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> First off, the first amendment is specifically with respect to congress, and I don't understand why I have to say this so often. Obviously. I'm referring to

> First off, the first amendment is specifically with respect to congress, and I don't understand why I have to say this so often. Obviously. I'm referring to the general values that led to the US having protections on free speech. > society has always been self censoring You are seemingly idealizing the process by which social shaming encourages conformity. > the internet has thrown a wrench into that by allowing people to escape into pockets of like minded individuals. So you either have an idealistic view of an ideologically homogeneous society, or you think that the internet making economies of scale possible for non-mainstream beliefs is broadly a bad thing, regardless of what those beliefs are. > And you might have noticed that hacker news is fairly heavily censored I have, and in most cases (other than explicit griefing or bullying) I think this is quite harmful to HN. The content discussed on HN is simply not interesting to most people, which is why HN has survived. It's easy to suffer from hindsight bias and determine that since HN has aggressive moderation HN is better that it would otherwise be. Someone recently did a study of title edits and found that articles typically drop precipitously after the editors meddle with the title. This is typically because the author's title fails to communicate why the article is interesting to HN readers, while the user-submitted title often does (when they differ). Worse, the study showed that mods actively bury specific discussions from the site. We really don't know what we're missing due to this, but chances are it's political. This very discussion (critical of social media companies) is of high risk for being censored simply because the main reason for HN article burying is that the article triggers comments that are viewed as overly political in nature. This view (that political discussion is harmful) is dangerous and naive (and dangerously naive) because it assumes that HN readers are incapable of acting both as techies and as citizens simultaneously, and that with political beliefs nobody will ever change his/her mind based on the merits of someone else's argument. I enjoy HN discussions precisely because I learn a lot. What I learn is not linked to the topic, or to the political nature (or lack of it) of the discussion. > has managed to avoid turning into a cesspool like much of reddit. I think the biggest cespool in reddit is /r/gifs and similar fluff that is used by spam marketers to get their content viral. Yes there are things about donald and other obscure and idiotic groups that I've found at random now and then when clicking on the random subreddit button, those are easily ignored. In fact, the only reason a normal reddit user encounters the morons is because /r/gifs (or similar) are among the default subreddits subscribed to automatically for new accounts, casting a wide net but drastically lowering the bar of discussion. Gifs are not posted to HN because the community has no interest in that rubbish or any of the similar rubbish it attracts. Reddit would not have a problem if it were not so focused on creating a mass market for ad sales rather than just letting people associate with people they wish to associate with and easily block the bad apples or griefers.

fhood 9y ago
If you are talking about the ideal of free speech then call it that. Not the first amendment. I am idealizing a process in which social shaming encourages conformity. That is the only reason society works, we learn how to interact with other people through this process. Yes, I think the the internet allows people to isolate themselves from ideas that differ from their own, and that this is a bad thing. You might be right about HN moderation. I don't know, but I think the mods do a good job. I also don't think the mods have any problem with discussion of political ideals. I sort of agree with your comments about reddit.
- grandalf 9y ago
  > If you are talking about the ideal of free speech then call it that. Not the first amendment. I'll be more careful to avoid confusion in the future :) > I am idealizing a process in which social shaming encourages conformity. That is the only reason society works, we learn how to interact with other people through this process. Not sure I agree with this. In one sense, the concept of a social contract requires some degree of conformity of opinion, but I think it gets complicated as we expand outward from the basic social contract. Democracy by its nature involves conflict of opinion. It's an orderly way of letting the 51% control the 49%. In our society we sort of pretend that laws that have 51% support are "agreed upon" by society, but that's not true in the sense of ideological agreement, it's only true in the sense of resolving conflict over what the law should be. The mechanisms we consider in a democracy have trade-offs. We could require a two thirds majority or a nine tenths majority before passing a law. The stronger majority we require the more we can feel that our democratic process has reflected conformity of opinion, but also we'll have many more areas where no agreement was reached and the conflict is not formally resolved. Because of the democratic process, laws generally reflect the broader moral values of the culture, but again many laws do not offer a choice between believing value A and believing value not A, they merely rank one value slightly higher than another. Members of a democracy supporting a law may think value A is more important than value B, while those opposing it may consider value B more important. Both groups may profess strong belief in both values. I'd argue that shaming is a legacy process that is still hanging around from the days when a lot less had been abstracted and institutionalized. In those days, if you saw a neighbor beating his child, you'd perhaps frown aggressively at the neighbor and say "shame on you". These days you can just call child protective services. Things like smoking in public are frowned upon by many, and considered rude (and are thus shamed), but this is only necessary in places where the law has not yet come to reflect that value. In many states smoking in public places is prohibited except in designated smoking areas. But this is a bit of a digression. Just as majoritarianism is occasionally dangerous in democracy, so is the soft majoritarianism of social shaming. This is because shaming itself is used as an in-group signal, and its use (and power) generally follows from existing social hierarchy. Consider that most politicians would never be seen entering certain night clubs or strip clubs, yet we learn every day about one more of these monsters making incredibly creepy unwanted advances toward helpless women. Yesterday alone there were revelations about Al Franken and George HW Bush. So those most likely to use shaming, and to model what behaviors deserve to be shamed happen to be the ones who benefit most from the social control it offers. The same applies to members of the clergy (who occupy a shadow political system that used to be the main one before the separation of church and state). Thus basic social conformity (the stuff people like to shame others about) is not an essential quality of civilization, it is a side-effect of authoritarianism and a mechanism of social control. It is for this reason that the public must suddenly be protected from "fake news". While the examples used for selling the idea are always fairly clear cut, in actuality the algorithmic changes or human censorship applied to prevent the spread of fake news will surely include anything that endangers the status quo. The reluctance of advertisers to find themselves associated with a non-mainstream belief reflects the preference of the wealthy firm not to endanger its revenue stream. Similarly, any established group or organization has the same basic desire for self-preservation. So while some shaming has pragmatic goals... booger shaming children prevents the spread of disease, etc., social conformity is a very blunt instrument that is increasingly incompatible with the modern notion of a pluralistic society. The internet has made a new level of pluralism possible, and it threatens those who hold all kinds of power. We are being told that we must be protected from fake news, protected from hate speech (even from free speech in some cases), protected from various groups, but in reality what is going on is that powerful interests are teaming up to help themselves cling to power and prevent the massive efficiencies in publishing information from ushering in an increased level of pluralism and the corresponding reduction in their own authoritarian power. Countries with a weaker hold on authoritarian power (like China) have had to take steps to ban speech and cryptocurrencies already. The mistake we make (due to our penchant for American exceptionalism) is to think that we are not following close behind with the same sort of authoritarianism-preserving convulsion.

fhood 9y ago

If you are talking about the ideal of free speech then call it that. Not the first amendment. I am idealizing a process in which social shaming encourages conformity. That is the only reason society works, we learn how to interact with other people through this process. Yes, I think the the internet allows people to isolate themselves from ideas that differ from their own, and that this is a bad thing. You might be right about HN moderation. I don't know, but I think the mods do a good job. I also don't think the mods have any problem with discussion of political ideals. I sort of agree with your comments about reddit.

grandalf 9y ago
> If you are talking about the ideal of free speech then call it that. Not the first amendment. I'll be more careful to avoid confusion in the future :) > I am idealizing a process in which social shaming encourages conformity. That is the only reason society works, we learn how to interact with other people through this process. Not sure I agree with this. In one sense, the concept of a social contract requires some degree of conformity of opinion, but I think it gets complicated as we expand outward from the basic social contract. Democracy by its nature involves conflict of opinion. It's an orderly way of letting the 51% control the 49%. In our society we sort of pretend that laws that have 51% support are "agreed upon" by society, but that's not true in the sense of ideological agreement, it's only true in the sense of resolving conflict over what the law should be. The mechanisms we consider in a democracy have trade-offs. We could require a two thirds majority or a nine tenths majority before passing a law. The stronger majority we require the more we can feel that our democratic process has reflected conformity of opinion, but also we'll have many more areas where no agreement was reached and the conflict is not formally resolved. Because of the democratic process, laws generally reflect the broader moral values of the culture, but again many laws do not offer a choice between believing value A and believing value not A, they merely rank one value slightly higher than another. Members of a democracy supporting a law may think value A is more important than value B, while those opposing it may consider value B more important. Both groups may profess strong belief in both values. I'd argue that shaming is a legacy process that is still hanging around from the days when a lot less had been abstracted and institutionalized. In those days, if you saw a neighbor beating his child, you'd perhaps frown aggressively at the neighbor and say "shame on you". These days you can just call child protective services. Things like smoking in public are frowned upon by many, and considered rude (and are thus shamed), but this is only necessary in places where the law has not yet come to reflect that value. In many states smoking in public places is prohibited except in designated smoking areas. But this is a bit of a digression. Just as majoritarianism is occasionally dangerous in democracy, so is the soft majoritarianism of social shaming. This is because shaming itself is used as an in-group signal, and its use (and power) generally follows from existing social hierarchy. Consider that most politicians would never be seen entering certain night clubs or strip clubs, yet we learn every day about one more of these monsters making incredibly creepy unwanted advances toward helpless women. Yesterday alone there were revelations about Al Franken and George HW Bush. So those most likely to use shaming, and to model what behaviors deserve to be shamed happen to be the ones who benefit most from the social control it offers. The same applies to members of the clergy (who occupy a shadow political system that used to be the main one before the separation of church and state). Thus basic social conformity (the stuff people like to shame others about) is not an essential quality of civilization, it is a side-effect of authoritarianism and a mechanism of social control. It is for this reason that the public must suddenly be protected from "fake news". While the examples used for selling the idea are always fairly clear cut, in actuality the algorithmic changes or human censorship applied to prevent the spread of fake news will surely include anything that endangers the status quo. The reluctance of advertisers to find themselves associated with a non-mainstream belief reflects the preference of the wealthy firm not to endanger its revenue stream. Similarly, any established group or organization has the same basic desire for self-preservation. So while some shaming has pragmatic goals... booger shaming children prevents the spread of disease, etc., social conformity is a very blunt instrument that is increasingly incompatible with the modern notion of a pluralistic society. The internet has made a new level of pluralism possible, and it threatens those who hold all kinds of power. We are being told that we must be protected from fake news, protected from hate speech (even from free speech in some cases), protected from various groups, but in reality what is going on is that powerful interests are teaming up to help themselves cling to power and prevent the massive efficiencies in publishing information from ushering in an increased level of pluralism and the corresponding reduction in their own authoritarian power. Countries with a weaker hold on authoritarian power (like China) have had to take steps to ban speech and cryptocurrencies already. The mistake we make (due to our penchant for American exceptionalism) is to think that we are not following close behind with the same sort of authoritarianism-preserving convulsion.