Just to make sure I understand this — the argument is that in order to combat authoritarianism, Silicon Valley companies should censor more content?
No - that's not what they're saying.
If you want to, go read the respective acceptance speeches, in their original form. Actually the only relevant one (for this thread) is Maria Ressa's speech; Dmitry Muratov's speech didn't mention technology or the internet at all, despite what may have been implied in the NPR article.
As to Ressa's speach -- it's quite clear she wasn't advocating censorship, per se. A fair reading of what she was saying is that these companies should stop using algorithms that structurally promote hateful and inflammatory simply because it is more "engaging" -- as they have been caught doing red-handed, basically.
But that is, strictly speaking, different from advocating outright censorship of that material. In my view, quite obviously so.
Social media algorithms amplify whatever is most profitable to amplify. Unfortunately, amplifying sht flinging turns out to be the most profitable. Social media companies have encoded this preference into their algorithms from the very beginning and optimised - a/b tested- for profitability along the way.
Social media are deliberately hiding gems under piles of - pardon my french- sht. How do we call this? Censorship, a specific subset of censorship, or something not quite censorship but very similar? We need to know, because fighting an enemy with no name is difficult! Are there any existing words? What about "deluging"? Any other suggestions?
How do we help people survive the drowning-in-sht effect of this social media deluge? That is the key question! Agency for the social media consumer will be a key part of the answer. In human-speak: "no sht in my feed!".
Serious face back on.
Have you ever seen a concise word for algorithmicly-drowning-people-in-shit-on-social-media-because-profit?
What comes to my mind is that it’s largely the algorithms fault. They hyper optimize for strong emotional reactions and not at all for truth or value. It’s the social media companies that are forcing this insane content down peoples throats, it’s not like you can hide the YouTube recommendations panel. Every time I turn off auto play, it turns itself back on (Firefox fixes this). When I turn on my vpn, the things I get targeted with are bonkers
Educate people. Replace advertisement with search tools and opt-in configurable recommendations.
Instead, he referred multiple times to the mainstream media in Russia that is tightly controlled by the state and is acting as a propaganda device that serves short-term goals of the ruling elite, promoting war in Ukraine and anti-western sentiments along the way.
NPR took pretext of an event to present an opinion.
it's critical to the survival of the traditional news businesses that social media remains under attack, otherwise the grip that outlets like npr has on the collective zeitgeist will weaken into irrelevance. that's what they're fighting for, not freedom of speech or journalistic integrity. it's for relevance, which translates into money and power.
Secondly, social media has its own rules for speech almost diametrically opposed to government and academic. I regularly come across crazy claims from anti-vaxers like "the virus 2 microns. too small for masks to capture." am i being censored when my assertion that they are wrong by a factor of 10 because it's saliva that carries viruses and that they should give my voice equal time in their echo chamber?
This is literally true; it's just incomplete given the relationship with saliva as you noted.
The solution here is to reply and spread more true knowledge.
You can cite super-narrow cases constructed to make censorship seem like a great idea. Within the limited bounds of those examples, the argument may seem to hold water. But in reality, there is no way to limit the power of censorship to the places where it's right to use. It will always be abused, and today it is being abused massively to suppress reasonable ideas from millions of people because they don't flatter the values of the people who happen to hold power.
(What would have once been a mere footnote or a tiny bar fight, is now amplified by bringing in the equivalent of entire cities to the scene. What was small becomes big, and what would have been big goes unseen. This is a manipulation of social discourse in dimensions previously unknown.)
How about: the spread of dipshit articles won't stop until dipshits stop sharing articles.
Would questioning the validity of an election be an example of it?
If you can show solid evidence, or any evidence, supporting your claim, not.
If all the proofs of foul play that you show is a model of a smoking firegun made with cheetos and a lot of proven lies. Yes, Probably.
There was no evidence suggesting Trump's election win was not valid. The wild delusional conspiracy theories about how Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election under Obama's nose were not evidence, mind you.
So all those people, politicians, corporations, celebrities, and "journalists" peddling the Trump Russia conspiracy theories and false claims without evidence were anti-democratic pro-authoritarian? Or will there always be some excuse when "your" side does it?
But If I say in a public media that a known public figure is a criminal or eats children alive for dinner, and I repeat this for months with a clear purpose of obtaining a personal benefit for me. If I do this while refusing to show any real proof of it and, when cornered by the truth, I claim that it was just my opinion and should be respected... well, this is a different issue.
We would be moving in the field of defamation. Libel can destroy lives and is not a thing to be taken lightly.
> You would say other thing if it was somebody from "your party"
Or maybe not. This is a perfect example of your opinion about a strange on internet. I really couldn't care less about if who says it is red, blue or multicolor.
If that 'public figure' is the government itself, or a member thereof, then making 'false' statements was, at one point, criminalized in the Sedition Act of 1798 [1]. This was extremely unpopular, and while never directly ruled upon in the Supreme Court, is roundly assumed to be unconstitutional [2].
Making up shit about the federal government is simply a protected right of free speech in the USA.
> > You would say other thing if it was somebody from "your party"
Not sure where this is coming from, but I think you are responding to someone else.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts#cite_n...
Saying that all elections are rigged unless my guy wins, threatening election workers, etc. -- that is authoritarian.
That's a great way to not be authoritarian and anti democratic I guess, is to anoint yourself the decider of what is authoritarian and anti demicratic. Especially when you can move the goal posts around as necessary. How about inventing wild conspiracy theories, lying to voters, and recruiting your corporate media allies to spread these baseless claims that your political opponents are traitors who colluded with spooky foreign enemies to gain power?
I always knew the day would come for Google. I just never imagined how things changed under Tim Cook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
That doesn't mean that companies should be free from scrutiny or consequences if they overstep.
"Nonetheless, alternative interpretations are often misattributed to Popper in defense of extra-judicial (including violent) suppression of intolerance such as hate speech, outside of democratic institutions, an idea which Popper himself never espoused. The chapter in question explicitly defines the context to that of political institutions and the democratic process, and rejects the notion of "the will of the people" having valid meaning outside of those institutions. Thus, in context, Popper's acquiescence to suppression when all else has failed applies only to the state in a liberal democracy with a constitutional rule of law that must be just in its foundations, but will necessarily be imperfect."
I'm not sure how Facebook posts are literal physical violence. Also, it's so weird to keep seeing this supposed paradox cited (incorrectly) ad nauseum to justify basically any infringement on free speech when it was barely a concept he wrote about in passing, with very little thought put into it by Popper himself. Even if it was used correctly, It's just a very small thought exercise written by an author almost a century ago, it's not a natural law lol.
It doesn't matter how good your blackbox algorithms are. Junk in And Junk out.
Now even free games on an Iphone run circles around the kind of engagement a meatspace casino can garner.
that may not have been implied by the advocates, but that's always the take of NPR, as the mouth of the government.
I still see plenty of content from various political viewpoints, far left to far right, on every forum and social media platform I visit. This "systemic lopsided moderation of one political viewpoint" you're referring to doesn't really exist apart from right-wing propaganda.
Someone just posted this in another comment thread: https://twitter.com/GaiaRiot10/status/1468787960216797190
One removed comment does not an all-encompassing, democracy threatening conspiracy against a specific political side make.
There are also a few websites, whose entire domain is banned in Facebook Messenger. It was discussed here previously. thedonald.win is a political example of such censorship. I think The Pirate Bay links are banned in Facebook itself.
It isn't my theory. The right claims the entirety of social media has been engaged in an orchestrated conspiracy to purge non-leftist speech from their platforms in favor of pushing a radical socialist agenda for years, and that this is so widespread that it threatens democracy itself. Yes, you would need to come up with a statistically significant number of examples to prove that claim. But if it's true, it should actually be easy to prove, if not impossible to deny.
Anecdotally, I haven't seen any sign of a decrease in right-wing speech on social media. At all. If anything, it's spread to places where it didn't even really exist before, like Youtube comments and this very forum, and it's thriving on the very platforms it's supposed to be banned from. And I can find accounts of leftist, Black and LGBT accounts being banned, algorithmically suppressed or arbitrarily demonetized, which runs counter to the narrative.
I stand by my comment. The vast left-wing media conspiracy isn't a thing. It's propaganda. It's lifestyle branding.
>There are also a few websites, whose entire domain is banned in Facebook Messenger. It was discussed here previously. thedonald.win is a political example of such censorship. I think The Pirate Bay links are banned in Facebook itself.
And I'd bet dollars to donuts something other than mere political speech was involved in each case. I can think of reasons why Facebook wouldn't want links to pirated software on its platform other than political bias, for instance.
not an argument
if what youre saying were true, then uncensored forums would look like twitter. but obviously they look like the exact opposite. uncensored forums are full of right wing shit because it’s not allowed on twitter. obviously
Uncensored forums were full of right-wing shit long before Twitter was a gleam in Jack Dorsey's eye. The right-wing shit on Twitter comes from uncensored forums spilling their toxicity out into the rest of the internet, not the other way around. Uncensored forums will never look like Twitter regardless of how it or any other mainstream forum moderates, because the only people who are attracted to uncensored forums are rejects, edgelords and bigots.
You chose to ignore the part about thedonald.win, that basically disproves your point.
thedonald.win was banned for supporting the violent overthrow of the government, and before, when it was t_d, for brigading, harassment and supporting political violence.
If you want to read more about this community's well documented bad behavior, it's on wikipedia[0], or literally anywhere else on the internet.
if what youre saying were true, then uncensored forums would look like twitter. but obviously they look like the exact opposite. uncensored forums are full of right wing shit because it’s not allowed on twitter. obviously
Is it saying that the government should be smaller and not involved in everyday life, or is it doing things like claiming an election was stolen, which has led to real world harm (poll workers receiving death threats), or calling for violence?
And didn't the GOP helmed investigation find that there was a concerted disinformation campaign waged by Russia, as well as numerous links between people in the Trump campaign and Russian operatives?
Edit: and there are plenty of people on one side of the spectrum claiming that Biden is "in bed with China", which haven't been removed.
As per your second paragraph, no, that is false. They made a small ad buy to sow bipartisan political division. Please stop promoting misinformation.
Page 16: "High Volume and Multiple Channels"
Just like if you offered homeopathy "medications" or natural cures and stated they are curative, you're likely to fall under jurisdiction of medical licensing authorities (notwithstanding the "health supplement" loophole in the US).
> How can you have election integrity if you don't have integrity of facts?
This is about integrity/virtue of opinion. Conflate facts with opinions or political views and you lose right to talk facts. People voting in an authoritarian do not believe they are voting in an authoritarian, but an opposing voice to the evil socialist. It is poignant to defend democracy and at the same time complain of the rise of authoritarianism brought about by democracy.
In so many ways, you are then saying people are voting on the wrong people, because they do not read your newspapers, but their Facebook timelines.
> are you trying to
Level 0 thinking, you do not even know the value of your cards. Such sophistry could only work on similar-leveled people. So if I engage, I'd be bluffing, and this is not a good idea to do with players who are basically no better or worse than random search.
Find all facts and circumstantial evidence for and against lab-leak and zoonosis. Then form your own opinion. That's my claim, and only that. That may even be an opinion worth engaging with, for as long as the "we still" in your world-view includes a couple of thousand Chinese internet trolls, and discredited conflicted scientists who despite this still seem to make it to the Lancet and NYT.
When a newspaper editor decides a story has insufficient credible sources, or lacks any of a variety of qualities that constitute good and responsible journalism, and so does not publish or broadcast it today, that is an editorial decision, it is not censorship.
When an algorithm or human decides that a story has the same qualities, or that it has insufficient 'engagement metrics', and refrains from amplifying it across millions of accounts, that is also not censorship.
By your definition, if I post something and it doesn't make good 'engagement' metrics and FB/Google/YouTube doesn't promote it, that's censorship — Nonsense— it is an editorial decision. And, restricting or boosting amplification based on a metric of sourcing, value, truth, moral compass, is also an editorial decision.
These decisions are already being made thousands of times per second. It is past time that the deciders become responsible for their decisions.
> There are also a few websites, whose entire domain is banned in Facebook Messenger. It was discussed here previously. thedonald.win is a political example of such censorship.
Besides, "no, IT is a X" is not a valid counterargument to "IT is a Y" unless "is a" is a relationship of IFF (which it is not in this case) or X and Y do not intersect (which they do).
If you are an absolutist about free speech, you should be loudly cheering this decision. Facebook Messenger is a private company — they should be fully free to say or not say, broadcast or not broadcast, serve or not serve, anything/anyone they want. Did I miss some governmental agency ordering them to not broadcast that source or set of messages? Should HN be unable to ban bad actors?
>>Besides, "no, IT is a X" is not a valid counterargument to "IT is a Y" unless "is a" is a relationship of IFF (which it is not in this case) or X and Y do not intersect (which they do).
Not quite. It is true that an IFF relationship would establish it absolutely. If not, it's still in a fully arguable area, and my argument is not to have some govt censorship bureau, but a requirement for more responsibility, that the tech companies, who now make editorial decisions at a scale and scope that dwarfs any newspaper ever, are held as responsible for their content as any newspaper or broadcaster.
(And, if they want to go back to being a 100% straight carrier, with zero 'recommendation' engine, and preseinting only a chronological timeline of posts from your actual contacts, & similar restrictions, then they can go back to being carriers.)
What? The freedom you are talking about is the freedom of association, not the freedom of free speech.
> ...
Doesn't matter if you call this stuff "recommendation engine" or "editorial decisions", it is still censorship by definition. This is the newspeak George Carlin had a relatively known take on.
Stop calling the censorship "editorial decisions". We are not debating the "editorial decisions" part, we are debating the censorship part.
(If you really want it to be association with which FBM is somehow interfering, where is the govt order? Otherwise, meet all you want, but where is the requirement that some other property owner host you? Are you interfering with freedom of association rights because you put up a 'No Trespassing' sign and my band of drummer and bonfire artists can't come on your land for our meetings?)
The last time I checked, any tech communication platform is owned by the stockholders and managed by the executive team. They are a non-govt entity.
As such, they have rights to publish or say, post, broadcast whatever THEY choose. Or, to not do so. Similarly, if HN finds a user abusing the forum, they are free to ban them.
Was there some govt order requiring FBM to ban the trump-related domain? If so, please post a citation.
If you have no official government action coercing the ban, it is a private decision. If that private was made by an algorithm, it was a recommendation engine or algorithmic. If it was made directly by a human, it was an editorial decision.
It seems like you are arguing AGAINST freedom of non-govt entities to say or not say, publish or not publish what they want.
Authoritarians use the framework of a free society to rise to power until they are strong enough to topple it. A free society must be able to defend itself against that approach, even if it might seem contrary to its own values.
Here's the way he formulated it:
> Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
> In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Second, as a practical matter, it’s not at all clear what constitutes intolerance. If you think the state has standing to adjudicate intolerance, then I can’t imagine you’ve been paying attention to the kind of routine social errors that are labeled intolerance on social media. The notion that it’s a legitimate function of the state to weigh in on these banal disagreements is risible.
It has standing to judge everything else, but not intolerance?
> the very quote you supplied argues for “intolerance of intolerance” as a kind of a last resort, once things turn violent.
As it already did on Jan 6th and in Charlottesville.
We've seen all of this before. Instead of brown shirts, we have red hats. The ideas and the approach are the same.
> Second, as a practical matter, it’s not at all clear what constitutes intolerance. If you think the state has standing to adjudicate intolerance, then I can’t imagine you’ve been paying attention to the kind of routine social errors that are labeled intolerance on social media. The notion that it’s a legitimate function of the state to weigh in on these banal disagreements is risible.
All of these minor quibbles are irrelevant. There's a violent fascist movement forming and growing stronger by the day.
The Beer Hall Putsch [0] already happened on Jan 6th, the "cultural bolshevism" [1] bogeyman has been slightly rebranded to "cultural marxism" and is being used for propaganda purposes all over the place again. A new Big Lie [2] has been set up in the form of "Trump won!". Mainstream conservatives are behaving like Von Papen. [3]
Obsta Principiis!
If we don't nip this in the bud right now, we will soon see the new version of the Enabling Act [4] and all the horrors that followed.
I understand you might lack the perspective as you most likely don't have the same history to compare it to. Please heed the warning of somebody who does. These things sneak up on you and you won't be able to realize it until it's too late. This excellent excerpt from Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free talks about this phenomenom, I implore you to read it. [5]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Bolshevism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Papen#Bringing_Hitle... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 [5] https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Freedom from some other twats mental illness means more to me than their freedom to be a twat.
Stop oversimplifying like a child. There are real impacts to enabling systemic bias.
If you want moral relativism because maybe subjugating people out of your view is ok, why waste effort when you’re the cohort being abused?