listened to most of the time. Now they are trying to put the cat back in the bag. Good for reiterating corporate control over thought and speech.
I agree, but I think there is also another effect at play here, which is the end of private circles where opinions can be exchanged "present company excluded". If you watch old tv, for example, you'll be appalled at the sort of things (harsh, elitist, dismissive of the general opinion) that could be said even in a broadcasted event- the audience was self-selected, recordings were rare and generally unavailable, few were reading any sort of newspaper. People were entitled to unpopular opinions because they had a limited circulation.
But today, when everything is recorded, cut and pasted, infinitely available and replayable, every statement made in public must be crafted to be acceptable to absolutely any audience in any context and at any time. Those who contravene the rule are at terrible risk of having their public, work and private life destroyed by public uproar- effectively resulting in a strict censorship of opinions.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I am okay with contents from bots if they are marked like advertisements ("sponsored contents", etc.). For example, "post from ABC" could instead say "post from ABC, a bot account of XYZ".
Are you OK with dishonest speech? If so, then not marking bot speech as such is mere dishonesty. Not to mention that, in the general case of speech, I do not have to disclose if I am being paid to express my viewpoint.
I am okay with dishonest speech (or paid speech, for that matter), because it affects your reputation. Sockpuppets and bots harm reputation tracking.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is this 'they' you're referring to, exactly? And what opinions do you hold that would warrant this 'they' calling you fascist?
Supporting free speech over hate speech legislation for example. Or the leigons of people who claim Trump or any one supporting him is a fascist. (I did prefer Rand Paul btw) I also had people in /r/linux calling me a russian bot and a racist because I am against the new code of conduct.
Trump very well may be fascist. He seems to want America to be more like North Korea anyway. And what was the context of your comments? Maybe copy/paste? Genuinely curious.