“Think tank”.
People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
41–50 of 152 posts
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if someone posts slander and libelous statements on a platform that you do not frequent? What choice do you have? What recourse do you have if someone posts something along this proud OpenAI demo with your face on truth.social? https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:j5fb...
There are legal avenues in many jurisdictions for slander or libel. Ultimately, though, who cares what someone posts about you and how could we expect some arbiter to decide exactly what is okay to post, especially when the concern is potential libel?
Yep, libel laws are a rule that gets enforced by the government and the platforms should be liable to follow the laws. But the post I’m responding to asserts that people should change platforms- which is not a solution that addresses the issue at hand.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#43Several European governments have jailed people for social media posts. Many Europeans support this - they don't understand how government censorship can quickly get out of hand. As for falsehoods: some people will be mistaken, some people will lie, and sometimes sarcasm will be misunderstood. Why should anyone be liable? It is on each individual to inform themselves, and to decide what to believe and what to disrega…
Worth mentioning exactly here the paradox of Popper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance sooo... what should we do about it, here and now? Because we are closing to need a decision. And let me remind you that people do get fined or jailed sometimes for making mistakes or lying.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#44I think this might be a misinterpretation of the word "responsible". If a platform lies or spread malicious content, it seems people want the platform to have the liability and consequences for the malfeasance. That is what most people mean by "responsible". Government sets the rules, and if someone fail to comply, there are consequences against those responsible. Government isn't responsible, it is holding them resp…
Yeah, the US in particular functions on liability. If changes are made that make companies liable for the externalities from their platforms, they will almost instantly find ways to address the issues.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#45I think this might be a misinterpretation of the word "responsible". If a platform lies or spread malicious content, it seems people want the platform to have the liability and consequences for the malfeasance. That is what most people mean by "responsible". Government sets the rules, and if someone fail to comply, there are consequences against those responsible. Government isn't responsible, it is holding them resp…
> If a platform lies or spread malicious content, it seems people want the platform to have the liability and consequences for the malfeasance. That is what most people mean by "responsible". The platform isn't lying, any more than if I write "1 equals 2" on a letter and send it via the mail system to someone else is the mail system lying.
What if the platform decides that people will send more mail if they piss them off by copying your letter and sending it to everyone in their service area? Is that still just you lying? At what point does the platform become responsible for amplifying what you said? Are you responsible when it's amplified to everyone if all you ever intended was sending it out into the void?
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#46Moderation is a strength of the fediverse, because it is decentralized, with many moderators making possibly conflicting rules about relatively smaller amounts of content.
Moderators can block individual posts, accounts, or entire instances if they have objectionable alternate rules.
Don't like the moderation on some instance? Move to another.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unmoderated platforms are pretty much useless. Having said that, I'd prefer governments to stay away from either moderating or forcing platforms to moderate content
Perhaps there's simply no middle ground between something like Voat which turned into a gathering place of bonafide racists, and something like Reddit which is essentially just a confirmation bias hugbox. If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.
Voat turned into a gathering place for racists because reddit at first only kicked those out - and became more fundamentalist only after voat was the well-known 'bad place for bad people' where 'respectable, but misunderstood people' did not linger. The frog cooks slowly.
> If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.
I think this is the main issue: that we walled up our discussion plazas to make them 'profitable products'.
I know I am a bit of an idealist here, but I miss the old-timey usenet, basically an agora where you could filter yourself (with the appropriately-called killfile), and which was not controlled by one institution alone). I had some hope with federated systems - but these are often built with censorship mechanisms written right into it, and again give operators too much influence on what their users may or may not see.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you implying that there’s no posts on social media platforms that are plain and verifiably wrong and that any such decision needs to be made by a government created ministry of truth? There’s no middle ground? Maybe such a thing like a court? If I state here plain and as a fact that golieca eats little children for breakfast and slaughters kittens for fun, could @dang not look at both a statement from you and one…
"If I state here plain and as a fact that golieca eats little children for breakfast and slaughters kittens for fun, could @dang not look at both a statement from you and one from me and see if I have sufficient proof?" Nah, he would just (shadow)ban you. But in general we had that debate long and broad on what truth means with Covid. Who decides what the scientific consensus is for instance. (I don't remember a crys…
> Nah, he would just (shadow)ban you
Censorship!
There’s a lot of grey areas - statement of fact vs opinion, open scientific consensus, statements about public figures vs. private individuals, … But the post I’m responding to basically says “there is no truth, let’s give up.” and that’s just as false.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unmoderated platforms are pretty much useless. Having said that, I'd prefer governments to stay away from either moderating or forcing platforms to moderate content
Perhaps there's simply no middle ground between something like Voat which turned into a gathering place of bonafide racists, and something like Reddit which is essentially just a confirmation bias hugbox. If there is, it's certainly not a profitable product.
Of course, there is a middle ground. You just need better and stricter moderation, like on HN, for example.
Re: People want platforms, not governments, to be responsible for moderating content
#50In the US, this all stems from Section 230 (of the Telecommunications Act of 1996) that provided a safe harbor for companies for user-generated content. There are some requirements for this like a process for legal takedowns. Section 230 is generally a good thing as it was (and is) prohibitively expensive if not outright impossible to monitor every post and every comment. But what changed in the last two decades or s…
So a survey of what people want here is kind of meaningless because people just don't understand the question.
I think they understand perfectly well. They look at an internet where internet companies aren't held responsible, conclude it's largely corrosive, and prefer a different approach. I'm not sure it's important that they don't understand the elements of a libel claim or that internet companies get a special get of jail free card that traditional media doesn't.