Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path” • Hacker News Board

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#61

Post by 734786710934 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #34

"Tech companies" is just way too broad a designation to use here. No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance, or Verizon to police hate speech in SMS. No one expects AT&T to police hate speech in a phone call. What people are concerned about are the newsfeeds and timelines, specifically. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube love to pretend that their newsfe…

> No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance

Many people are demanding that Facebook do exactly this.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#62

Post by cft » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

gdix wrote: post #36

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence that deplatforming works ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... )

> though it may have some unintended consequences that have not been fully understood yet. I think no one disagrees that it "works" insofar as it stops the bad person from getting their bad ideas out there. Opponents of deplatforming generally argue that the long-term reaction to the deplatforming is worse than the problem the bad person's ideas were causing. Better to counter the bad ideas with good ideas to do long…

How do you define "bad" person? Ungood? Doubleplus ungood?

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#63

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

jachee wrote: post #35

daenz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, I see I've angered the privileged, white, tech-bro, capitalists. What? Why are you saying white people specifically are downvoting your opinion? And aren't you manifesting hate towards a group of people with a physical characteristic?

I'm not hating, only observing. The only ones who see fault in protecting the marginalized are the privileged. The only ones who advocate the right for hate speech are those who are functionally immune to it. And the demographics of HN are young, single, white, males. It's the only explanation I can find for someone downvoting "Hate is an absolute."

I've read through 3 or 4 of your comments, and you are completely incapable of making argument without resorting to slogan spouting and offensive slurs against those you disagree with. I don't think you're an honest person and you come off as very unpleasant.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#64

Post by mitchty » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

jachee wrote: post #39

mitchty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're supporting an attacker's right to denigrate, abuse, or harass other people, you're supporting violating the victim's rights. Can you diagram how you arrived at this travesty of a logical leap? You're mixing in at least 5 suppositions completely outside of the stated parents post. Ignoring the other foundations coming alongside by implication.

Let me simplify further, in the face of your ad hominem : If you're not actively trying to make the world a better place for everyone, you're passively making it worse for everyone.

> Let me simplify further, in the face of your ad hominem:

Sorry? I attacked your phrasing and logic, not YOU. Its like you're wanting to get angry at nothing.

I'm done here if you don't want to act civilized.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#65

Post by snowwrestler » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

tux1968 wrote: post #48

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence that deplatforming works ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... )

For some definition of "works" since the analysis doesn't consider unintended effects or potential adverse long-term consequences. This all seems joyful while the technique is being applied to those with whom we disagree, less so once the technique has been turned on you yourself. Defending free speech means defending those we disagree with, and maybe even hate.

Deplatforming is about deciding which ideas are granted resources (pushed above the cultural baseline), not who is punished for speaking (pushed below the cultural baseline).

People without platforms are still free to speak. If dang banned me from HN I could still go stand on the corner and read my posts aloud and no one would arrest me.

Free speech does not mean I'm entitled to someone else's platform.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#66

Post by OmarIsmail » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

tux1968 wrote: post #48

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence that deplatforming works ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... )

For some definition of "works" since the analysis doesn't consider unintended effects or potential adverse long-term consequences. This all seems joyful while the technique is being applied to those with whom we disagree, less so once the technique has been turned on you yourself. Defending free speech means defending those we disagree with, and maybe even hate.

I think it's pretty safe to say that child porn would run a lot more rampant if it could be easily shared without consequence?

I understand that there's a different level of consequence we're talking about here (legal vs comment deletion) but how we treat child porn is the extreme for intolerance and I think it's safe to say child porn is less than it would be in the more "tolerant" alternative. And I actually do mean think, I don't have evidence, and I don't know, so if there's evidence otherwise that some society accepted child porn with the caveat of "this is bad" always being placed beside it and then saw it's usage and distribution drop I would find that pretty damn compelling case.

I would point to other comparables though. What causes a decrease in smoking? Did putting health warning labels on cigarette boxes decrease smoking? How did that compare to banning commercials and removing indoor smoking?

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#67

Post by OmarIsmail » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

xtreme wrote: post #56

OmarIsmail wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"should kill people" = "those people aren't deserving to live" = 1) either all humans are not deserving to live or 2) those specific humans are not deserving to live = if 2) country X are being dehumanized. if 1) do you consider yourself a human? A) yes, then why haven't you killed yourself? Since you haven't you think you're more deserving of life relative to everyone else and therefore are dehumanizing everyone but…

According to this interpretation, arguments supporting capital punishment is hate speech and should be banned.

I'm ok with that.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#68

Post by jachee » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #52

jachee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not hating, only observing. The only ones who see fault in protecting the marginalized are the privileged. The only ones who advocate the right for hate speech are those who are functionally immune to it. And the demographics of HN are young, single, white, males. It's the only explanation I can find for someone downvoting "Hate is an absolute."

There's another possibility that you're overlooking, and that is that your subjective view is far more polarized than the average persons view. The language you've used so far shows you are thinking about all of this in very absolutist terms. Most people recoil from absolutism.

There is no "grey" area for hate. It's absolutely binary. If you hate something or someone, there's no half-way. Hate is the force behind the Holocaust, hate is the force behind the Iraq Wars. Hate has torn the Middle-east to shreds for millennia. Hate was the Khmer Rouge's genocide. Hate was Apartheid.

Giving hate any leeway is to give it 100% of its power. It must MUST MUST be fought as an absolute.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#69

Post by vertline3 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

gdix wrote: post #36

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence that deplatforming works ( https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... )

> though it may have some unintended consequences that have not been fully understood yet. I think no one disagrees that it "works" insofar as it stops the bad person from getting their bad ideas out there. Opponents of deplatforming generally argue that the long-term reaction to the deplatforming is worse than the problem the bad person's ideas were causing. Better to counter the bad ideas with good ideas to do long…

"Opponents of deplatforming generally argue that the long-term reaction to the deplatforming is worse than the problem the bad person's ideas were causing."

Not just that the reaction is worse, that the deplatforming erodes the spirit of free speech. I believe free speech is an important part of democracy.

Re: Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is “a dangerous path”

#70

Post by padolsey » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #34

"Tech companies" is just way too broad a designation to use here. No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance, or Verizon to police hate speech in SMS. No one expects AT&T to police hate speech in a phone call. What people are concerned about are the newsfeeds and timelines, specifically. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube love to pretend that their newsfe…

> They're not. And the specific reason they are not, is the algorithmic timeline and content suggestions.

I think the more pertinent reason here is that these platforms have broadcast capability (immediate communication with many people) as opposed to p2p capability (traditional SMS or phone calls). Even if Twitter was strictly chronological, without any algorithmic mutation, we'd still presumably be insisting they police content, right? I agree with your conclusion that they're publishers, but to me, what makes a publisher a publisher is not content curation or mutation, but is simply broadcast capability. And so our drive to regulate follows quite naturally from similar drives to regulate the press and media.