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Exactly. Those are the only websites I'm interested in targeting with this extension. For example, I would never blacklist Breitbart, because I'm not intereste

Exactly. Those are the only websites I'm interested in targeting with this extension. For example, I would never blacklist Breitbart, because I'm not interested in censoring political opinions I disagree with. I just want to free us from the burden of these websites that add nothing to the world and leech attention from everyone.

jjawssd 10y ago
> I just want to free us from the burden of these websites that add nothing to the world and leech attention from everyone. The slope is very slippery. It is very easy to put forth an argument that some left/right wing media "[adds] nothing to the world and [leeches] attention from everyone" Keeping the focus on blatant spam sites is a noble cause, but this tool is as easily misused as a firearm.
- jnotarstefano 10y ago
  I disagree on this slope being slippery (or actually, this being a slope at all). Let me be more precise, and use tptacek's words in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12999887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12999887: "fake news = spam sites built from scripts consisting largely of a backcatalog nonsense stories [...] with a one or two carefully produced fake stories as a "payload". I think this definition is as objective as it gets, and clearly excludes things I might disagree with politically, but are not the target of this extension.
- notahacker 10y ago
  We don't have similar qualms about voluntary mass blocking of ads. I think the reverse assumption - that everything should be considered a valid information source until conclusively proved otherwise - is probably a more dangerous bias than assuming that some media does add nothing to the world.
  - lj3 10y ago
    That logic suggests we should ban free speech and only allow certain people and organizations to be registered as valid information sources, preferably after passing some sort of test that shows they're legitimate and trustworthy.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      I have an idea, why don't we just filter out all the obvious spam sites?

jjawssd 10y ago

> I just want to free us from the burden of these websites that add nothing to the world and leech attention from everyone. The slope is very slippery. It is very easy to put forth an argument that some left/right wing media "[adds] nothing to the world and [leeches] attention from everyone" Keeping the focus on blatant spam sites is a noble cause, but this tool is as easily misused as a firearm.

jnotarstefano 10y ago
I disagree on this slope being slippery (or actually, this being a slope at all). Let me be more precise, and use tptacek's words in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12999887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12999887: "fake news = spam sites built from scripts consisting largely of a backcatalog nonsense stories [...] with a one or two carefully produced fake stories as a "payload". I think this definition is as objective as it gets, and clearly excludes things I might disagree with politically, but are not the target of this extension.
notahacker 10y ago
We don't have similar qualms about voluntary mass blocking of ads. I think the reverse assumption - that everything should be considered a valid information source until conclusively proved otherwise - is probably a more dangerous bias than assuming that some media does add nothing to the world.
- lj3 10y ago
  That logic suggests we should ban free speech and only allow certain people and organizations to be registered as valid information sources, preferably after passing some sort of test that shows they're legitimate and trustworthy.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I have an idea, why don't we just filter out all the obvious spam sites?