Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

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You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious actors spouting propaganda. It's pretty clear that the current state of affairs allows a greater degree of emotional and psychological manipulation than has been possible in the past. That rather undercuts your idea that rational people can bring their critical thinking skills to bear on it and cut through it. It's simply not how human psychology works.

All of which is somewhat besides the point and off topic from this particular issue: When Amazon Video started out, it was not an open forum-- it was not YouTube. Part of its appeal was that it was a somewhat curated selection of content. Watering that down with content that takes more time & mental effort to sift through the crap isn't really a great experience or what drew people to the platform. Believing Amazon shouldn't do that is hardly a blow against free speech or something.

I also fail to see how curated content somehow goes against the values of the constitution. Every news paper, book publisher, TV channel or other media outlet, ever, has exerted editorial discretion over the content they choose to make available. Believing that model to be superior to a "fire hose" approach is not inherently anti-constitutional.

It doesn't literally go against the constitution, but there are no open forums anymore as they've all resorted to deplatforming because they keep pushing this message you support, that they know better than the lowly masses. Even 4chan has been heavily mitigated. You are wrong if you think the people running mass media outlets have your best interests in mind when they decide which content is kosher and which is not. I'd rather filter through a lot of junk than not have access at all to the few valuable and truthful bits that get "caught" in the corporate filter as false positives.

> You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious actors spouting propaganda

People are sheep and require benevolent shepherds. A viewpoint that has successfully been instituted throughout time. Who shall this aristocracy be? Those with the most potential liability and deepest pockets? Sure. I present you believe in Plutocracy, even if you profess not to, by your own circumspect explanations.

Unsurprisingly, this has been par for the US since always (more or less).

Stop acting like there's only one extreme or the other. It's a simplistic world view that ignores that most things exist in shades of grey. There can be reasonable places in between extremes, and defaulting to an extreme just shows that you lack imagination or willingness to work through hard problems.

> Stop acting like there's only one extreme or the other.

I have accurately described your views, which is how most of the US votes.

Hand waving in denial, is not uncommon. Good luck with that.

> It's a simplistic world view that ignores that most things exist in shades of grey

That's why it takes MULTIPLE steps to get to that point, which I went through. Take another look at my post.

"Do people need to be protected from other people's speech?" Yes, to some degree there needs to be watchers. "who gets to decide what is 'acceptable'" The watchers are those with the most resources to watch the people.

> defaulting to an extreme just shows that you lack imagination

I present that you lack comprehension of your own viewpoint.

My "failure" is that I have not given you a solution that you find acceptable, which meets your expectations.

> You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious actors spouting propaganda.

If that's the case, we'd have to shut down every news and media organization.

> Every news paper, book publisher, TV channel or other media outlet, ever, has exerted editorial discretion over the content they choose to make available.

That's the point. Is amazon a platform or a publisher. I think we've allowed major tech companies to be ambiguous for far too long. As a society, we should force the major tech companies to decide once and for all. If they want to be publishers fine, then they should be responsible for all the content. If they want to be a platform, then they shouldn't be allowed to censor and only take down illegal content.

These tech companies shouldn't be allowed to eat the cake and have it too.

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