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Protect me from what I want

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Re: Protect me from what I want

#81

Post by tensor »

eatonphil wrote: post #39

Even if Mastodon doesn't want to implement or play with "algorithms" (ignoring as is correctly pointed out that everything is/has an algorithm), all Mastodon content is ActivityPub content, right? So someone can put together a Mastodon alternative that supports pluggable algorithms, no? No need to convince the Mastodon devs who don't want this sort of thing.

Unfortunately every time I hear this sort of thing be suggested there is a rallying cry from the original mastodon crowd to block said thing. It's really unfortunate and why I don't see mastdodon as a truly viable alternative to twitter. Perhaps if a fork of it gains enough influence that isn't hostile to algorithms and indexing it would work better.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#82

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #51
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fre…

> There is no regime ever, that blocks free speech before it is voted into power.

But there is, we've seen it just recently! Take the US presidential elections in 2020: big media companies, bigtech all were favouring one political party and have successfully suppressed crucial damaging information against their side and baselessly labelled it as 'fake news', which helped the favoured party take power. It immediately proceeded by shutting down the media accounts of the defeated opponent.

The ongoing hate-campaign against musk that started after him buying twitter can absolutely be interpreted as a reaction to breaking the monopoly on the flow of information.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#83

Post by StrictDabbler »

Ieghaehia9 wrote: post #61
gfaster wrote: post #19

> And anyhow, those algorithms are just showing you what you want. Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be doomscrolling so much, would you? I believe this to be based on a faulty assumption: people do what they want. While it may be true that at the reptile-brain level we do want what the Algorithm feeds us, that statement is equivalent to saying that someone who is addicted to opiates wan…

Even on a reptile-brain level, the article's use of wanting is sort of an equivocation. The brain has different systems for "wanting" and "liking". Cocaine affects the former, opioids the latter. Capital A Algorithms maximizing engagement are very much on the "wanting" side. Firing off an angry response to a political opponent's belittling post is rarely ever really /enjoyable/.

TikTok's algorithm is firmly on the "wanting" and not liking side. That's why it creates so much ragebait.

The moderation is very strict so the ragebait is limited to people ruining (cheap) wedding dresses with colored soap and screwing toilet-seats to the trunks of junked cars, or whatever. A vast flood of videos that only exist because anybody watching them will be disappointed and angry.

If the TikTok mod team slacked up for a second you'd see nothing but culture-war political ragebait and hate speech. It hovers on the edge even now.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#84

Post by 0x457 »

nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

Hmm, I see a lot of trash that I don't want to see "suggested" by twitter in my feed on the time. The thing is...I don't care that others see it, like it, retweet it. It just, personally, I don't want to see content from accounts I'm not subscribed - I don't care how many of my accounts, that I follow, follow those accounts. Like, 2/3 of my feed is not from accounts I follow: promoted tweets and suggestions.

That's why I quit. I still log in from time to time to keep my handle alive and check out some crazies...

Re: Protect me from what I want

#85

Post by tpm »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #72
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely nothing hypocritical about e.g. "defending peace". It's realistic. between Karl Popper's well-known writings on the subject, and one accusatory sentence from someone on the internet, I'll take Karl Popper.

To your knowledge, you have just used a fallacy called "Argument from authority", a popular demagogue technique. Just because someone wrote in length that white is black, white does not become black. Likewise, intolerance does not become tolerance. You do not tolerate something => you are not tolerant. You oppose free speech only for really horrible people => you oppose free speech. It's really binary, and wherever P…

You probably should read Popper before dismissing his ideas. If you don't want to, it's fine, but in that case it's hard to take your dismissal seriously.

Like more or less anything real, this is not a simple binary problem.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#86

Post by pessimizer »

twoWhlsGud wrote: post #52
stickfigure wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ... "

...but if the majority of citizens act in ways that threaten the very functioning of your society, you may live in a monarchy or oligarchy.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#87

Post by pessimizer »

viraptor wrote: post #63
stickfigure wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think there's some nuance here though, where people do make a distinction between opposing views and harmful content. (likely not everyone, but still) What I mean is, I don't care if someone reads a politician I hate. I care if they read a politician who enables the next pizzagate or worse. Or if they read state sponsored misinformation while thinking it's genuine opinions. And yeah, I do acknowledge there's some o…

The main takeaway is that you care what other people read, not about what people are making you read.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#88

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

tpm wrote: post #85
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your knowledge, you have just used a fallacy called "Argument from authority", a popular demagogue technique. Just because someone wrote in length that white is black, white does not become black. Likewise, intolerance does not become tolerance. You do not tolerate something => you are not tolerant. You oppose free speech only for really horrible people => you oppose free speech. It's really binary, and wherever P…

You probably should read Popper before dismissing his ideas. If you don't want to, it's fine, but in that case it's hard to take your dismissal seriously. Like more or less anything real, this is not a simple binary problem.

I've read him, thank you, quite a few years ago. Wasn't impressed.

Some of people here who take free speech for granted do not know its value. I live in a very authoritarian country, that once had free speech, and I have seen how restrictions on it creep in. And what I see happen in US and Europe follows a far too familiar path.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#89

Post by XorNot »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #68
stickfigure wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Also: If your social media feeds are showing you crappy content, you are to blame. Yes and no. Youtube radicalisation / algorithmic extremism is a thing, because the engagement-maximising algorithm has a strong bias for rabbit-holes, kooks, con-artists and incendiary nonsense. The "funnel towards QAnon" that the sibling comment mentioned. Unless you lean hard against it - which first requires awareness of the probl…

The sentiment I've heard a lot is "I'm not clicking on that, it'll take weeks to undo the damage to my recommendations".

Re: Protect me from what I want

#90

Post by 98codes »

nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

For me, it was never about what I did see, it was always about what I didn't see. Want to show me extra stuff that you think matches? OK, but FFS let me see the stuff that I have purposefully, manually subscribed to/followed.
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