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Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

> They would like you (the users) to stop squabbling over stupid shit and causing drama so that they can spend their time writing more features and not have to adjudicate your stupid little fights.

I don’t think so. I think they love the drama. They have more impressions and make more money from rage. The rage has to be over unimportant things so the status quo doesn’t change. They want people upset over the dumbest stuff possible and arguing all the time. They want people complaining about being banned or not banning people or whatever.

This is he problem with social media. It makes more money to be loud and without value. If people are fulfilled and learn the answer to their question they stop. If they are angry and searching they go forever.

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You know what we did when someone was obnoxious during the glory days of BBS and IRC? We banned and kicked their sorry arse off the server. So everyone behaved. Kinda. And everyone..even kids..acted like adults. Or we dealt with it.

And you know why it was glorious. The Internet was truly free. There was no money to be made there.

IRC was/is notoriously unfree because of that, i dont think it claimed any free speech creds, because its realtime nature means that spam or bad faith had to be removed immediately. plus the 'acted like adults' thing is not true, more like everyone acted like kids but at least fun kids.

I do agree with the Twitter thread that there is a generation gap. Those who remember the internet from quarter of a century ago weren’t treated like children. Even children.

In the past 25 something years, young adults have regressed to looking for approval by authorities and PTBs because of their infantalisation at school and then college and then at work.

No adult wants to adult anymore. Because their every need is being catered to by some kind of corporate power, they don’t even know that they are free to let go of the teat.

I find all of this horrifying and depressing and infuriating. If one hasn’t had any agency in their adult life, how will one know when to shut up and when to protest.

The cancel culture is the product of the state run education system…it is the utter helplessness and impotency of entire generations who had never had to make an independent evaluation or decision or judgement call.

There is no redemption for this current generation and I dont see how the future generations can be rescued from this dismal fate. This also seems to be an uniquely American problem…Altho sadly it’s spreading to other parts of the world..mostly because of the internet and social media.

Literally..who can be against free speech with a straight face? America‘s young generation..it looks like. The country has officially self destructed on the very values it stood for..very sad.

What the right calls "cancel culture" is the product of 25 years of tech companies removing any and all ways for users to moderate their environment.

On IRC I can select whose messages I see. I've got ignore. I can throw people out of my rooms with /kick and I can ban them long term with /ban. All rooms I'm in are rooms I've selected myself to be in, so rooms have regulars that know each other. If a banned user returns, it's easy to ban them again, or ban by IP, etc.

Tech companies removed this power from users. I can't say “hey, I only want to see tweets from these people, only they should be able to interact with my tweets, etc.” Because if I could, I could also just ban advertisers from my circles.

If I want to avoid interacting with someone on Twitter, not even blocking the user works. And even if I did block the user, my friends have to repeat it, there's no way of throwing a user out of your entire friend circle.

So the only option available is petitioning Twitter to remove the user from the entire platform. So of course that's what people do.

The methods you give users define their social interactions. Reddit has less of an issue with this because Subreddit mods can rule however they like. But in return, Subreddits have a reputation of being run by power hungry autocrats just like IRC rooms had.

You can 100% mute and block people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, most main line social media platforms. Hell you can even mute keywords on Twitter and never have to deal with seeing another tweet about Will Smith slapping someone.

Should one user be able to decide if another user should be expelled from a platform? That leads to a lot of sticky problems, so no, they shouldn't have that power. Should a user be banned if they violate the terms of the platform (roughly what mods on IRC would do when a user was banned)?

Yes. Yes they should. And they do. It's a liability for platforms to not enforce their own rules.

The issue is that with twitter, you can only ban a user from interacting with you, or from interacting with the entire platform.

Traditionally, there used to be something in between: Ban someone from your small sub-community.

And moderators on most social media platforms only take action if they have to, preferring to stay inactive, while in most social circles people would proactively make sure a new member is a good fit.

> And even if I did block the user, my friends have to repeat it, there's no way of throwing a user out of your entire friend circle.

Being able to throw someone out of your entire friend circle would go far beyond moderating YOUR environment.

Currently, people share block lists to accomplish the same. On Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, IRC channels or even BBS you also had some users with the ability to throw trolls out.

On Twitter, there’s nothing like this. There’s no way for someone to make a group, post content only to that group, and add/remove users to/from the group.

For millennia, most human conversation happened in such groups. Our social mechanisms haven’t changed quickly enough to hold pace with the technological mechanisms of posting an opinion and having literal billions of potential readers – and commenters.

I guess people will tell you you’re a paranoid old person with a selective memory. But FWIW I hear you and feel your pain on all points. I have but one upvote to give.

> We banned and kicked their sorry arse off the server.

Is this... a moderation policy?

> The Internet was truly free.

Hmmm...

The internet was truly free because creating your own IRC network was both acceptable and commonplace. Creating your own Twitter on the other hand... Mastodon may just solve this though.

The same Mastodon that already has a culture of shunning instances that federate with the wrong instances?

Yes, it was truly free. Because: My house. My rules. Anyone can build their own house.

I also find the whole following culture creepy stalkerish. A lot of times I feel obligated to follow back and end up discovering that person’s entire whole icky persona..and wish that I could just have superficial friendships maybe.

I would still vote IRC over BBS. It was the right amount of cozy and distance. Just what you were willing to implement.

Also..I often think about the Dunbar Number. Even when I design small farm systems, I use the Dunbar limit and cluster to determine how many people can cooperate either as farmer collective or even as customer base(as in they are willing to share/barter).

Human beings are better in small groups. The small groups in turn can interact collectively with other like minded collectives. It seems like we haven’t studied human behaviour and psychology sufficiently to suit the really fast paced growth of social media and it’s interactions.

I wonder if things are too centralized nowadays - you are either on Twitter or not on Twitter. Whereas in the case of a BBS or IRC, you could be ban from one board/channel/server but not another, so everyone can have their own standard of free speech.

I guess this is still kind of the case for reddit? But given how concentrated moderation power is on reddit, and reddit's ability to de-platform whole communities, I don't know how true it still is.

And why is it _never_ the reason given by the censors?

When topics are banned, some banal comment about verifiability or some other non-descript reason is given.

It's never "we believe this is causing too much drama and might escalate to violence". I don't buy yishan's framing at all.

I don't buy your framing more than I don't buy his, though his is sloppy: what "censors" have "banned" what topics?

Censors have banned these topics and people. Even if you agree with the censorship and banning, it still is censorship and banning.

* Alex Jones and his Infowars website was banned by Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655658/alex-jones-facebook-yo...

* Facebook routinely removed posts claiming that "COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured" https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic...

* Twitter and Facebook removed posts and banned people who shared the Daily News article about the Hunter Biden laptop https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/14/facebook-...

* Donald Trump deleted from Twitter and Facebook: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/06/twitter...

* Apple, Google and Amazon suppressed conservative-leaning social network Parler https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/17/22440005/parler-apple-app...

* Independent video journalist Jordan Chariton had his work censored and banned on YouTube: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-status-coup?...

* The White House helps Facebook flag "problematic posts": https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1415727354463281159

* Video criticizing Ivermectin removed (and reinstated, but still an example of censorship): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_42LVirfNI&lc=UgxSeQ2uKLo_m...

* Josiah Zaynor's Gut Hack ODIN products removed from Amazon, Facebook, Patreon, PayPal, and Square. https://youtu.be/ox4hWCnDRXE California brings suit against him https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/15/239116/celebrity... His YouTube channel removed entirely for "sales of illegal or regulated goods" even though he did neither.

* BMJ article https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635 repeatedly banned by Facebook. https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635/rr-80

* MasterCard and Visa decide what porn you can watch: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-mastercards-new-porn-rules... https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/09/porn-star-cheri-deville-d...

* EU bans RT and Sputnik https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

* Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube bans all Russian state media https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/03/morrison-gover...

* YouTube demonetizes all Russian creators: https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1501808135006212096

* USG 20-year ban on photos of soldiers' coffins: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna29410258

* NYT on "America's Free Speech Problem" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-fr...

* Bret Weinstein forced out from his tenured position at Evergreen College and has now received two strikes (of three allowed, after which the channel will be deleted) on YouTube. One an interview with Dr. Pierre Kory about ivermectin, and the other and interview with Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-weinste...

These are only a few examples. There are many more.

None of these involve censors (except 20 year old ban on soldiers coffins) and the word choice of banned is misleadingly sloppy due to it's broadness.

For example:

- What was Bret Weinstein banned from?

- How was the NYT censored and banned?

- Russian state media is still on Twitter

- etc., On mobile

I'd guess that overall I understand and am sympathetic of your general position, ex. the actual content of NYT editorial, but I find most arguments around this are frustratingly nonspecific and/or bring in politics in a way that clouds the original issue.

By far the most damaging thing is not recognizing the right to not associate.

With that error, it becomes 1984. Cherry-picking the most chilling example from your gish gallup: why should YouTube be forced to pay and promote Russian state-funded media denying murderous attacks on millions with Big Brother language plays like "special military operation"?

Your tell was the scare-quotes you put around "censors" and "banning".

You had already decided. There was nothing anyone could have written to which you would have responded "Hmm. I did not know that. That appears to be censorship and banning. Thanks for letting me know about this."

> "why should YouTube be forced to pay and promote..."

I did not say they must pay and promote anyone. I listed examples of censorship and banning which was your original ask. Now you're saying they don't count because of freedom of association, inaccuracies, and politics. Of course there was going to be a goalpost-moving and semantics-arguing. Your tell lead me to expect it.

As for me, I am disturbed by the extraordinary power of our contemporary platforms to unperson or memory-hole perspectives and views that are unpopular, whether or not the label "censors" or "banning" precisely fits, even if I agree that the perspective is reprehensible, and even if I agree that YouTube et. al. has a "right" to ban and censor.

Nah, this isn't a politics board, it's a nerd board: language like divining what's in peoples head from their "tells" is best left to boards focused on politics.

I'm uncomfortable continuing this discussion because you're not "coming with curiosity", as Dang says: instead, we've veered into mind-reading language.

Why were their quotes around those words, if not because I secretly decided to troll you? Your comment made me uncomfortable because it twisted the definition of censor, that's why quotes are around it: to give a polite signal that the meaning of the word isn't how you're using it. That's why I commented in the first place, and that's the last thought we'll exchange on this.

It’s really nice on HN when the administrators detach a reply from the main thread. Folks can carry on arguing about vim/emacs but the number of newcomers piling on drops away.

Twitter, on the other hand, does this: #vimVSemacs is trending, click here to wade in!!

I enjoyed reading it but I couldn’t get on aboard with his statement “ Because it is not TOPICS that are censored. It is BEHAVIOR”

It’s both.

In fact the most dangerous ideas to me are the ones that are discussed with perception of civility and factuality yet are patently false.

Hear hear!

This is a beautiful and insightful thread which completely avoids talking about money.

Not all social networks devolved into hate filled screaming fests, the main reason they do is because that drives engagement, which brings money, which makes stakeholders happy.

This is the only reason that running Twitter as a private company owned by a single rich dude might make a difference.

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