Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts • Hacker News Board

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#81

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 4:31 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #43

kordless wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate, it claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its direct political control, beginning with territory in the Levant region, which includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus, and an area in southern Turkey that includes Hatay. Sounds pretty extreme to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state Not so much. You are using the definition from an article geared towards ousting extremists -- and therefore their definition is "extreme". An IS can very much-so be a legitimate non-extreme government. (albeit, different from what most of us would prefer as a government)

[deleted]

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#82

Post by bellerocky » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 4:34 PM UTC

judk wrote: post #77

bellerocky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So yes, for a true believer in basic human rights it can be shocking that we have restricted ourselves (as voters in democracies) in our right of free speech, and can feel that when trying to aid universal free communications ( by hosting pods). The video being "suppressed" is of the gruesome, intimidating murder of James Foley, a journalist who risked his life for a profession dedicated to 1st amendment principles…

So perhaps it's best to, at his death, not destroy the principles he lived for.

I don't think his principles were to terrify people and intimidate journalists from reporting the news. If people like him weren't risking his life there all you'd have would be official government propaganda.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#83

Post by lazylizard » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#84

Post by waps » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #80

waps wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too. A police officer explained this to me. They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ... These videos are made with one purpose only : to recruit more muslims to their cause. Assuming they know what they're doing, that'…

I disagree. The people making the videos are not in the US or UK. Furthermore, the people making the video are already breaking US and UK laws -- murder. The simple act of making a video (of some kind), posting it, linking to it, nor viewing it are illegal in themselves. However, if the government of the US or UK deem the video content to be "extremist" content, now it becomes illegal to link-to, or view the video? T…

I'm not talking about the people making the video. I'm talking about people recruiting new fighters to their cause.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#85

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 4:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #28

This is one of the reasons I never felt that I could run a TOR or freenet node in good conscience. They have good uses but I can think of plenty of bad uses and I suspect that the bad uses will outnumber the good uses at any moment in time.

By Blackstone math, it is better than ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished.

How many pedo-pervs would you allow to trade images such that one political dissident may speak without fear of persecution?

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#86

Post by lukeschlather » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

waps wrote: post #69

lukeschlather wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is clearly enshrined in the US Constitution as freedom of restriction from government, but freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. It's kind of an academic distinction if a multinational corporation like Twitter is restricting it or a government.

Legally you are extremely wrong. You could mean either : 1) US freedom of speech, which is only freedom from government interference with political speech, and obviously US-only. 2) UN "international" freedom of speech. Has 2 major problems * cannot actually be used to sue anyone for denying it, unlike the US law * has been repeatedly judged to not even cover "muhammad is an asshole", despite that obviously being pol…

In political philosophy (at least the standard USA political philosophy I learned in school) rights are things that we agree in principle people should be allowed to do. Laws are made to protect rights, but they are not the source of those rights. Rights are founded in our collective moral beliefs.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#87

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 5:10 PM UTC

ibebrett wrote: post #59

logfromblammo wrote: post #50

It seems odd to structure a project around freedom of speech, control of your own information, and dilution of central authority, and then act disappointed when it actually gets used for those purposes. If a group that posts videos of journalist executions can use it without getting shut down, it is certainly usable for any other group that may be unpopular with their local majority: Tibetan nationalists, Falun Gong,…

There is a difference between a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and a decentralized system that can be used to plan and share murders/(horrible other things). It is totally legal (in the usa) for you to get together with your friends and talk about whatever you want, but it is not legal for you to get together and plan an overthrow of the government, or a murder. It's not good that a dangerous group has a new t…

You actually can get together with your friends and plan an overthrow of the government. That's exactly what the Free State Project is. It just so happens that their plot does not include violence or other criminal behaviors.

And you can plan a murder. The conversation itself is not a crime. But it is very damning evidence if the prospective victim that was discussed actually turns up dead, showing that the crime was, in fact, premeditated murder and not a less severely punished type of homicide, and that accomplices were involved. The speech is not the crime. It is evidence of malicious intent if a crime subsequently occurs. It may also be useful intelligence that could allow someone to interfere with a crime in progress.

If you overhear the murder conversation, you might be able to prevent a murder. But those guys could have been talking about their clan strategy for a MMORPG raid, and you simply misunderstood the intent. You don't know for certain until someone acts.

Censorship cannot stop crimes. It can only conceal evidence.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#88

Post by ryusage » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

bellerocky wrote: post #12

dewey wrote: post #2

I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. I know they could just setup their own Pod but these values are what makes them any different from the likes of Twitter and I would've expected them to stand by them a bit more. [0] https://diasporaf…

> I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. Yeah that's probably because the ISIS is known for suicide bombings, cutting off heads, video taping it so that the families and friends of the victim can see how gruesome their loved one died, kil…

The whole point of their platform is that it's not controlled by any central authority and is resistant to censorship, control, breaches of privacy, etc. The fact that even some of the most horrific and undesirable content, that which people most adamantly wish to censor, CAN'T be censored, is a strong proof that their network works.

All they need to do to is say, "Censoring this is not possible", as they seem to be doing, and that promotes their software. They don't need to talk about, approve of, or even be aware of the horrific things that ISIS does. It's enough to know that people really, really don't like what they're posting.

On the other hand, by actively attempting to censor the content, as Diaspora also seems to be doing, they're also sending the message that they don't actually truly believe in openness as a value, deep down, even though they designed their software to provide it. That actually hurts them a bit in the long run, I think.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#89

Post by chc » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

u124556 wrote: post #62

chc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beheading people is not speech; it's violence. You're arguing for freedom of violence.

The beheading is beyond our control, but should we not talk about it?

Should we not recruit people to behead other people? No, we should not. We're still beheading people in that narrative.

Re: Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

#90

Post by dlkdg » Thu, Aug 21, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

What about this: the Diaspora team does not betray their principles for encouraging pod admins to block IS content, mainly because they do not make up their minds and say 'Oh shit, maybe this decentralized thing was not that good an idea'. What they're saying is that they do not approve of what IS do and say, and think that you shouldn't neither.

As it was said before, saying that certain assholes should shut up does not equal betraying the principle of freedom of speech. Now, that is philosophical subtleties aside. Of course this invokes hard questions, like, who gets to decide which assholes should shut up. But let's not split hairs -- IS case is not a borderline case. That is, if we all agree that what they do is universally harmful.

If someone doesn't then I think there's not much to discuss.