Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

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>Trying to remove anonymity will not 'fix' trolling and harassment. After all, a lot of people simply don't care what others think of them, know they're too far away to be affected (in most cases) or just have nothing to lose to begin with.

While that is true, many times what person A considers to be harassment, the person that is harassing them does not consider it to be harassment at all.

This is not to say the person is not being harassed, although I have seen many examples of people claiming to have been "harassed" but when I view the twitter history for example I do not consider it to be harassment. That said often abusers do not self identify as abusers for example a Wife beater does not believe they are abusing their victim.

>>Facebook and Twitter struggle with this, partly because it's impractical to manually moderate a site with so many users and partly because their model doesn't really allow it.

Facebook and Twitter struggle with this because they refuse to create the clear rules for participation you stated other sites do. They proclaim to be "Free Speech" platforms welcome to "All Ideas and discussion" while creating mushy and lose rules that are highly subjective and makes enforcing those rules problematic.

Where as the sites you describe are normally subject matter sites so it is somewhat easier to define a more ridged rule set.

Facebook, twitter, and to a lesser extent Reddits problem is it impossible to be both a "Free Speech" platform and a censor... These are mutually exclusive concepts

Reddit definitely suffers from the free speech and social acceptableness clash. That's in part because the site was founded specifically on the assumption that it would allow freedom of speech, without realising that 'true' freedom of speech is basically 'anything goes if it's legal, social norms and rules be damned'.

It's why they're struggling with communities like The Donald and had a lot of previous issues with the likes of Fat People Hate. Because they realised that their original philosophy doesn't really scale well and puts off more 'moderate' users, yet also realise a large portion of their audience joined on the promise of freedom of speech and go ballistic if things get censored.

Reddit suffers because people in general do not believe freedom of speech is a right.

I disliked the Fat People Hate subreddit, you know what I did... I did not visit the Fat People Hate subreddit.

The communities I join and participate in on Reddit are moderated well and do not suffer from the problem, if you do not like what is talked about on The Donald, don't go there, not that hard.

The problem is people do go, get "offended" then complain or raise hell because the mere existence of speech they dislike is what they want to end. This is not Freedom of Speech, but censorship.

Reddits Original model is the correct one, Allow Communities to form on the platform, and if people do not like the content of those communities they can unsubscribe, or avoid them.

I agree with you here.

However, Reddit and similar platforms usually can't operate under this logic. Why? Because they need to make money to stay online/keep operating. And unfortunately, that means content that alienates advertisers (like a lot of the more controversial subreddits) ends up actively hurting their revenue stream.

They could try and get round this by monetising in other ways (micropayments, subscriptions, purely donations, etc) or by looking for ad networks with real low standards, but those methods likely wouldn't pay enough to keep them afloat.

It's why in the long run, I suspect the answer to the problem isn't a centralised platform that hosts a lot of different communities, but a system that connects individually hosted communities into a 'network' of sorts with similar features to Reddit.

That way, you can have both controversial and non controversial 'subreddits', with the latter paying their own hosting bills and the former either doing the same thing or getting subsidised hosting by the network owner.

It also shuts down any future attempts at censorship by not giving the company running the service any way to edit what happens on any one community.

This is one of the problems with Standards vs Platforms

Usenet vs Reddit

IRC vs Slack/Twitter

etc

I believe the internet is harmed by these Platforms in general and we should go back to Decentralized Standards for communications vs For profit Platforms

> It's why in the long run, I suspect the answer to the problem isn't a centralised platform that hosts a lot of different communities, but a system that connects individually hosted communities into a 'network' of sorts with similar features to Reddit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just a protocol?

That's all well and good when it was subs like FPH that were easily ignored. The thing that threatened to chase me off of reddit was the_donald. Not because I was "offended"(the new code word for calling someone a pussy), but because it was shitty content that pissed me off. And they figured out how to jack the algorithm to make their sub the most prominent content. I joined reddit for the science and tech, not to be a hit count on some shill's advert campaign.

Losing your target audience is a problem for any company. Free speech is a right insofar as the government cannot ban speech. Private property is a right. Reddit cannot ban me from saying what I want in real life, but they totally have the right to not allow me to say it on their property.

There has never been a single post from the_donald on the default frontpage of reddit, which only includes the default subscriptions, or whatever you change your subscriptions to. According to Reddit admins, almost no one even browses r/all, the only place where there were a lot of the_donald posts. And that isn't even the case anymore, since reddit adjusted their algorithm.

spez talked about how a lot of users(myself included) do in fact browse r/all. And yes, it has been fixed which is a good thing.

Only if you are using /r/all, and if you using that to find good content you are using reddit wrong.

/r/all has always been and will always be trash.

I have 3 modes of redditing in order of importance/frequency: 1. custom fp with many defaults removed, 2. r/all, 3. rarely, but sometimes default fp.

I find that it works. r/all is a lot of memes and time wasters, but can be fun for a quick look at what's going on outside of my bubble. I've found things(like rick and morty) that I wouldn't have found if I hadn't punched up r/all once in a while.

That whole "don't go to that section if you don't like it" works just fine if those things stay in their section. The problem is that they weren't staying in their section. Fat People Hate was known for going into other subreddits and shitposting all the time. The Donald famously abused the rules to get their crap spamming /r/all constantly.

So tell me again how "don't go to those subreddits" is the solution?

>>So tell me again how "don't go to those subreddits" is the solution?

OK, Dont go to those subreddits.

>Fat People Hate was known for going into other subreddits and shitposting all the time.

I was no aware that subreddit's could post anything. Now users that happened to subscribed or vist FPH may also visit other communities, it is up to those communities to then moderator their subreddits,

As to /r/all, reddit should just really remove that "feature" /r/all has never worked, and will never work, that is a non-issue.

No, it's not a non-issue. And once again, if the behavior that would normally be contained within the subreddit leaks out into other subreddits, what happens then? Cause your advice of "don't go there" fails.

The problem is a bit more structural or philosophical. I don't visit subreddit foo, because it is objectively hate speech. Fine, except that reddit's profitability model depends on that subreddit existing and gold being passed around and so on.

By not clamping down on trash content, reddit is monetizing hate speech.

And that's why I avoid reddit entirely. Not because I'm worried my feelings will be hurt by some shitposter, but because that shitposter gets reddit gold and ad impressions that make money for reddit inc. I'm just not interested in participating in that business - in my mind they're not seperable, you can't just ignore r/the_donald or any of the other hives when they're all part of the business plan.

>> objectively hate speech.

Doubtful, Hate Speech is subjective, what is "hate" to person A is not hate to person B.

as an example

>you can't just ignore r/the_donald

You find the_donald filled with Hate Speech, but as a Libertarian I see all kinds of Social Justice, Statist, and other Posts to be "hate filled" that I bet you do not.

many times what person A considers to be harassment, the person that is harassing them does not consider it to be harassment at all.

To expand on that: "I disagree" is not and should not be a valid defense when someone is accusing you of harassment. Harassment is a violation of personal space and only one person gets to define the limits of that personal space; it is not the aggressor that sets the limits.

In a way, it is the same discussion as with privacy: the only authority on what personal information to share with whom is the person themselves.

Yes, this premise is easily abused, and yes, in US' adversarial society a discussion on this topic carries a lot more weight (because legal) than it probably should, but the fundamental premise is still the same: personal stuff is personal.

As for the false dichotomy between free speech and censorship: that is the same as arguing that freedom can only exist in anarchy; they both rely on a very narrow definition of freedom: that each person exists foremost as a singular entity, and that every interpersonal exchange is governed by mutual negotiation. I think that's a very myopic view, because it implies that every relationship starts adversarial.

>To expand on that: "I disagree" is not and should not be a valid defense when someone is accusing you of harassment. Harassment is a violation of personal space and only one person gets to define the limits of that personal space; it is not the aggressor that sets the limits.

I disagree completely on this. Using this definition of harassment, in combination with a prohibition on said harassment is ripe for abuse. I have seen many many many people claim others are "harassing" them simply because the other person expressed a dissenting opinion from their own. Harassment must have an objective definition, not a subjective one. At-least if it is going to enforced as a part of over all rules for a platform like Twitter.

Further under this definition of Harassment no one can be harassed online, since you can not violate a persons PERSONAL space if you have no physical proximity to the person

>>they both rely on a very narrow definition of freedom: that each person exists foremost as a singular entity, and that every interpersonal exchange is governed by mutual negotiation. I think that's a very myopic view, because it implies that every relationship starts adversarial.

What is your definition of freedom then. I do believe every person is a singular entity, with self agency, and that every interaction with other people is a mutual negotiation where by both parties should voluntary agree to interact and at any time for any reason either party can choose to end the interaction. With out the ability to chose whom you interact with, and for what reason you can not have freedom. That is far from myopic

> Further under this definition of Harassment no one can be harassed online, since you can not violate a persons PERSONAL space if you have no physical proximity to the person

If I falsely and maliciously accuse you of being a paedophile that can cause you to undergo intrusive investigation, possibly leading to you losing work; it can cause people to physically assault you, perhaps even kill you. I have no physical proximity to you, but I have intruded on your personal space.

But even if none of that happens: it will affect you. These types of actions cause actual, measurable, harm.

You've just identified a form of harassment that is objective, and probably would be agreed upon by the wider community. That's ok because it doesn't rely on a single person's definition of harassment.

There are plenty of people on HN who are horrified by the UK definition of harassment.

See, for example, how people react when they read the sentencing remarks or Mr Justice Spencer in Regina vs Joshua Bonehill-Paine

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of...

There are people who'll try to deny that this was antisemitism; that it was actually harassment; that she wasn't harmed by it etc.

> See, for example, how people react

Where? How do they react?

>>I have no physical proximity to you, but I have intruded on your personal space.

I disagree, you have caused other people to violate my personal space, but you did not.

>But even if none of that happens: it will affect you. These types of actions cause actual, measurable, harm.

This is true, that does not make it a violation of "personal space" nor does it have to be a violation of person space to have liability for actions attached to it

Using this definition of harassment, in combination with a prohibition on said harassment

Hence why I said that the discussion is needlessly complicated. But a single bad implementation does not prove a bad design.

I have seen many many many people claim others are "harassing" them simply because the other person expressed a dissenting opinion from their own.

So? The only problem with that claim is that it automically converts into a legal threat. Otherwise: stop asssociating with them. People who cry harassment are not interested in your argument anyway, whether their claim is justified or not.

I am a little puzzled though how my definition can be both "ripe for abuse" and cause that "no one can be harassed online"?

What is your definition of freedom then

My view on life is that every person is an amalgamation of the role they play in a multitude of social circles. Each circle may have its own norms and customs, and each person assumes those norms and customs to a degree each is comfortable with. For my definition of freedom it therefore follows that I don't think it is useful to consider a person in the singular, as everything we are is informed by the context of the roles we choose. A person in the singular is just that: a person, and a pretty uninteresting one at that.

The agency we have is to choose the circles we move in, and the degree to which we let each role subsume us. Interaction within a chosen circle is not always optional though: we can choose the circles but not directly its members. Freedom then, to me, is the ability to choose our roles and circles without fear of reprisal from other circles.

both parties should voluntary agree to interact and at any time for any reason either party can choose to end the interaction

Either party can choose? Yes, that surely matches all documented cases of harassment, both online and offline. It also perfectly matches the online model, where my browser is happily associating with tens of tracking networks for each single page I visit, and where my interaction with those trackers ends as soon as I close the page :/

To be more clear: I think it is myopic is because a) it assumes that all interactions are voluntary, and b) it assumes that all interactees have equal footing for negotiation.

There is always censorship on every platform. Always. If the platform itself is not moderating, then the abuse and harassment that naturally evolves will. People from marginalized communities will stay silent or avoid the platform out of fear of being harassed. That too, is a form of censorship.

So when debating whether these platforms should have moderation policies, and how far they should go, one needs to ask if they value diverse points of view more, or harassment and hate speech more.

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