Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#371

Post by Chris_Jay » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 3:09 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #367

ggdG wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point, some people are living pretty much in alternative realities. So true. > So please don't try to strawman me just for the sake of derailing this discussion into "Germany is actually on the brink of collapse!". The phrase you put in quotes are your literal words in your post. I never claimed such a thing. It's the strawman you make of legitimate criticism on indiscriminate mass immigration. > Just takin…

> The phrase you put in quotes are your literal words in your post. I never claimed such a thing. It's the strawman you make of legitimate criticism on indiscriminate mass immigration. I was referring to your statement about what "my view seems to be" in regards to governments censoring social media. I tried to make that especially clear by seperately quoting said sentence. > What's wrong with that source? For one th…

I agree with 90% of what you said, but must take issue with your characterization of cultural marxism. Cultural Marxism as I've encountered the term is simply what critics of Intersectional Feminism call Intersectional Feminism, and as political slurs go that seems rather reasonable. Intersectional feminism really does have a lot in common with Marxism if one replaces 'the proletariate' with underprivileged groups like sexual, ethnic, or cultural minorities.

I don't disagree the rhetoric by people who use the term is often overblown, but the basic fact of the critique - that Intersectional Feminism is similar to Marxism - not only seems fair but would probably elicit no disagreement from the people so characterized.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#372

Post by anonbanker » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

mariushn wrote: post #286

worldsayshi wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use facebook for keeping track of events. If someone would just make a good replacement for that (that people would use) I wouldn't attribute much utility to facebook.

Do something about it. Every little thing matters. I just submitted an issue to Mastodon: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/5843

Mastodon has Embrace/Extended the GNU Social protocol, walling-off large parts of the federated network in an act of mass-censorship.

Be wary of jumping out of the frying pan and into another frying pan.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#373

Post by anonbanker » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

stanislavb wrote: post #184

I think we need a distributed alternative of Facebook. I wider adoption of https://mastodon.social/ could be a good start...

Be wary of Mastodon. While they were a good idea in the begining, their embrace/extend of GNU Social's protocol, as well as the walling-off of a large chunk of the federated network, is blatant censorship.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#374

Post by gspetr » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 9:07 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #300

salvar wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Right here you ask for an alternative, then suggest it is one particular alternative, then argue against that as if it's the only answer. Do you think that's an honest way of debating?

Still no actual suggestion of an alternative.

A crowdfunded open source platform?

I don't think you can describe it as capitalist since it's neither privately owned, nor for profit.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#375

Post by _Tev » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #364

_Tev wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's decentralized, you can deploy your own instance So it's useless as a social network. Not an alternative. I wonder when will the anti-centralization people realize that their solutions are not for everyone, and that's why so many people don't care about them.

What about it being decentralized makes it useless, and not an alternative?

It makes things hard for actual users. Centralization can generate trust issues, but it is often damn effective, that's why it's used so much everywhere.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#376

Post by anonacct37 » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 11:42 PM UTC

jnbiche wrote: post #180

anonacct37 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to give facebook a pass, but I hate seeing the issue framed as "facebook sucks at news because young engineers" vs the implied adult in the room of traditional journalism. Facebook has failed at news, but traditional journalism is still in the dog house and is not the default credible alternative. I'll admit they don't do the whole "fake news" thing which is nice, but even without outright lying the bias…

> but for the most part their bills get paid the same way facebook's bills do. Yes, and they have a set of checks and balances to deal with that fact. I'm completely stumped why you would discount those checks and balances. Media outlets are all biased in different ways, and I share your disdain for some of those biases. That said, if they are a legitimate news outlet, those biases have little to do with their advert…

> if they are a legitimate news outlet, those biases have little to do with their advertisers

I don't believe this to be true. Or at least under that definition I think that there are few if any "legitimate news outlets". I'm not trying to be edgy. I just have zero faith that all of these businesses that make money by advertising have internally created a system of checks and balances such that they write whatever they want even if that will directly lead to layoffs of journalists because they've pissed off advertisers who will no longer fund them.

Maybe a simpler analogy is that newspapers are junkies shooting up heroin (advertising dollars) and telling us "don't worry, we got this under control, it won't affect our decisions".

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#377

Post by freeflight » Wed, Nov 29, 2017, 11:54 PM UTC

Chris_Jay wrote: post #371

freeflight wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The phrase you put in quotes are your literal words in your post. I never claimed such a thing. It's the strawman you make of legitimate criticism on indiscriminate mass immigration. I was referring to your statement about what "my view seems to be" in regards to governments censoring social media. I tried to make that especially clear by seperately quoting said sentence. > What's wrong with that source? For one th…

I agree with 90% of what you said, but must take issue with your characterization of cultural marxism. Cultural Marxism as I've encountered the term is simply what critics of Intersectional Feminism call Intersectional Feminism, and as political slurs go that seems rather reasonable. Intersectional feminism really does have a lot in common with Marxism if one replaces 'the proletariate' with underprivileged groups li…

> Cultural Marxism as I've encountered the term is simply what critics of Intersectional Feminism call Intersectional Feminism

That's what it's often used for, but why not simply use intersectional feminism/identity politics? That would be far more fitting and wouldn't carry the same baggage as using an idea the Nazis made up. Imho some people use this term very consciously and others simply pick it up without even realizing that there's quite a history to the idea behind it. Instead, it gets thrown at everything people disagree with:

Education too liberal -> cultural Marxism

Third wave feminism -> cultural Marxism

Government supposedly being "leftist" -> cultural Marxism

Said government not turning away refugees -> cultural Marxism

At this point, it's pretty much become the new "The communists are behind it!", which was always a common theme for Nazis, and certain US conservative circles.

Does everybody who uses it believe in the actual conspiracy theory behind it? Doubtful, but by marginalizing and normalizing the term the Overton window shifts and suddenly the cultural Marxism version, which involves an international conspiracy, becomes that much more "debatable".

It's especially troublesome to see it being used by people who so thoughtfully identify as "Christian", just like a certain Norwegian terrorist [0] who killed 77 people.

Disclaimer: I'm not attempting to silence people for their speech, I'm just questioning the terminology used because if people keep on using terminology like that, after having been made aware of its actual connotations/history, then they really shouldn't be surprised/act outraged when others locate them in a certain political camp. If I'd be ranting about class warfare and how the proletariat needs to free themselves, then people would also very quickly paint me with a certain brush, probably rightfully so.

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/anders-breivi...

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#378

Post by wu-ikkyu » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 12:21 AM UTC

_Tev wrote: post #375

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about it being decentralized makes it useless, and not an alternative?

It makes things hard for actual users. Centralization can generate trust issues, but it is often damn effective, that's why it's used so much everywhere.

I just signed up for Mastodon, and it was super easy to do. I don't what it could be considered difficult, even for non technical users.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#379

Post by Chris_Jay » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #377

Chris_Jay wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with 90% of what you said, but must take issue with your characterization of cultural marxism. Cultural Marxism as I've encountered the term is simply what critics of Intersectional Feminism call Intersectional Feminism, and as political slurs go that seems rather reasonable. Intersectional feminism really does have a lot in common with Marxism if one replaces 'the proletariate' with underprivileged groups li…

> Cultural Marxism as I've encountered the term is simply what critics of Intersectional Feminism call Intersectional Feminism That's what it's often used for, but why not simply use intersectional feminism/identity politics? That would be far more fitting and wouldn't carry the same baggage as using an idea the Nazis made up. Imho some people use this term very consciously and others simply pick it up without even r…

Interesting - I hadn't known the history behind the term, I thought it was a neologism. I do prefer the term identity politics myself, but the tendency of right wing groups to call everyone they dislike communists doesn't appear to me any more ridiculous than the frequency with which they are called Nazis. There seems to be an effort in that camp to shift the Overton window to exclude communism with the same prejudice currently reserved for Nazism, and from that perspective 'baiting' the opposition into being too loose with either term is probably an effective strategy.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#380

Post by drumttocs8 » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #254

andrepd wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informing and coordinating citizens to fight injustice. Now that I'm older and wiser, I can tell you that no evolution or revolution can happen because of Facebook, only regression. Facebook is poison. I'll add to that. The internet is a great tool for coordinating citizens, spreading information, and fighting injustice. Having facebook , o…

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

The alternative is very obviously nonprofits, such as Wikipedia, who do a fantastic job of serving up the internet's original intended purpose- free information exchange without a catch.