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Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

nytimes.com

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Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#71

Post by AlexMax »

always_good wrote: post #18
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estat…

One problem is that the `/r/:subreddit` url creates name-squatting and the illusion of canonical forums. /r/canada is like .com: anything else looks second-rate. /r/canada2? /r/bettercanada? /r/altcanada? /r/the_canada? /r/mapleleaf? I think reddit should've gone with `/r/:username/:subreddit` to remind everyone that every subreddit is just some random person's forum, not some canonical message board on that topic. I…

That's a neat idea, but what prevents people from squatting official-looking usernames? And what happens if the mod team changes?

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#72

Post by pavel_lishin »

MorrisofOrange wrote: post #70
pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't moderator power, it's name squatting. Do you have a concrete suggestion for giving the moderators less power, while still ensuring that subreddits don't get overrun with trolls? Keep in mind that physical in-world minorities can amplify their voices vastly online. Sometimes this is something we want (by allowing, e.g., African-Americans to point out systemic injustice) and sometimes it's not (Fascis…

But the upvote/downvote solves this issue when these voices hit the frontpage. for example r/the_Donald always complained that when their posts make the front page Reddit would"lower their score". what was happening was it was reaching the people outside their safespace who downvoted it to oblivion. OTOH the Bangladesh students didn't see this issue because people on reddit tend to agree with them.

1. What about posts and submission that never hit the front page? Statistically, most don't.

2. Are we sure that the downvotes were organic? Are we sure it wasn't an algorithmic attempt to fight vote brigading?

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#73

Post by pavel_lishin »

baud147258 wrote: post #51
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can definitely work in certain cases, especially when there's a single very clear focus or purpose for the forum, or some sort of accountability for your opinions.

> single very clear focus or purpose for the forum It's the case on that forum and the off-topic discussions (religion & politics) are accesible only to accounts older than 1 year, so it helps to limit shitposting in those discussions. Accountability for your opinions in that case just mean getting mocked by other people (I said free speech, not nice speech). I just wanted to show an counter-example disagreeing with…

> Accountability for your opinions in that case just mean getting mocked by other people

Yup! That's one of the good ways of holding people accountable.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#74

Post by tbrownaw »

slg wrote: post #54
geggam wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?

Sure, the standards change over time. You would likely be shunned 200 years ago if you said whites and blacks had equal intellect. You would likely be shunned today if you said the opposite. Society generally moves in the right direction. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I was simply pointing out that this phenomena is not new or limited to the internet. It is inherently human. It…

* "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."*

No, it bends towards wherever it ended up going. Which by some remarkable coincidence, will be whatever most people currently approve of. Equating that with "justice" is a tactic to bash people who don't like whatever change is being discussed, without having to actually explain why that change is good.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#75

Post by baud147258 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #73
baud147258 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> single very clear focus or purpose for the forum It's the case on that forum and the off-topic discussions (religion & politics) are accesible only to accounts older than 1 year, so it helps to limit shitposting in those discussions. Accountability for your opinions in that case just mean getting mocked by other people (I said free speech, not nice speech). I just wanted to show an counter-example disagreeing with…

> Accountability for your opinions in that case just mean getting mocked by other people Yup! That's one of the good ways of holding people accountable.

Also they have tags that will appear above the user portrait, to indicate the more troublesome members. They are applied by the few moderators. They include shiposter, idiot, edgy...

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#76

Post by notveryrational »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #47
grandmczeb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.

Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).

Something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time.

You are presenting a false dichotomy.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#77

Post by notveryrational »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #66
grandmczeb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship is not defined as illegal speech. Some forms of censorship are perfectly ok, like when you remove objectionable content from your own platform. If the government were to require you to remove that same content, it would still be censorship, but in a much worse form.

No, that's the point. Censorship is a specific thing, and to muddy the waters by claiming moderation is censorship means that during times of actual governmental overreach it will be that much harder to recruit people to your cause. It's fairly easy to get people onboard with the idea of moderation, once you insist that that's censorship you now have a population that's "ok with censorship" which is exactly what the…

No person is claiming that "moderation is censorship".

Merely, this specific act of moderation was an implementation of censorship.

Moderation and censorship are two different things that are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#78

Post by tptacek »

brandmeyer wrote: post #33
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".

At least for me, the freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and other amendments are valuable not just as restrictions on government power, but as restrictions on power. The more asymmetric the relationship between two parties, the more sensitive we become to exercises of power by the stronger party over the weaker one. I think that we do have a reasonable expectation that our employers and service providers won't…

You can want the Bill of Rights to be "restrictions on power", but as a positive description of reality and of law, they are not that. In fact: the Constitution had to be amended to make those rights binding on State governments, and it's not perfectly legally clear that all of those rights have been so incorporated.

The idea that they bind on Facebook is... aspirational.

Re: Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

#80

Post by notveryrational »

ratsmack wrote: post #58
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).

When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating. Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.

When well-defined rules include "content that the government wants to suppress because it criticized them" the rules provide censorship via moderation.

In this case, Facebook - presuming what they did was "follow the rules" - is following censorship rules.

So perhaps the thread should be about the US government forcing companies to censor free speech for them.

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