Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

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> So your two listed goals are in competition. That's why I'm saying you reap what you sow: you wanted a world where people can be deplatformed, and you got it.

I don't "want a world where people can be deplatformed". I am 100% in favour of better censorship resistance, open messaging, etc and I 100% think whatever "bad" comes out of a system like that would be far outweighed by the good it brings.

But that doesn't mean I'm against Facebook deplatforming assholes. Hell I'm against Facebook as a whole, but as far as their current role in society plays? They have a stupid amount of influence over large swathes of the population and that's a problem.

The problem is no matter how I phrase this, you'll think I'm in favour of Facebook "censoring people"; whereas my position is that Facebook has actively given new tools for assholes to spread hateful messages, including not just the groups systems but active recommendations, advertising, sorting algorithms which prioritize engagement (read: flamewars), etc.

In short: I'm in favour of Signal and against Facebook. How's that contradictory?

You don't want a world where people can be deplatformed, but you want facebook to deplatform people?

If I built an uncensorable distributed/federated FLOSS Facebook equivalent (fedbook?) with distributed moderation (personalized so it censors out the things that would offend you/spam from your feed, or whatever you set it to) and it became popular, would you be for that?

Do you think it that Hateful Ideas wouldn't be compelling on such a market?

Would you deny facebook to everyone if you could, because the shape of facebook-like sites is corrosive to the mind in and of itself, in a way that private chatrooms aren't? I could respect wanting to deplatform absolutely everyone, in a unabomber way. But somehow I doubt that's your position.

I just don't see how whatever advantages you claim facebook has given to 'assholes', it hasn't given to e.g. BLM twice over- with feeds tuned to engagement and rage etc. and also the Official Blessing.

You're asking me to take a position on your completely hypothetical and theoretical social network. This is no more useful than asking me whether I'm in favour of the universe being a simulation.

I'm in favour of you building it. Then let's see what happens. Does that answer your question?

> I just don't see how whatever advantages you claim facebook has given to 'assholes', it hasn't given to e.g. BLM twice over- with feeds tuned to engagement and rage etc. and also the Official Blessing.

What of it? I've already said Facebook has too much influence. You can be against having a king, and in favour of the king doing something about, idk, taxes.

> Would you deny facebook to everyone if you could, because the shape of facebook-like sites is corrosive to the mind in and of itself, in a way that private chatrooms aren't?

This is such a weird question. Are you asking if I'm in favour of Facebook existing? I already said I'm not. Or is your question "if you were King of the World & Master of the Universe, would you make Facebook disappear?", which, again, this isn't the Matrix.

These aren't useful questions, you're just trying to figure out what my stances are. My positions don't matter. I'm just trying to try to help you understand a concept which is incredibly easy to grok to a lot of people.

I get wanting to crush untouchables; I just think it's a hysterical stance to take vis-a-vis something like FB. You're not having the King "do something about taxes"; you're having him go on witch hunts.

I'm suspicious about how much witch-hunters actually want the king gone, or whether they wouldn't want to replace him with a cheka later. They have a vested interest in power staying centralized. This all makes it a lot funnier when it's their sister being burnt at the stake. Someone might even break out a saying.

With how evasive you're being, I can only assume your stances would cast you in an unfavourable light, similar to the guy who's "Just asking questions about race".

> I can only assume your stances would cast you in an unfavourable light

I've been on HN for six years, if you truly want to know them, you can look at any of my older posts.

Since you can "only assume", maybe seeing that you're wrong will finally get you to stop "assuming"?

& personal attacks are not tolerated here, FYI. Going to stop replying now.

>personal attacks

That's rich, given the condescension you've shown in this thread.

Where I come from, trawling through people's post histories is creepy.

For at least two centuries there has been a prevailing thought in American culture that supporting free speech is only an honest claim if it means supporting people you disagree with. Free speech is by definition not free if one monopoly controls the square. The ALCU has fought for freedom of speech for many years for the exact kind of people the left despised then and despises now. I would really ask you to re-analyze your stance because it's pretty obvious to some of us that you are a house divided against yourself and you're going to find yourself waking up one day (much like today) where your favorite pair of steel galoshes are bearing down on top of you. This is what the GP meant.

I know perfectly well what the GP meant. And I'm not american. And I've done my share of defending vile people because of principles.

> your favorite pair of steel galoshes

Get your assumptions out of here if you want this to be a discussion, please.

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