Kanye West is buying Parler • Hacker News Board

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#431

Post by spacemadness » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #323

Joeri wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be free speech absolutist, but I am not any longer, especially when it comes to social media. The argument in favor of absolute free speech for me was basically “let everyone hear everything and make up their own mind”. This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument. This is well documented in psychologic…

Same here. The notion of "free speech" was one of the most successful and liberating memes (in the original sense of the word) in human history. But with the advent of technology, overflow attacks on free speech make unrestricted speech as useless as no speech. It's like living in darkness, and then someone invents light, and everyone cries "more light", and it's great, and then after a while the light gets so bright…

Free speech to me is not going to jail for saying you think Hitler is a swell guy or you hate the president. It has nothing to do with protected algorithmic amplification of hate speech which is what a lot of bad actors are clinging to it for.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#432

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #318

Joeri wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be free speech absolutist, but I am not any longer, especially when it comes to social media. The argument in favor of absolute free speech for me was basically “let everyone hear everything and make up their own mind”. This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument. This is well documented in psychologic…

To those who espouse the idea that comments should be filtered for the greater good, I say 'You first.' There was a time period when the left was for free speech and the right was wanting to constrain it. Maybe its just a giant pendulum - there is no right/left difference when it comes to free speech - everyone wants to censor / filter the speech of the opposite side. If things come in cycles, then I expect the right…

Fortunately there are other dimensions.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#433

Post by jonny_eh » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

imjk wrote: post #170

tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

Call me cynical, but I think the likes of Kanye, the Kardashians, Trump, even Elon, etc. are much more calculated than they are deranged. They know how to work the media and manipulate the public better than anyone else. We're living in a world now where journalists are paid by click counts more than quality of content. In the same vein, Kanye and the likes know that the more absurdist and unconventional their action…

Maybe the current media environment selects individuals that just happen to do well in such an environment. People that crave attention and are just naturally gifted at attracting it. Basically "effective narcissists".

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#434

Post by triceratops » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

seanw444 wrote: post #377

Hey guys, I have an idea: why don't we try building free-speech protocols rather than free-speech platforms? Humans are fallible. We like to think we could build something where people can talk freely, but if the ability to censor something we don't like is presented, at some point nearly everybody will take that action because they personally deem it necessary for some greater good. Ultimately, protocols that cannot…

There's plenty of free-speech protocols, at various levels of the networking stack. TCP/IP. BitTorrent. HTTP. FTP. IRC. As long as you have an Internet connection, you have a voice.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#435

Post by francisofascii » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #307

francisofascii wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an idea that puts forward genocide as acceptable form of action should never be allowed under "free speech" See I have a problem with the word "never". How about "rarely" or at least "once". A terrible idea should be given an audience once. Let it it be quickly refuted, then go back to better conversations. If someone brings it up again, point them back to the earlier discussion. That way it is established why it i…

"That way it is established why it is a bad idea." Is that how most arguments on the internet end?

Sometimes. Threads are archived. Questions closed but not deleted. New questions/comments disallowed. It meets a middle ground between absolute free speech and absolute moderation.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#436

Post by logicalmonster » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

anoonmoose wrote: post #404

logicalmonster wrote: post #390

How could an average outside observer distinguish between another's mental illness and a guy who's just a real out of the box thinker who might be wrong about many ideas but might also add value to the world by perceiving reality in an atypical way? A lot of posters are claiming Kanye is mentally ill and unable to manage his own affairs. What is the direct evidence of this? And I don't simply mean "provide examples o…

He has personally admitted to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

I never want to be engaged in mind-reading, but it seems to me that the people who are shouting about him being mentally ill the loudest are doing so in a way to justify stifling everything he says, as if saying "he's mentally ill" ends any conceivable discussion about any of his ideas.

I think my general question remains. "How could an average outside observer distinguish between another's mental illness and a guy who's just a real out of the box thinker who might be wrong about many ideas but might also add value to the world by perceiving reality in an atypical way?"

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#437

Post by easrng » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #74

easrng wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fediverse (network of activitypub servers, including mastodon) itself doesn't censor anything at all, but if you don't moderate your instance then other instances might decide to stop federating with you to protect their users.

As far as I understood, they're not doing that on a case-by-case basis, but are using centralized block-lists (which every admin can choose to follow automatically). That's a step up from raw centralized censorship, but it's not a big step.

Most admins AFAIK don't have centralized blocklists but when the new bad instances pop up there tend to be #fediblock posts pretty fast, and they get shared pretty widely.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#438

Post by mrtksn » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #422

mrtksn wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I refer to things like attaching counter opinions to opinions of people with high visibility for example. So if the concern is the power of the famous, never display their tweets alone, display it with a few other tweets. Maybe do issue follow ups, so if someone says something and later it is contested prioritise the contestants until they get similar reach. For example, if a politician says he never met with som…

> I refer to things like attaching counter opinions to opinions of people with high visibility for example That's what fact-checking is. It's widely heckled.

The problem with fact checking is the presumption of authority over the truth. I don't suggest fact checking, I suggest equal exposure to contesting ideas.

I guess NASA tweets might receive pairs who claim that the Earth is not a globe :) That's OK, NASA can respond to these with equal visibility and if people are not convinced I guess NASA would need more convincing arguments.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#439

Post by runlevel1 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #160

tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

and these Parler people are scamming him - that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. My first thought on hearing this news was so what? I don't care about Parler or Kanye West, but if Parler is taking advantage of Kanye's mental decline then that's next-level awful. Like I said, I'm no fan of Kanye, but that's horrible to take advantage of people like that.

I think everywhere requires "capacity" to enter a contract, and Delaware does have this on the books:

> 6 DE Code § 2705 (2019): Any person who has attained 18 years of age shall have full capacity to contract; provided such person has not been declared legally incompetent to contract for reasons other than age. Any person who has attained the age of 18 years shall become fully responsible for that person’s own contracts.

So I'd presume it would come down to what Delaware's Court of Chancery expects for someone to be "declared legally incompetent to contract." I'd imagine that's not something done lightly.

(IANAL)

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#440

Post by spywaregorilla » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #394

spywaregorilla wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel that's particularly incompatible with anything I said.

GP is simply offering some context since you said you don't know Kanye at all and have only encountered him recently. It was never intended to be incompatible.

Fair I guess. I'm not sure about the "recently" comment though. He's been making a ruckus for well over a decade now.