Edward Snowden: “Turning point in the battle for control” | Hacker News Reader

Edward Snowden: “Turning point in the battle for control”

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59 pointsnikolay24 comments

I remain convinced that the only real solution to the twin problems of content moderation and freedom of speech rests in decentralized services (such as https://joinmastodon.org).

Although I do agree, self-hosting Mastodon is not an easy job (I'm speaking from the perspective of a seasoned DevOps engineer). In addition, domain registrars and hosting companies can always shut you down. IPSF seems like the best direction of our efforts.

Is ISPF some kind of technology? I googled it, and the first few pages were all non-technical things. I searched for it on GitHub, and the first few pages had nothing to do with social media, P2P, distributed services, federation, nor anything else that could be relevant. Please provide a link if you can.

https://ipfs.io/

Thank you! I always mistype IPFS as IPSF (Irvine Public School Foundation).

I run a Mastodon instance. The creator of Mastodon is actively against the concept of free speech. When Gab tried to join the fediverse I remember there was a mass effort by developers of Mastodon clients and instance owners to prevent this. IIRC the creator of Mastodon supported this and cited the fact that he was German and that German law outlawed various speech related to Nazism.

> I run a Mastodon instance.

So do I! fist-bump

> ...cited the fact that he was German and that German law outlawed various speech related to Nazism.

This would be relevant for any Mastodon service hosted in Germany right?

> The creator of Mastodon is actively against the concept of free speech....

Woah, you lost me there. Free speech (at least within a common society) cannot be the irrevocable right to say whatever you want with no consequences. If people do not want to hear what you have to say, why should they be forced to listen? My understanding of Gargon's (creator of Mastodon) position is that he prioritizes localizing moderation responsibilities so that the decision of what kind of speech should be "free" is not made centrally. That seems like a reasonable position to me.

Honestly I was fascinated by how the drama of Gab and the fediverse played out. It seemed like a really good test of the core goals and ideals of the whole Mastodon/fediverse project. No one could stop Gab from creating a Mastodon instance (per the decentralized design and open source software). However, other Mastodon servers moved quickly to block any interaction between Gab.com and their servers. This was decentralized moderation at work. Each instance could make the decision for themselves.

The various client apps that chose to explicitly refuse to connect to accounts on Gab's instance was another really interesting move to me. Personally, I don't generally like to try and tell users of the apps I develop how they should or should not be used. However, I respect the rights of other project maintainers to develop their apps as they see fit. And once again, the beauty of open source software is that if you don't like how a certain project is being maintained, you can fork it! (And that is just what happened with those Masto apps, where several were forked to reenable access to Gab accounts).

I just reviewed this US law:

CHAPTER 115—TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/par...

It's quite explicit about what charges may be levied under these laws, and the penalties. There are many necessary limitations on free speech, and these 'social media platforms' no doubt have lawyers that recognize their peril (from the law, public opinion, monopoly charges....)

Yes, "giving such power to social media platforms sets a dangerous precedent". But then, so does allowing unlimited 'free speech' that at the least borders on sedition.

Why don't social media companies ever deplatform university presidents, like Rafael Reif of MIT, who provide reputation laundering for brutal dictators like the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia or racketeers in the sex-trafficking business like Jeffrey Epstein by taking photos with them for the newspaper or sending them "personally signed" thank-you notes?

... or the elites in other societies like French novelist Gabriel Matzneff, who wrote about how much he enjoyed sexually molesting multiple 8 year-old boys in bed at the same time during his trips to the Philippines.

Instead of de-platforming Mr. Matzneff, he was applauded for his work on French television show Apostrophe, and even received a "thank-you note" from former President of France Francois Mitterand, which one of his victims described as designed to help Mr. Matzneff avoid arrest by French police much like in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who received his "thank-you note" from still-president of MIT Rafael Reif, before finally being forced to face charges 30 years later for the sexual abuse of minors:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matz...

While I am as concerned about censorship as any other, what would Snowden's response have been if Trump had tweeted, "The time is now. Take no prisoners."

It's a valid question, and brings up that whole question of "Where do you draw the line?"

We've already allowed the government to define what's legal and what isn't - which obviously differ from country to country.

Now it seems private companies also want to weigh in and define their own kinds of "allowed and not allowed".

I honestly do think we're damned if we do (allow FB to censor) and we're dammed if we don't (allow FB to censor)

Mark Cuban had an interesting response. The algorithm is editorializing, even if it's driven by AI. FB either needs to show everything in chronological order, or face the burden and liability of the content it promotes. It might be a bizarre, yet moderating force to online discussion if a cottage industry of civil/personal injury lawyers pops up around FB content.

That's a tricky proposition. We all follow an algorithm whether it's computational, biological, or something else entirely. Applying best design practices is an algorithm, reaching in to your memory of certain events is an algorithm. Even writing and typing on a word processor is and relies on an algorithm. By Cuban's standard, every action of every person does would be considered editorial publishing and very likely including the platform on which he has made his statement. From arranging one's sentences, to evaluating a certain font, to choice in markup language. Where does one draw the line between presentation of information and publication? And, more importantly, what wouldn't be considered editorializing? Should all websites just turn out like the Library of Babel?

That's not really interesting as it's not at all practical. The deluge of spam will render these platforms completely devoid of value.

The spam come in from not moderating content? I think his point is to put liability on media companies for their content if they promote content, forcing them to moderate. Or, they can avoid liability by not promoting or hiding anything. Don't let them have it both ways.

He didn't, though.

I see you're unfamiliar with hypothetical questions.

Isn’t a call to violence illegal?

Murder is illegal but its illegality matters nothing to victims after the fact.

I think you missed my point. If there was a call for violence like in your hypothetical scenario, then the tweet should be removed and legal action taken. It is not covered under any free speech protections.

I think it's rather you who missed my point. Once it's out there, it's out there. They may take it down but it'll be too late.

Then you might as well not let anyone talk about anything, anywhere. What you describe sounds a lot like the movie Minority Report.

Among other things I imagine he'd point out that this is only a problem if you normalize police not doing their job. Things like this are only a problem when politicians decide they'll be more popular if they treat enforcing the laws of the land as a PR tactic instead of an obligation. The only reason rioters anywhere manage to do as much damage as they have is because every time there's a new BLM or Proud Boys rally every politician decides they'll look better if they yank the leash instead of letting the police enforce local laws.

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