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Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

nytimes.com

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Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#31

Post by CookieMon »

always_good wrote: post #18
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estat…

One problem is that the `/r/:subreddit` url creates name-squatting and the illusion of canonical forums. /r/canada is like .com: anything else looks second-rate. /r/canada2? /r/bettercanada? /r/altcanada? /r/the_canada? /r/mapleleaf? I think reddit should've gone with `/r/:username/:subreddit` to remind everyone that every subreddit is just some random person's forum, not some canonical message board on that topic. I…

Or let any user offer moderation duties and give every user the ability to change/revoke who is moderating their feed.

/r/spez;always_good/politics, for example, could specify the politics feed minus anything spez or always_good marked as spam or off topic (rather than using whichever mods you've set for your account).

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#32

Post by baud147258 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estat…

The problem isn't moderator power, it's name squatting. Do you have a concrete suggestion for giving the moderators less power, while still ensuring that subreddits don't get overrun with trolls? Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want (by allowing, e.g., African-Americans to point out systemic injustice) and sometimes it's not (Fascis…

>Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want and sometimes it's not

Well, we can't have our cake and eat it too.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#33

Post by brandmeyer »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12
notveryrational wrote: post #2

Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting published and started to do my own summaries. Facebook implemented a policy in which it would not let any post that contained a link to a Snowden Document. In some cases they would let the content get posted, but I confirmed with a friend's account that it was…

I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".

At least for me, the freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and other amendments are valuable not just as restrictions on government power, but as restrictions on power. The more asymmetric the relationship between two parties, the more sensitive we become to exercises of power by the stronger party over the weaker one.

I think that we do have a reasonable expectation that our employers and service providers won't interfere with our religious lives, that all employees and customers have equal rights and responsibilities, are entitled to due process during disputes, we have the right to not self-incriminate, to face our accusers, to defend ourselves against attack, to associate with whoever we please, and so on.

When a dominant platform for communication starts to exercise its own authority over what can be communicated on their platform, I think its only natural that we consider it to be an unethical abuse of power. Property rights are not absolute. As one party becomes more and more dominant, I think it is appropriate that we recognize the asymmetry in the relationship and restrict that party's ability to exert power over others.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#34

Post by pavel_lishin »

baud147258 wrote: post #32
pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't moderator power, it's name squatting. Do you have a concrete suggestion for giving the moderators less power, while still ensuring that subreddits don't get overrun with trolls? Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want (by allowing, e.g., African-Americans to point out systemic injustice) and sometimes it's not (Fascis…

>Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want and sometimes it's not Well, we can't have our cake and eat it too.

But for any particular cake, in some given dining room, we need to be able to decide whether we want to put it in our mouths or not.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#35

Post by dvtrn »

geggam wrote: post #29
slg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society is a groupthink censor. If your beliefs are too extreme in any number of directions, society will eventually shun you. Whether you think this behavior is wrong or not usually depends on how closely your beliefs match the beliefs that are currently being shunned.

Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?

Heh Galileo, similarly came to my mind.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#36

Post by pavel_lishin »

baud147258 wrote: post #24
pavel_lishin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they are not totally free of moderation If there is one thing I wish I could beat into people's heads with a stick about online discourse, is that any place free of moderation is not going to be a free speech haven, but a cesspit where the people with the most free time will dominate and drive out others. It's incredibly cheap and easy to shit up a conversation, but quite costly to have an engaging dialog…

> If there is one thing I wish I could beat into people's heads with a stick about online discourse, is that any place free of moderation is not going to be a free speech haven, but a cesspit where the people with the most free time will dominate and drive out others. It depends. One forum where I spend some of my time has very hands-off moderation and it does have a) some quality conversations b) diversity of opinio…

It can definitely work in certain cases, especially when there's a single very clear focus or purpose for the forum, or some sort of accountability for your opinions.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#37

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

whatshisface wrote: post #19
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".

Were the Snowden documents really legally grey? The Guardian had no problem publishing them.

Anything marked secret/top secret doesn't technically stop being confidential just because they've been leaked. IIRC the guardian didn't actually publish many if any of the documents; just their own summaries and reporting.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#38

Post by marenkay »

Perhaps this is a stupid question but why should e.g. treat these things _so_ fundamentally different than things we already have rules and regulations for?

Going back in time, what about newspapers and letters to the editor? Those had a clear range of what was allowed and acceptable.

Is there really anything stopping us from using these rules except for being afraid to not post bullshit everywhere unsanctioned any longer?

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#39

Post by Ahjie1Ai »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14
Ahjie1Ai wrote: post #4

I like the reddit and 4chan model. Content is clearly compartmentalized by topic with different rules for each subcommunity. Of course they are not totally free of moderation but it still allows a greater diversity of opinions with seemingly diametrically opposed groups existing side by side. Many of the big social networks lack compartmentalization. On the other hand twitter demonstrates that it's not necessary, jus…

> Of course they are not totally free of moderation If there is one thing I wish I could beat into people's heads with a stick about online discourse, is that any place free of moderation is not going to be a free speech haven, but a cesspit where the people with the most free time will dominate and drive out others. It's incredibly cheap and easy to shit up a conversation, but quite costly to have an engaging dialog…

The issue is that in real life you can talk one on one. With the internet you have go-betweens, moderators and all that which limit what you can say to each other more than the two parties themselves limit.

Of course the limited reach of the spoken word and inertia of the speaker put limits on how much shitposting you can do in meatspace, but sometimes it's still preferable to have as little moderation as possible and instead enable each user to filter outer the noise on their own.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#40

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estat…

The problem isn't moderator power, it's name squatting. Do you have a concrete suggestion for giving the moderators less power, while still ensuring that subreddits don't get overrun with trolls? Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want (by allowing, e.g., African-Americans to point out systemic injustice) and sometimes it's not (Fascis…

I'd rather enable users to moderate their own content by giving them better tools to do so. Reddit simply isn't built for this though, because they've already committed to the subreddit model. Ultimately though, I believe reddit's successor will find success going this route.

So it's less about giving more power to minorities (which are still just groups) and more about giving power to individuals to manage their own content. I'm actually shocked more social network don't give their users even more control over their content curation.

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