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

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

#91

Post by menacingly »

wccrawford wrote: post #84
menacingly wrote: post #72

Putting aside that it's a slippery and malleable label to apply to undesirable speech, there is an elitism hiding in these ban-hate-speech arguments. The core assumption is that while _I_ am able to see these vile ideas for the lies they are, the unsophisticated masses must not be allowed to hear them, lest they fall prey. This is problematic in ways that used to be obvious to people in free societies, but for some r…

>This is problematic in ways that used to be obvious to people in free societies, but for some reason seems lost now. I don't think this is true. I think some people always got it, and some people still do. The difference is that the internet allows anyone to post their opinions, but it used to be a lot harder to reach other people. We still have people that we hold up on pedestals for saying the right things, and th…

This might be true.

When I was a kid, I saw a full hooded KKK march on TV, and I said "why do we let them march?" and my mom said "because you have to hear from people you don't want to hear from to know free speech is working"

I cannot fathom that this conversation would even be considered good parenting today.

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

#92

Post by macspoofing »

snackbugs wrote: post #74
macspoofing wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with that definition at all. It is an atrocious and immoral definition of 'hate speech' (and dare I say probably racist in practice).

What can be done to correct this definition? What should be adjusted?

For one thing, this definition eschews a common standard. Rather, violations are based on arbitrary criteria of "dominance" - which is popular with certain ideologues but has very little support in showing that this is actually a good metaphor for understanding our society. Anyway, in practice (and probably in your mind), this definition would entail grouping people by their skin color and labeling one group as extra susceptible for violating YOUR hate speech code and another group being completely exempt.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

snackbugs wrote: post #74
macspoofing wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with that definition at all. It is an atrocious and immoral definition of 'hate speech' (and dare I say probably racist in practice).

What can be done to correct this definition? What should be adjusted?

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by atmosx »

ilovecaching wrote: post #10

There's still too many unsolved philosophical questions here. What is hate speech? What should the limits of free speech be? How do we contended with the multitude of religious, legal, and cultural differences and anomalies when policing news and thought across the world? How do we react to people weaponizing the policing of hate speech to remove free speech? I have yet to hear compelling answers to this problem, and…

Speech is either free or not free, there is no middle path.

If you want free speech, you accept the consequences. If you want “regulated” speech, there are consequences.

That’s it. I would argue that the level of satire a society can cope with, is directly proportional to the quality of democracy the society has.

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

#95

Post by kadendogthing »

mrkstu wrote: post #16

Cockroaches thrive in the dark corners. Sunlight is antiseptic. And forcing ideas/speech into those dark corners don't keep them from growing, it merely allows it to grow unobserved and un-countered. Ideas are the only counter to other ideas and how we communicate those idea is via speech. Suppression only invites martyrdom on the behalf of those suppressed, increasing their credibility.

Not only is this analogy bad (sunlight helps plenty of bad things grow, things even detrimental to our survival as a species), but it assumes that you're dealing with rational actors. Stop naively assuming this. It's a bad assumption. There are people out there who will argue in bad faith and have no interest in reasoning or truth. And there are people who will fall victim to those bad ideas. Religion, terrorist factions, general cults, hell we can barely keep our own actions in check while we actively harm the environment.

The idea that if you just say the right, True (TM) thing then people will flock to it so not only naive it's so obviously wrong if you look at a laymen's perspective on basically any subject. It's also just a waste of time for the subjects typically in question. The communication of ideas has changed. It's a chaotic free for all. We've over done it. It's time to have a serious and reasonable conversation about the current state we find ourselves in, least we shoot ourselves in the foot with blind, headstrong optimism about ideals that don't much the reality of human nature.

In before someone references 1984 blindly and displays the ever-popular dystopia-prediction fetish that's so prevalent in these conversations.

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

#96

Post by TimJYoung »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #28
mrkstu wrote: post #16

Cockroaches thrive in the dark corners. Sunlight is antiseptic. And forcing ideas/speech into those dark corners don't keep them from growing, it merely allows it to grow unobserved and un-countered. Ideas are the only counter to other ideas and how we communicate those idea is via speech. Suppression only invites martyrdom on the behalf of those suppressed, increasing their credibility.

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

Only if you assume that everything that a given person says is bad/unwelcome. But, people aren't like that, and hold all kinds of different views on different subjects, some of which they may have extensive background in, and others that they are just pulling out of their nether regions and are subject to all kinds of biases.

For example, despite what anyone thinks about what Trump says (I think he's an idiot and a clown), he does occasionally say something that isn't complete BS (please don't make me try to find such an example).

You just can't go down that route and expect a good outcome. In fact, I would argue that you're going to end up with the opposite result that you intended because you'll, inadvertently, end up giving more attention to idiotic ideas than the ideas actually deserve.

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

#97

Post by PKop »

jachee wrote: post #4

Hate is an absolute. If you're not against it, you're supporting it. EDIT: So, I see I've angered the privileged, white, tech-bro, capitalists. Downvote away. Don't dare speak up about how hate is bad here. Got it.

Sounds like you hate white tech bros

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

#98

Post by jachee »

mitchty wrote: post #64
jachee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, I clearly got a bit too passionate. Let me try and clarify, civilly:

Hate speech is always an attack.

Whether it's overt (Westboro, the N-word, Swastikas, homophobic slurs, etc.) or more subtle ("the 14 words", "88", etc). Supporting the "right" of someone to use hate speech is supporting their right to attack (and thus violate the rights of) others.

Whereas, by preventing those attacks, nothing of value is lost, and real harm is prevented.

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

#99

Post by ilovecaching »

atmosx wrote: post #94
ilovecaching wrote: post #10

There's still too many unsolved philosophical questions here. What is hate speech? What should the limits of free speech be? How do we contended with the multitude of religious, legal, and cultural differences and anomalies when policing news and thought across the world? How do we react to people weaponizing the policing of hate speech to remove free speech? I have yet to hear compelling answers to this problem, and…

Speech is either free or not free, there is no middle path. If you want free speech, you accept the consequences. If you want “regulated” speech, there are consequences. That’s it. I would argue that the level of satire a society can cope with, is directly proportional to the quality of democracy the society has.

> I would argue that the level of satire a society can cope with, is directly proportional to the quality of democracy the society has.

So where does that put America :)

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

#100

Post by erik_seaberg »

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…

Even apart from the Streisand effect, conspiring to suppress crappy ideas gives them undeserved credibility. "They didn't want you to hear this."
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