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Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

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Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#91

Post by BonesJustice »

krapp wrote: post #57
BonesJustice wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness.

> What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness. No, it isn't. Inevitably someone like yourself will come into threads like these and attempt to start a slippery slope argument by trying to imply that the subject at hand is meaningless and, therefore, all attempts to address it are arbitrary. It really is strange how, for certain subjects, people just forget how English works…

Bless your heart.

It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide.

The only definition that matters is the one held by whoever will be deciding what gets censored and what doesn’t.

How might your political adversaries choose to apply a filter on “violent extremism”? I could easily see claims arising that abortions are both violent and extreme, and that pro-choice material is therefore “violent extremist” content. That’s probably not what the people behind this agreement had in mind, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t make much difference.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#92

Post by beachy »

I would be interested to know what the technical difficulties are in scrubbing a banned video, and all derivatives, from a Facebook.

Are there practical AI/video analysis techniques to detect that a video contains a fragment of another video? Surely.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#93

Post by JudgeWapner »

krapp wrote: post #57
BonesJustice wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness.

> What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness. No, it isn't. Inevitably someone like yourself will come into threads like these and attempt to start a slippery slope argument by trying to imply that the subject at hand is meaningless and, therefore, all attempts to address it are arbitrary. It really is strange how, for certain subjects, people just forget how English works…

in some online circles, there was a call to ban 8chan because the terrorist posted there. Do you support banning that website because terrorists used it? Then do you support banning facebook for the same reason? Where does it stop? Or do you recommend just taking down individual posts ?

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#94

Post by krapp »

jakeogh wrote: post #85
krapp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, more the "isn't inevitable" argument implied by the slippery slope fallacy. But that may be too subtle a distinction for a thread like this.

Parent didn't imply it was. Freedom is often lost incrementally. Framing that basic fact of history as a logically fallacy is unwise.

>Parent didn't imply it was.

Yes, they did.

The purpose of suggesting that "extremism" as a term is "so vague as to be meaningless" is to imply precisely that. It's a common enough rhetorical tactic that it can be taken for granted in any thread where speech or censorship (particularly of what is considered right or far-right politics) is the subject.

Extremism in context has a commonly understood definition, and claiming otherwise is not a convincing argument.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#95

Post by pnw_hazor »

snarf21 wrote: post #33
ausbah wrote: post #21

Everyone decried censorship, but always fails to provide an alternative to try and stop extremism online.

Okay, I'll bite. Here is an alternative. Make it illegal for any "news" agency to publicly name the group or individual that commits any "terrorist" act. Make it a multi-million dollar fine per instance. We need to stop giving these people their 15 minutes of fame or infamy. All coverage must be about the victims only. We also need to collectively care about stopping extremism with other approaches. One thing that is…

Great plan. All it takes is a government to designate a group as terrorists and any mention of them results in mega-fines.

nit- Among others, neither the 9/11 gang nor the Christchurch shooter were poor.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#96

Post by krapp »

BonesJustice wrote: post #91
krapp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What constitutes ‘extremism’? It’s a term so vague as to be practically meaninglessness. No, it isn't. Inevitably someone like yourself will come into threads like these and attempt to start a slippery slope argument by trying to imply that the subject at hand is meaningless and, therefore, all attempts to address it are arbitrary. It really is strange how, for certain subjects, people just forget how English works…

Bless your heart. It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide. The only definition that matters is the one held by whoever will be deciding what gets censored and what doesn’t. How might your political adversaries choose to apply a filter on “violent extremism”? I could easily…

>It was actually a trick question: you cannot tell me what “violent extremism” means in this context, because you don’t know. You don’t know because you’re not the one who gets to decide.

Oh, ok.

The powers that be. The shadowy cabal. The unseen hand which controls all aspects of society with absolute and arbitrary power.

I thought I was going to be able to have a rational, intellectually satisfying discussion but once again no one is capable of defending free speech without resorting to slippery slopes and absolutism. Ah well. Here's another valueless thread I can ignore.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#97

Post by Reelin »

tomp wrote: post #79
phil248 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has plenty of laws against the use of speech to promote violence. The Netherlands has, in practice, some of the most expansive free speech rights of any corner of the planet, yet they had no problem signing on (to this non-binding agreement).

AFAIK courts have established precedents that it has to be "threat of imminent harm" - so promoting violence is OK ("kill all XXX") but shooting "fire" in a theater isn't. Streaming a terrorist attack doesn't seem to result in a "threat of imminent harm" I think - if anything, it could prevent harm (because the viewers could report the violence and police could prevent further violence).

> but shooting "fire" in a theater isn't

There are legally recognized limits in the US, but that particular example isn't a good one.

(https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...)

> But those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they'd realize it was never binding law, and the underlying case, U.S. v. Schenck, is not only one of the most odious free speech decisions in the Court's history, but was overturned over 40 years ago.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#98

Post by JudgeWapner »

bilbo0s wrote: post #56
basetop wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather live with the remote threat of extremism rather than live in a censored world. Would you rather live in North Korea with no extremism? You have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism and yet you'd give up your right to free speech for some remote threat? That kind of thinking is the cause of north korea and nazi germany. Authoritarians always use remote threats to justify t…

> You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than dying from extremism... I know this is pedantic, but you got me curious so I went to check the numbers. Odds of death in mass shooting (US only): 1 in 11,125 Odds of death by lightning strike (US only): 1 in 161,831 So it seems that it's actually a lot more likely for an American to die in a mass shooting than it is for us to die in lightning strikes. Edi…

edit: I mixed up yearly statistics vs "lifetime likelihood". I'll leave what I wrote for posterity

If the US population is 328,000,000, and each of us has a "1:11,125 odds" of dying in a mass shooting, that would seem to indicate that there are 328m/11,125 = 29,483 "mass shooting deaths" in any given year (I'm happy to accept corrections on my math here, maybe I'm completely missing something). That's patently false, and quite a spurious definition of "mass shooting". My definition of "mass shooting" is an unprovoked attack for terroristic reasons. i.e. NOT a { jealous spouse/drug dealers/gang bangers }. I don't keep an active tally, but I would estimate the number on an "average" year to be about 50, double that during the year we had the vegas shooting. 50/year puts the odds at rougly 1:6,560,000, or about 40x less likely than getting killed by a lightning strike.

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#99

Post by pnw_hazor »

phil248 wrote: post #88
hugh4life wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The US has plenty of laws against the use of speech to promote violence." What laws are you talking about?

An example is the law against distributing information on making bombs/weapons with the intent of promoting/enabling violence. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842

Bomb making instructions are generally protected speech.

Distributing such instructions with the intent to further a crime makes the speech unprotected. But, each element (e.g, knowingly intending to further a crime, and so on) has to be proven in a court of law to strip the speech of its protected status.

From the statute you linked: "...with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence;"

edit: typos

Re: Tech companies and governments sign up to Christchurch Call agreement

#100

Post by deogeo »

northwest65 wrote: post #69
writepub wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's Christchurch, not ChristChurch. I wasn't going to say anything but you've done it twice so I assume it's not a typo.

Personally, I'm in favour of christ_church.
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