Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#91

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #69

mrguyorama wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people like my mother? Who didn't do so well in statistics and science and math and therefore do not have the tools to rationally judge one claim versus another? How do we help them not get pulled into, often alluring and attractive, circles of hate?

I love you mom, but those people are fucking clowns. How can I help? (Have had this exact exchange. Took a while, but did resolve. Human problems take human work.)

Lane Davis's dad tried that approach, arguing to his son that he (the son) had fallen down a neo-nazi rabbit hole. Davis denounced his dad as a 'leftist pedophile' and stabbed him to death. I could supply a laundry list of examples, but the basic point I'd like to communicate is that once someone signs up to an eliminationist philosophy we have (to misquote Churchill) established what they are, and the only question is in what order they intend to pursue that project.

I want to be careful here to distinguish between ideas that mre merely wrong and those that involve imposition of their calculus upon others. For example, I consider flat earthers ridiculous but it's not like they are threatening to flatten out anything they consider overly curved.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#92

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

will_dev_4_food wrote: post #89

braythwayt wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument works well in relatively small social groups where people generally can be relied upon to act in good faith, and where there are social disincentives to clinging to bad ideas after they have been refuted. When you have a small group with social bonds, you don't have to worry about a bad actor constantly repeating their already-refuted arguments to people who haven't heard the refutation. But when you ha…

When you say it’s like this one way but not the other, you have conceded to relativism. You have basically said there is a time and place for stealing someone’s wallet, and that acting as a moral agent in society can be suspended under the right conditions.

I honestly don't understand the connection between what you said and what the person you're replying to said. Can you explain it another way for me?

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#93

Post by LyndsySimon » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

slater wrote: post #50

driverdan wrote: post #47

> Neo-Nazi deletes anti-Semitic posts from 'alt-right' Twitter Who writes these terrible headlines? Why do these blogspam sites refuse to put the actual topic in the subject? This makes it sound like Twitter is alt-right. It's not even accurate since Gab isn't political or "alt-right," Nazis use it because they refuse to censor.

> Gab isn't political or "alt-right" haha, good one!

I wish it wasn't, but it is. It's a decent platform with a lot of potential, and the filtering that they put in place early on for inbox abuse were way better than anything Twitter ever did.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#94

Post by gmuslera » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #31

A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…

Not sure how old is that common argument, but they weren't aware of how it was internet social media in the last 5-10 years. Specially counting the well funded campaigns promoting things like climate change denialism, among others.

Big hammer censoring is not the solution, as it enables censoring the truth too (that may threaten, incomodate, etc the one handling the big hammer), but sometimes respecting the freedom of the ones that don't respect the same right for others is not a wise policy.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#95

Post by koube » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

lylecubed wrote: post #45

Nadya wrote: post #31

A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a genuinely terrible idea. It gives b…

> A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. Not to get too far off topic, but is this actually true in practice in the real world? Scientific studies have shown that the idea that gets repeated the most often is the idea that "wins". A bad idea gets repeated and spread every time it gets criticized. If the idea proves more "credible" than the critic…

This called the Rebound effect[0]. There is a Debunking Handbook[1] for dealing with this phenomenon.

There is also the idea that a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes, which spurred /r/AskHistorians to ban holocaust denial[2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect [1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Debunking_Handbook.pdf [2] https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#96

Post by acdha » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #78

mrguyorama wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A number of other silly ideas that still hold traction and do actual damage despite being out in the open and actively refuted: Moon landing conspiracy Anti-vaccers/Vaccines cause autism Fad diets and "detox"s Anti-intellectualism Alex Jones (to the tune of millions of subscribers on his recently killed youtube) Global Warming etc

Note that most of these existed well before the internet and were just as widespread. Generally the people who post this stuff are the people already preconditioned to believe it. These people also have their views emboldened when they see it is banned...they view it as some conspiracy to hide the "truth." IMO, these bans against Alex Jones aren't going to have the good intended result they were meant to. If anything…

> Note that most of these existed well before the internet and were just as widespread.

Do you have a citation for that? It seems unlikely that the Internet didn’t increase the reach for fringe views by making them available to everyone rather than just the few who requested conspiracy materials by mail.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#97

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #38

Who are the organisations pushing for these bans? Are they completely anonymous?

Who said they are organizations? It to doesn't take much to see some content, do a little research to identify a responsible host, and file a ToS complaint.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#98

Post by 394549 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #86

This sort of thing illustrates the biggest issue with web hosting, domain registrars and the internet's infrastructure in general; everything is privately owned by companies who get unlimited rights to decide who and what they want to host. The solution is to require all hosting and domain companies to act as utilities, and require neutrality in regards to any content that's legal. They're not private forums or homes…

> The solution is to require all hosting and domain companies to act as utilities, and require neutrality in regards to any content that's legal. They're not private forums or homes, they're the internet equivalent to the electricity company or the water company. They're the internet equivalent to a phone service provider or ISP.

Exactly this. When the First Amendment was authored, I don't think it was even conceivable that any organization besides a government or state church could effectively censor speech at scale. Now that we have "private" organizations that effectively have that power, it's perhaps time that the law be updated to reflect that change in facts and preserve people's right to free expression.

The internet shouldn't be another Zuccotti Park.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#99

Post by zokier » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #18

makomk wrote: post #5

The posts in question are frankly pretty awful, but this does kind of put the lie to the idea that if you don't like FaceGoogleBook's censorship you can just set up your own website.

Well you can host your own website on your own server. Of course, I do wonder how far this goes. What happens if the DNS server refuses to host the IP lookup? Host your own DNS server? What if the browsers refuse to allow access to the site? Build your own browser? What if ISPs refuse to transfer the data over the wire? Make your own internet? People have defended that this vs. Net Neutrality (at least the extent of…

Personally I would draw the line on requiring ISPs to carry legal IP traffic fairly ("net neutrality"), and pretty much everything else being free game for terms of services etc. I would considering extending the "neutrality" aspect for domains, considering that ICANN has effectively monopoly on DNS.

There are still some practical problems for hosting your own website with those "primitives", most importantly getting an internet connection suitable for hosting anything in the first place if nobody is willing to co-locate your servers. One would hope that with the proliferation of IPv6 and FTTx, actually hosting stuff from your basement would become more realistic.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#100

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

koube wrote: post #95

lylecubed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them. Not to get too far off topic, but is this actually true in practice in the real world? Scientific studies have shown that the idea that gets repeated the most often is the idea that "wins". A bad idea gets repeated and spread every time it gets criticized. If the idea proves more "credible" than the critic…

This called the Rebound effect[0]. There is a Debunking Handbook[1] for dealing with this phenomenon. There is also the idea that a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes, which spurred /r/AskHistorians to ban holocaust denial[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect [1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Debunking_Handbook.pdf [2] https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-…

[deleted]