Moderated communities beat unmoderated ones on any metric you can name. Always have, always will.
Nobody wants to drink at a pub that won't throw out rude patrons.
Nobody wants to drink at a pub that won't throw out rude patrons.
Folks can rant about free speech all they want, but no sane person would actually want to experience it. I support your right to speak, but doesn’t mean I want to listen to you.
IMO the only parts of the internet that should be absolutely required to allow unfiltered (legal, protected) speech, should be ISP’s, and maybe datacenters that rent out physical rack space. Everyone else should absolutely consider it their right to exercise moderation on their platform (throw out the rude patrons, as it were.)
It's not about scale, it's about alternatives. It's easy to just not go to reddit if you don't want to. If your ISP bans reddit (or hackernews?), and it's the only reasonable price/performance ISP you have access to, that's a much bigger problem.
Massively disagree here. Nobody owes anyone a platform. YouTube doesn’t need to host hate speech. Twitter doesn’t need to let people spread false claims about election fraud. They are perfectly within their rights (and I’d argue, their responsibility) to set standards for discourse and acceptable behavior on their platforms.
If you want a site that will host your alternate-reality qanon bullshit, you can always host it yourself.
It's important, historically, to test this regularly, and thoroughly.
Voat/4Chan et al MUST be viewed in this context.
Must!
Nah. It really musn’t. We’re all a lot happier without you on our platforms. Qanon can always pay for his own hosting.
Even if you feel that way.
Always remember that "free speech" is 100% about the right to say what you want and not be prosecuted for it. It has never, ever been about the social consequences of any particular one person's speech. Insulting your boss and getting fired isn't an abridgement of free speech, neither is getting banned from the neighborhood pub for racist monologues.
No I don’t remember. You can have “free speech” except the social consequences are that your neighbours lynch you in the streets. No I don’t recall it like that. Free speech has always been absolute because the majority opinion is immune from social consequences. It is the minority opinion that requires protection.
We're not quite there as a society, but we are moving in that direction. Some of the biggest public arenas are close enough that it is a problem. As a current example, consider if Facebook, Twitter and reddit all agree that any discussion asking critial questions regarding transgender issues are grounds for expulsion. If this happens, there will be valuable discussions that don't happen, and society will be worse off for it. There will be people who make life-changing mistakes because they didn't have access to a viewpoint that catalyzed an insight that was important for them.
We're not quite there yet. But there are numerous incidents that make me worried that this trend will leave us with a society that's net worse off. Or moves towards violent conflict as the suppressing the free exchange of ideas has economic consequences where those with social access to free speech arenas get better opportunities, leaving the rest without even the possibility of engaging.
You see the latter being alluded to when investors on Twitter or elsewhere state that there are many factually true insights about startups that they would never state outside of a close circle of acquaintances, out of a legitimate worry that it would incite a Twitter mob and cause serious personal consequences. Everyone outside of their own sphere of influence are worse off for not being able to share the knowledge. Yet another wedge increasing the wealth disparity, and more fuel for the anger that comes along with it.
This goes both ways though. Some people will choose to transition their gender because internet people might over-encourage them, but far more people who should transition won't because trans erasure, censorship, and discrimination was the norm until this decade. And technically, mostly still is the norm. You have far more "don't you dare imply being trans is ok" IRL than you have "don't you dare imply being trans is not ok" online.
And this comment leaves out critical facts. Medical professionals don't just hand out pills and surgeries to anyone who just walks in. Individuals are given serious consultations where they can help get a diagnosis and then the ability to make an informed decision in regards to their options.
People who regret transition are actually a tiny minority. Why is it a tiny minority? Because medical professionals put a lot of effort into vetting patients.
People getting "censored" are actually just repeating "somebody once regretted it, therefor no one should ever get it" over and over again, usually in less honest wording, often just transphobia or bullying just for the sake of it.
In normal parlance, this is just called "moderation".
That's a pretty dismissive way to say "jurisprudence".
> If every arena where people actually meet is privately owned, and all of these places agree on what ideas are valid topics of discussion, the effect on society will largely be the same as if a state actor suppressed free speech.
The concept that you're edging up to here is called "State Action". It's the idea that there are times and places where a private actor meets some sort of condition that makes them act so much like a government, that we hold them to the standards that we hold other governments, including all of the amendments and their existing jurisprudence.
While the Supreme Court has held up the concept of State Action, they've narrowed it significantly. The major case where State Action was upheld, Marsh vs. Alabama, the private actor in this case built a literal town. Since then the Supreme Court has been narrowing the precedent in this case, a process called "Limiting a case to its facts". Recent cases about State Action have had the court restrict State Action to "powers traditionally exclusive to the state", which does not include things like Twitter.
> People who repeat what you just wrote usually seem to ignore it:
This is both unnecessarily insulting, it's also wrong. People do talk about this stuff a lot, myself included. The fact that your reading list doesn't overlap with anyone who knows the jurisprudence here is your fault, not my fault.
> As a current example, consider if Facebook, Twitter and reddit all agree that any discussion asking critial questions regarding transgender issues are grounds for expulsion
This might be a problem under anti-trust issues, but it's not a 1st amendment issue.
> We're not quite there yet. But there are numerous incidents that make me worried that this trend will leave us with a society that's net worse off. Or moves towards violent conflict as the suppressing the free exchange of ideas has economic consequences where those with social access to free speech arenas get better opportunities, leaving the rest without even the possibility of engaging.
This is always the heart of the "free speech on Twitter" argument, and it is always extremely poorly thought out. Are you suggesting that Twitter cannot moderate beyond the (very wide) bounds of the first amendment? Because those "Twitter mobs" you fear are protected speech; if Twitter is held to the first amendment then they cannot be removed. Or are you suggesting that Twitter do something about the "Twitter mobs", which implies moderating some people for what they say on Twitter, which isn't exactly the "free speech" you're advocating for.
You can't have it both ways.
The "twitter mob" argument was really an ancillary point to show where one ends up if enough unpopular opinions are silenced. But it's interesting in itself. I don't think a participant in public debate in the 1700s would have reason to fear a crowd of tens of thousands stapling angry and occasionally violent rebuttals to their front door.
Okay, calling someone a fucking moron is protected speech. It would be problematic to censor it. But there is a problem if a crowd screams at someone who has valid (if controversial) points, if this happens to such a degree that they will self-censor or withdraw from the debate entirely, perhaps (rightfully) fearing for their livelihoods and personal safety. My example was a concrete instance of this.
Solution? Hell if I know. There's certainly a problem; a situation that has negative consequences. There's something to the viewpoint that cancelling someone is approaching an act of violence, where it affects a person's ability to earn a living and survive. But this is obviously not the last or only important point in such a debate. It's something that should be discussed widely.
Really you are talking about societal norms. Sometimes I agree with those norms, and sometimes I don’t. I think the norm that gays should be ostracized was wrong, and I’m happy to see how much this is changing. I think the norm that racism shouldn’t be tolerated is right, and I’m happy when it is upheld.
I think we can agree that free speech laws from a couple centuries ago cover fewer and fewer relevant types of public discourse.
We disagree on whether that's a good, bad or neutral thing.
The moderation is just that the barrier is in a different place, and it's hidden for the most part. But there is moderation.
It's like the pub you don't want to drink in because it's full of the thugs and drug dealers who have the scariest bouncers at the door. Any trouble makers get taken out back, but they do have methods to control what they consider to be trouble makers.
Pubs and websites are different from each other. I probably wouldn't go to a pub that refused to throw out rude patrons because there would be a relatively high chance of physical violence occurring at such a pub. Online, assuming that my use of a website would have no consequences like doxxing that could get back to the rest of my life, that wouldn't be an issue.
Also, it's hard to ignore loud people at a pub. On the other hand, it's easy to ignore annoying people on a website.
This is a brave assumption.
IRC is a bit more in the middle, but it’s never had much of a critical mass outside of maybe EFNet? The rest of the IRC world is too fragmented to even call it one social network. And I would say moderation problems are directly proportional to the scale of the network (EFNet has its trolls, especially in its heyday.)
Usenet has always had a huge problem with trolls... again, proportional to its usage. It was only “good” back when the internet was very young and there was such a thing as “netiquette”. See also the eternal September.
We have some racists and we laugh at their posts. We have some threads that are hidden for non-trusted members but that's more about censorship laws in our country.
Of course things like child porn would be removed and one or two members may have been kicked but anyone can register.
I would agree that it's a matter of scale though.
You can open your bar just fine. Just don't expect someone else to invite people in there for you.
This analogy doesn't work. Anyone can open their own "bars" on the Web. Reddit and Voat are the "bars" here. Voat was created because they were kicked off of Reddit. Voat even mimics Reddit in terms of functionality.
The only tools are standard moderator ones: content deletion, stickying, and a banhammer. There's not many sites where moderators have less power.
Admins can though. I see a recurring pattern of this in U.S. politics or politics-infested parts of reddit: mods of /r/PoliticalHumor or /r/MurderedByWords can make a pro-D. echo chamber out of their subreddits, but an attempt to make a pro-R. echo chamber of the similar temperature would be quarantined/banned/whatever.
For an outsider, it was quite disturbing to see how dissenting opinions on U.S. politics were silenced on reddit in a matter of couple of years (2017-2018, I guess?). I do not care about U.S. politics that much, but erasure of dissent is scary.
Edit: the question was asked in sincerity. I haven't seen any such dissent but I live in a bubble. The only conservative dissent I've seen in the last 4 years has been been republicans leaving the party over Trump.
We know from the election results that about half of the U.S. voters prefer R. party or T. in particular. This is a lot - this can't be a fringe group by definition of "fringe".
In 2016, scrolling through reddit you could see it. There was a contested election, there were supporters from both sides on reddit, noisy and visible. In 2020, you'll be hard-pressed to find some pro-T. content unless you know where to look (I don't, and won't bother), it's all "orange man bad" now. He probably is, but come on.
So, reddit somehow shut off the half of its home country from participating in political discussion on their website. They're probably in their own right, but this is scary shit.
I'm interested in discussing policy, and the application of same. Tribal warfare politics is ugly and uninteresting.
Are you religious? Shall I try to talk you out of your faith? Because that's what discussing T is to his followers. From my vantage point (and I'm not alone in this), it's both fascinating and horrifying but above all, frustrating, because there's no possibility of real dialog.
Maybe the reason you don't see anything positive about T where you describe is because there isn't a whole lot to say in that regard?
Maybe. Or maybe not. How do I know?
Not reddit, but I bookmarked this example a few years ago. It is a very little thing, but very showing. Remember when T. was trying to negotiate some deal with North Korea? One of the things which came out of it was DPRK returning some remnants of U.S. soldiers from the Korean war back to the U.S.
I consider the New Yorker to be one of the best pieces of journalism which the U.S. has to offer (no irony here). Here are two articles from there: one is about that story, the remnants of soldiers coming back, another one is about Diet Coke. They were on the front page of their website on the same day, and I clicked both.
1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/waiting-for-a-box-o...
2: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-decli...
One of them mentions T, another one does not. Can you guess which one? Can you guess whether it is a "positive" mention?
So, now back to your question:
> Maybe the reason you don't see anything positive about T where you describe is because there isn't a whole lot to say in that regard?
Maybe. Or maybe not. How do I know? I'm not from the U.S., but I guess that you are, so you tell me.
For now, I can tell you that I lost a lot of trust in the U.S. media, but maybe you can change my mind. I'm not a T. follower, so (according to you) there might be a possibility of a dialog.
The second article is a "culture" piece and the inclusion of T in that is a head scratcher. I was not impressed by it (regardless of the random T tidbit).
That's a sample size of 2, and while both could be arguable evidence for your position, it's not of much to work with.
You say you're not a T. follower, but you imply that "the media" is not fair to him. Were you aware of any of his conduct in these past 4 years? Nothing out of the ordinary?
Are you aware that he's actively trying to overthrow the election that he lost? Does that seem ok to you? Are you aware of Bush v. Gore?
I could go on and on if you wished. But the more important thing is: if I am correct and I'm unable to persuade you then where does that leave us? How can we fix a problem that "doesn't exist"?
It wasn't. But a bit of a context wouldn't hurt, right? Why did Koreans choose to return the remnants, out of the blue? You wouldn't have guessed it unless I told you, right? Given the general atmosphere, it certainly feels like there's a deliberate omission. Yay for the best journalism the U.S. has to offer.
I'm aware of T's conduct, I don't like him and I wouldn't vote for him if I happened to be a U.S. citizen. But I'm not, so I don't really care about him that much.
What I care about is freedom in a very broad sense, including the freedom to share information and express opinions, and to know other what others have to share and express. And here T. and his fate in media and on social platforms is a mere indicator.
Back to reddit: in 2016 you could see supporters from both sides. They were visible and vocal about what they had to say. In 2020, there is only "orange man bad" side to be seen. If I did not know better, I could have thought that this represents a legitimate change of the tides: in 2016 T. had supporters, now he does not.
But this isn't the case. In 2016 he got slightly less than a half of all votes, in 2020 he got slightly less than a half of all votes, no change here. So what changed? Reddit. For what I know, it deliberately chose to suppress the voices of the T. supporters for some reason. Ban this subreddit, quarantine that, change the mods to more loyal ones there. Like I said, they're probably in their own right, but this reverse astroturfing is scary.
This is scary because: what are they going to suppress next? What else did they suppress, but I did not notice? And if venues in the range between the best and the snobbiest magazine and the semi-anonymous public message board choose to suppress something, where do I find it then? And, most importantly, why so many reasonable people find this OK? Even fellow HN folks suddenly became very pro-censorship in the recent couple of years. My guess is that they have never been on the receiving end of it :(
It is not about T, it is not even about Reddit. How do I find something if Google chooses to suppress it? How do I send a link to what I found to my friend, if their messenger of choice bans these particular links, and their email provider puts emails with these links to spam? How do I keep my friends updated about what I have to say if their social networks or news aggregating tools forbid or suppress links to my website? Or (as in the case of Facebook, afaik) suppress links to all websites, while censoring their in-platform content heavily?
Do you really think that the problem "does not exist"?
There's not a whole lot positive to say about the man, so far you've offered up the tiniest sliver. You're clearly more informed on this wonderful information that is being suppressed so tell me more. I've already accepted that the NK remains was a good thing and he gets a gold star for that. More please?
As to the voters, well, according to this 45% of Americans believe ghosts and demons are real: https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2...
There's part of the problem right there.
As for de-platforming, yes I'm 100% ok with Alex Jones not making money. I'm ok with Trump losing twitter privileges after he leaves office if he continues to engage in stochastic terrorism.
You're scared of the wrong things. I'm scared of a population that wants fascism, that would love to hunt liberals for sport, that want to make their religious beliefs the law of the land.
Like I said, I'm not his supporter, go ask them if you're actually interested. As a foreigner, I'd mention that he did not start any new wars around the globe, the first U.S. president since... Carter, I guess? I wasn't even alive back then. But this is offtopic.
Also, fascism is one of those words which lost its meaning. Every person has their own definition of it, the only common denominator (usually) being "something I don't like and neither should you". For constructive conversation it's better to avoid this word, I believe.
> You're scared of the wrong things.
Am I? I've seen the rise of (state-backed) censorship and silencing of dissent in Russia, and this is one of the reasons I emigrated. I've seen the rise of (society-backed) censorship and silencing of dissent in Ukraine after 2014, and this is why I did not emigrate there and now have to learn a yet another foreign language. Now I see the rise of censorship and silencing of dissent in the U.S., and I don't like what I'm seeing - unfortunately, what happens in U.S. often has world reach. Meanwhile, I'm yet to see any hunters for liberals for sports in these places.
> As for de-platforming, yes I'm 100% ok with Alex Jones not making money.
I don't care about Alex Jones either, that guy sucks. But are you OK with you not making money? Are you OK with subreddits you visit being banned? Are you OK with websites you visit being deplatformed? Are you OK with topics that you are interested in being purged from YouTube?
That's the thing, people usually want those things for others, never for themselves. Do you think that you should have more rights than those 45% who believe in ghosts, or what?
If you don't like a website, or a subreddit, or a mailing list - unsubscribe and never visit it again. I had /r/the_donald removed from my /r/all for years, and it did not bother me.
But if you find yourself wanting to "deplatform" some website or some subreddit - i.e. to disrupt or suppress communications of other people between each other (because you don't like them) - are you sure that it is that different from wanting to make your religious beliefs the law of the land?
Unless you count the US-Iran conflict he started, sure. (And if you don't count that because you want to claim it as a continuation or mutation of a preexisting conflict, a number of other Presidents also haven't started wars, just participated in such evolutions of preexisting crises.)
Also, I'm quite surprised that someone else is still reading this conversation. Wow.
“Was”? It isn't over.
But, sure, if we arbitrarily exclude some international armed conflicts between military forces of one country and those of another from “war”, then, ok, you can rescue the claim that Trump hasn't started any “wars”, but at the cost of weakening the case for excluding other Presidents from that same description.
* Obama: Libya (in ruins), Syria (in ruins)
* Bush: Iraq (conquered, then partially reconquered back by ISIS), Afghanistan (yet another never-ending Afghan war)
* Clinton: Serbia (ended up relatively OK, had to elect a new president, give away the old one, and also a part of the country declared independence), and I think there were more? I was a kid back then, don't remember it well, need to wiki up.
* Old People's Bush: Gulf War, and I guess wiki would tell more stories.
Checked wiki [1]: 7 combatants dead on the U.S. side, 22 on the Iran side (of which 19 is friendly fire), in the grand scheme of things - no consequences so far.
Also, if we need a relatively neutral third party, then English Wikipedia calls these events not "war" but "crisis" [1] and does not list it in their list of U.S. wars [2]. Feel free to try to add it to that list and prove your point to fellow wikipedians, I'd watch how it would go.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Persian_Gulf...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
Yes, if those incomes are via conning people or inciting hatred. I worked in internet advertising and got out once I could -- that's about as far to the dark side as I've gone.
> Are you OK with subreddits you visit being banned? I'm actually banned in /r/politics for stating that if Stephen Miller died I wouldn't be sad because at least he'd be out of power. Am I ok with that? I think it's a bit extreme but I'm a guest there and so be it.
I'd be bothered by losing any of my subreddits (or FSM help us, HN!), but then again my intake is content isn't based up on hate speech.
> Are you OK with websites you visit being deplatformed? Losing stuff you like is a bummer but c'est la guerre. I miss Kuro5hin.
You worry about the State censoring things but every single example you give is a for-profit enterprises adjusting to market pressures. Do you hate capitalism or what?
> Do you think that you should have more rights than those 45% who believe in ghosts, or what?
WTF? I never implied anything like that -- I implied that there's a lot of stupid people out there. Do I have the right to do that?
You also conveniently ignore the dangers of hate speech and frame this all as "people don't get to say nice things about T. because those mean libtards won't let them".
Are you familiar with the concept of stochastic terrorism? One simple example: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533941689...
Are you aware that in America, decades of right-wing hate speech has conditioned half of the country to hate the other half, to the point where "I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat" -- https://www.amazon.com/Rather-Russian-Than-Democrat-T-shirt/....
Because I believe in "free speech" I'm not comfortable with having the government come in and shut them down. FFS, I understand that can go both ways. But it's nuanced and simplifying it the way you have borders on disingenuous.
As for not giving money to the companies that pay for that hate to be spread (and encouraging others to do the same -- free speech too, buddy), yes, I'm absolutely fine with that. Why don't you explain to me how that's government censorship. And while you're at it, why don't you explain to me how you think hate speech is good for society?
> admits to posting a thinly veiled death wish for a government official on a public message board in the previous paragraph
> is surprised when banned for it, finds it "a bit extreme"
I have no words. Have a happy new year, and please look into a mirror more often.
> dissenting opinions on U.S. politics were silenced on reddit
A quick googling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/29/reddit-...
It’s not as simple as you make it out and your framing of it suggests a significant bias on your part. Some speech doesn’t deserve a platform. You’re still free to think it, to say it out loud, to buy a domain and host it, and talk about it with like minded people — but you have zero god-given right to engage in that shit-talk in other people’s space in which you are a guest.
Censorship is a concern, free speech is a concern but it’s complicated. Add in the weaponization of social media and the lovely gift of the power of disinformation from your motherland and it gets messier still.
You’ve provided incredibly weak evidence to make your case (an article that didn’t praise T and an article that unnecessarily dunked on him). And all the while you conveniently ignore key factors (i.e., that T. treated his office as his personal kingdom and expressed contempt for those not loyal to him, ad nauseam).
Someday I should actually read it, but the theme itself is pretty clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Voat on the other hand, from the preview I've seen above, seems to be horrifyingly serious. People really seem to be trying to rationalize their racism. From my 5 minutes there, I really got scared about what some of those people would think of other human beings.
Because the bikers handle their own personal space...
No one designs forums that are un-moderated that I know of? Maybe newsgroups 25 years ago would fit.
Community moderation is an interesting idea that I believe is still unsolved online.
Prevalence of power trips?
Let's face it, almost nobody gets paid to moderate, so the compensation has to be something else. I never had much interest in IRC because the format (live/real-time) has a much higher moderation (op) burden, more powerfully attracting people who like power trips and narrative control.
The solution isn't Galilean absolute-frame-of-reference moderation. It's something more relativistic, like the PGP Web of Trust.