Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Protect me from what I want

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 225 posts

Re: Protect me from what I want

#51

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #50
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, I think that you missed that this idea that "a tolerant society does not tolerate intolerance" is better known as "Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance" You can find it under that name, numerous articles, from Wikipedia on down (1). Since 1945. it's widely known and accepted. It's not an actual contradiction, most "paradoxes" only appear that way on a superficial inspection. it would be like saying, as the sibling…

You are conflating protection from violence with protection of free speech. Paradox of tolerance is a hypocritical concept used by people to excuse their own intolerance. Restrictions on free speech are much more dangerous than any hate speech. You won't get a new Hitler by blocking speech you don't like. It's the opposite: new Hitler will start with blocking free speech. That's what every authoritarian regime does f…

> You are conflating protection from violence with protection of free speech.

No, I am saying that they are "like" each other. It's a comparison not a conflation. Mr Popper is absolutely not conflating anything - his original formulation is very much about speech.

> blocking free speech. That's what every authoritarian regime does first.

You mean, after they become the regime, and get a lock on the power to block free speech; which in turn is after using the free speech ability to emit the divisive populist rhetoric that propels them to that power? There is no regime ever, that blocks free speech before it is voted into power. At that stage they're only to happy to use it. The shutting it down comes later.

So, not first at all then. That was Popper's point.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#52

Post by twoWhlsGud »

stickfigure wrote: post #48
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

Oh come now. I constantly hear this concern from my friends (almost exclusively left-of-center). And they aren't totally wrong? I have a qanon-er in my family; she's carefully curated her media sources to guarantee a pure, steady stream of nutjob garbage. The thing is, censoring twitter/facebook/youtube makes no difference - these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look. At least on youtube…

Old joke: "If you owe the bank $1M it's your problem, if you owe the bank $1B it's theirs". New joke: "If a few citizens become radicalized/crazy in ways that threaten the very functioning of your society it's their problem ... "

Re: Protect me from what I want

#53

Post by wallfacer120 »

californiadreem wrote: post #34
wallfacer120 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if there's a single ill in the world that you don't lay at the feet of "corporations."

Commenting on the naïveté of Mastodon users endlessly repeating the history of modernity is a strange way to affirm any position regarding corporations, but your unsolicited reply is pretty clear that you like them.

No post body was provided.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#54

Post by jasonlotito »

> Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be doomscrolling so much, would you?

This is the most ignorant and idiotic[1] take I've seen on something like this.

Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be smoking so much, would you?

Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be drinking alcohol so much, would you?

Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be taking oxy so much, would you?

Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be seeing ads so much, would you?

> These ML models know what you want and that’s what they show you.

No, they don't. This is 100% wrong, and coupled with the previous comment, shows a complete lack of knowledge in this area.

These ML models don't know what you want.

They know what you engage with. What you engage with isn't necessarily what you want. And ANY suggestion otherwise is wrong. Simply put, engaging with something doesn't necessarily mean you want to see more of it.

[1] Yes, that's a hard stance to take, but I stand by what I said. But you read this comment, which means you wanted it. Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t read any part of it, would you?

Re: Protect me from what I want

#55

Post by jasonlotito »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #2

The shock people experience when you tell them any sorting, especially sorting chronologically, requires an "algorithm" is disappointing.

They aren't complaining about algorithms. They are complaining about an algorithm that determines what people should see for the sole purpose of increasing some engagement metric. This does not necessarily mean giving the person what they want to see.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#56

Post by ska »

stickfigure wrote: post #48
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

Oh come now. I constantly hear this concern from my friends (almost exclusively left-of-center). And they aren't totally wrong? I have a qanon-er in my family; she's carefully curated her media sources to guarantee a pure, steady stream of nutjob garbage. The thing is, censoring twitter/facebook/youtube makes no difference - these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look. At least on youtube…

> Oh come now. I constantly hear

Path dependence, it's a funny thing.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#59

Post by shadowgovt »

wallfacer120 wrote: post #33
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious.

I've seen them asking for private forums to stop giving such folk a platform, because an organization can choose to do what it will with its private property.

But public forums? No, I can't say I have. In fact, I remember witnessing a President giving a large speech in a public forum that was followed by a riot at the Capitol (whether said speech was causal to the riot is still a matter for the courts). Nobody challenged his right to give the speech until the question of whether it was "incitement to riot" came up, and that challenge is unrelated.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#60

Post by kornhole »

If we had a succinct way to explain or logic to point to, it would help clear the confusion about the massive difference between algos built into Mastodon SW and the ML type algos deployed on platforms.
Post reply on HN