Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#41

Post by naasking » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #31

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same realism about secularism when a catholic became head of the big secularist-leaning party in my then county of residence. People were sure interested in his private feelings about sinfulness, or said that they would never vote for a party with a religious leader. The party angled itself as secularist, but that particular kerfuffle revealed it to be a highly contingent value of the membership (and of peo…

I'm confused.. isn't a secularist party in favor of not involving personal religious beliefs in Civic issues? In that light, what's wrong with someone with personal religious beliefs from participating? Others made his religion important not him, from what you describe

Exactly, it's like the unfortunately common belief that religious people can't be scientists. Let their actions speak for themselves; if they are unreasonably biased, it will show.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#42

Post by Robotbeat » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #31

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same realism about secularism when a catholic became head of the big secularist-leaning party in my then county of residence. People were sure interested in his private feelings about sinfulness, or said that they would never vote for a party with a religious leader. The party angled itself as secularist, but that particular kerfuffle revealed it to be a highly contingent value of the membership (and of peo…

I'm confused.. isn't a secularist party in favor of not involving personal religious beliefs in Civic issues? In that light, what's wrong with someone with personal religious beliefs from participating? Others made his religion important not him, from what you describe

That’s the whole point I think

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#43

Post by leetcrew » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

ggggtez wrote: post #15

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech? YouTube banning antivax content is speech . You want the government to start mandating that a company can't take a stance on important issues of healthcare? Churches spend all day every day taking stances on abortion. You want to the government to tell them they can't take a side?

> How can you support free speech but prevent a company from exerting that speech?

I can be deeply disappointed by youtube's moderation decisions without suggesting that the company be compelled to allow certain content. as an aside, I find it frustrating to see people constantly swapping between "free speech" as a legal concept and "free speech" as an abstract ideal in these threads. we talk past each other the same way every time the debate comes up. just because the law is written the way it is doesn't mean that's necessarily the way it should be. and even if we can't write the law "just right", we can still advocate for higher principles to be followed.

anyways, I generally agree with the "companies can manage their properties as they see fit" line of thought. but it becomes problematic when our public spaces are increasingly controlled by a small number of huge companies that mostly share the same politics. I'm not really sure what the solution is, but it sucks to watch it unfold.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#44

Post by londgine » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

faet wrote: post #6

Banning hate communities does work though [0]. I assume that the results are similar for twitter and facebook. "Hateful" Reddit or FB communities also don't allow "free speech". The moderators will ban people who go against the grain. There is no free exchange of ideas or disputing as if you're going against the grain you'll just get banned from that community (but not the platform). As such, either the platforms all…

> Banning hate communities does work though ...

The sentence is incomplete. Banning X communities does work to achieve the goal of people not talking about X. I don't think that your linked study is really necessary, the Chinese cultural revolution worked really well (to achieve the goal of "preserving Chinese communism") [0]. Imagine if 30 years ago large digital monopolies banned what was considered unmentionable back then. I doubt gay marriage would have been legalised in America. All of the progress that we have in making marijuana more legal would have been terminated by the companies wanting to prevent people advocating illegal drug usage.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#45

Post by newbamboo » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

The cia wants big tech monopolies because we are in direct competition with China. Mimetic desire to be dominant great power. But the problem is monopolies suck. They stifle innovation and make the culture sluggish and less dynamic. Where do we go from here? Probably some new great power emerges that allows true freedom and fosters bottom up innovation. I just wonder where that will come from.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#46

Post by thereisnospork » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #29

api wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to be honest and say that my faith in the capacity of people to think in a free speech totally open environment was severely tested over the past 5-10 years. Things like Qanon, flat Earth, antivax hysteria, the meme-driven return of both "right" and "left" totalitarian ideologies from the early 20th century that should be completely discredited, and so on have made me wonder if most people simply can't handle…

> I've actually wondered if most people might not need to be protected from unregulated content in the same way that people need to be protected from exposure to lead, radon gas, etc. Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation. Chasing u…

>Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation.

There might be something to be said for instead of limiting speech, increasing the 'reporting requirements'. This isn't a fully formed position of mine but rules along the lines of no anonynomous speech[0] and stricter fraud[1][2] rules are imo compatible with free speech and its ideals while helping to manage fraud and propaganda.

[0] So if an AI wrote a blog spam post, it should be at minimum illegal to not have the AI in the byline, with e.g. a unique identifier.

[1] Say loudly and publicly that there is a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizzeria, with no evidence, go to jail.

[2] Not that such rules can't/haven't been abused before though.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#47

Post by quantumBerry » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

>2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights

All you need to do is examine firearm rights, which have been removed from felons and regulated into oblivion in places like Hawaii to see what can happen to free speech. Both those amendments are right next to each other and should apply to everyone (who is not in jail for a crime), including Hawaiian felons singing "somewhere under the rainbow" while smoking a big fat blunt with a machine gun on their back. But the tyranny of the majority has gotten away with putting their fears above the civil rights of others.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#48

Post by nescioquid » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

api wrote: post #11

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

I have to be honest and say that my faith in the capacity of people to think in a free speech totally open environment was severely tested over the past 5-10 years. Things like Qanon, flat Earth, antivax hysteria, the meme-driven return of both "right" and "left" totalitarian ideologies from the early 20th century that should be completely discredited, and so on have made me wonder if most people simply can't handle…

Chris Hedges sometimes remarks that he finds people turn towards superstitious, religious, or conspiratorial world views when they find they have no control over their lives. I suspect that if the US somehow changed so that economic security were increased for most people, there would be much less unreason and general discourse wouldn't be so mean.

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#49

Post by alex_c » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

2020-2021 has shown me that most people happen to be 'fair weather fans' of civil rights. Everyone claims to love free speech but when suppression of speech opposing their own worldview comes into play, they suddenly dither and fall back on other rationalizations to justify the censorship. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'hate speech'. Well, it's not free speech being violated when it's 'misinform…

The last few years have shown me how many people are willing to believe utterly stupid things, and how easy it is to make people turn against each other. I knew this in the abstract, but watching it happen in real time is something else.

The human mind (myself included) has some serious bugs, and "we" as a society - with help from technology - are getting better and better at exploiting these bugs at scale. I don't think censorship is a solution, but I don't know what IS a solution.

Incidentally, what happened to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)? I miss that term, and I think it's much more descriptive of what we're seeing these days than the more vague "misinformation".

Re: Private censorship is not the best way to fight hate or defend democracy (2018)

#50

Post by retrac » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #25

godshatter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the state's going to host it, then their bar should be whether it's legal or not. If they want to put scary warnings around certain content or lock some of it behind age restriction, sure, fine. But if they are going to use public funds to host a government run publicly available video sharing platform, they should be very cautious about removing any content that doesn't violate actual laws. Free speech and all th…

Doesn't the state already ban nudity/language on public broadcast, film, and radio?

Specifics depend on the country. In the USA, over the air broadcast is restricted in content on the premise that broadcast spectrum is a limited public resource, and that you don't have much choice with what you see when you tune in. That argument gets pretty weak with point-to-point networks with nearly unlimited bandwidth, as I see it. An analogy might be the difference between ads with nudity on billboards (I believe that can be prohibited in the USA?) and ads with nudity in a print magazine going to a subscribership expecting such ads (protected by the 1A, including for mailing through the USPS).

Public libraries are perhaps another source of analogy. My local library system has some of the most vile and objectionable works ever printed on the shelves due to popular demand. Many public libraries in Canada and the USA are quite absolute about that with regards to free expression. For example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/porn-library-ottawa-po... "Library patrons allowed to surf porn, Ottawa mom discovers"