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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things...

It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation"

That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.

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Slippery slope fallacy

It's not a slippery slope when that's literally the law in the EU.

And as an EU citizen: Good

1. Corporations having "free speech" is a fucking perversion of the original purpose of that law. Corporations are not people. Governments protecting corporate rights more than individual rights is the root of a good chunk of all problems the US is having right now.

2. I expect my government to scrutinize the hell out of corporations and protect the rights of individuals. Article 1 of the European Charter of Human Rights states: the dignity of man is inviolable. People having to be at the receiving end of discrimination, racism, sexism etc. is a violation of their dignity — their rights. Rights I expect them to protect.

Now I always thought of people in the US to be adamant about individual freedoms, but maybe I have been wrong and it is more about shilling for corporations and letting them divide you into small, easy to manage camps with the help of corporate media and lobbied politicians that get surprisingly rich when they are in office.

Government + Corporations = Fascism

And there is 99% chance you won't profit from it

It upsets me that "companies shouldn't have the same rights as people" is apparently controversial in the US.

A "company" is explicitly an organization that we throw a handful of benefits and handouts to as a society, like limited liability and apparently the unwillingness to punish you for crimes. Surely it's justified that this legal fiction should be held to some standards that you couldn't necessarily hold a person to.

Hell, if you believe "Free speech" should apply to businesses, then "False marketing" laws should be unconstitutional! That's insane.

Corporations are made of people and are protected from government tyranny. This is case law.

No one has a right to not be offended. Race, sex, etc are arbitrary things. Why not add weight, hair color, accent, etc to the list?

No - what it means is government will respect those aspects of people and treat all with dignity. But private citizens and the organizations they build are not compelled to that standard.

What you describe is totalitarian, authoritarian government that exists to oppress freedom and liberty.

No danke.

offended ≠ victim of a hate crime

You can try to equate the two, but that says more about you than about the topic at hand.

And yet so-called "reverse discrimination" is widespread, normalized and even celebrated. Hate towards all men, all white people, specifically white men, straight people, "cis" people, old people, neuro-typical people, able-bodied people.

The progressive narrative is that this type of discrimination doesn't count because these people are magically privileged and powerful. Letting this go completely unchecked is what is fueling a new rise in "traditional" types of discrimination. It's hate fueling more hate.

If you believe in the rights of individuals, it should be based on first principles. All individuals, not just the ones you happen to like.

> If you believe in the rights of individuals, it should be based on first principles. All individuals, not just the ones you happen to like.

You seem to be implying a lot about my political views here. That implication says more about you than it says about me. Growing up in a (bi-)polarized culture must be a pain.

I don't think men should be discriminated against just because they are men (and I am biased, I am a man).

I was just objecting to the idea that being against discrimination seems like a no-brainer. It isn't because the status quo widely allows it, if only it's the correct type.

The thing with discrimination is that the frequency with which it appears is a crucial parameter in the harm it does to people (and we are interested in preventing that harm).

So if I get catcalled as a guy once in 3 years it has a different impact than a girl getting catcalled twice a day.

If someone discriminates me for my white skin once or twice, while I have profited from it my whole life, this is od course wrong, but it won't hurt my prospect in life. If I had a dark skin the racism would be a daily occurance and something that seriously impacts my prospect in life.

So if the actual impact in reality differs, we can also treat those things differently in policy, don't you think?

This is not a real counter argument or a fallacy in itself (slippery slopes do exist). It happened in other countries already (i.e. Germany) so it makes sense to assume this is happening here as well - especially with California.

The real question is: What is the justification to mandate a collection of this data?

Step 1: Thing that is happening

Step 2-N: Things I made up, but I put them in quotes so they seem more impressive

Step N+1: Bad thing, literally 1984 thought police

The public's interest in knowing what the social media companies are doing to moderate their platforms. It's everything Musk complained of, not knowing about Twitter, prior to his purchasing it. A report would reasonably allow the public to come to its own conclusion whether or not these social media companies are fairly following their policies or not, or if they are targeting specific groups.

It's facially clear that Musk's issue is that he doesn't want it to be revealed that he hasn't been fair, has been arbitrary, and has been boosting the groups he's been alleged to have been boosting, because this will all be inherently reflected in the report. Also likely to be reflected in the report is information that can lead people to the conclusion that Twitter use is down, which he doesn't want to reveal because it will make his decisions look stupid.

Except the entire point and concept of government/states is that most slopes AREN'T slippery and will have a line drawn somewhere.

You can't just saw "slippery slope", you have to provide evidence that there's strong public (in a democracy) and political will to continue down that slope.

Even if you believe abusing Twitter is popular and wanted from democrats (it isn't), it sure as hell isn't popular for the entire nation.

Slippery slope only applies as a critique when the its spurious. In this case the precedent of government required reporting leading to regulation is very well established.

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