6 ms·

Alt-right leaders can no longer spread disinformation on Medium

27 points by janemanos 9y ago

bmcusick 9y ago
I'm completely cool with this, because -All platforms have the right to exercise editorial discretion, and -Those people are awful, and -This will only drive the adoption of censorship resistance platforms, which I'm generally in favor of. Free speech is important, but people too often forget about the freedom of association, and its inverse the freedom of non-association. And Medium should have the freedom to not associate with the alt-right any other conspiracy theorists if it chooses to.
- dictum 9y ago
  While it doesn't violate your argument (freedom of association) I'm less happy about how this isn't specifically about what's published in Medium: the criteria is specific individuals: "We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform" It's the "off-platform" part that bothers me about such policies. Thought experiment: Would Medium ban Henry Kissinger, were he to open an account?
  - wombatpm 9y ago
    Only if he was charged with war crimes.
  - bmcusick 9y ago
    I am completely, 100% cool with banning people based on "off platform" activity. I know that making Nazi comparisons is cliché, but would you allow a Nazi on your platform even if he only did Nazi stuff off your platform? I wouldn't. There a larger number of people I can amicably disagree with. I'd be unable to function professionally or socially if that weren't the case. But there are limits, and that's fine and good.
- scarface74 9y ago
  This has nothing to do with people's free speech rights. The constitutional right to free speech only applies to the government not being allowed to take away that tight - not a private company.
  - cryptonector 9y ago
    Also quasi-government entities. Like a private town with public areas[0]. If all the "public" "digital town squares" are private, does Marsh v. Alabama apply? The only obvious answer is that that is for the Court to decide -- or Congress, via legislation. Related question: what is the best policy as to social media and censorship thereof by its owners: to regulate or not? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
    - scarface74 9y ago
      I'm against most regulation when it comes to technology. The only time I think the government should step in would be in cases where there is a natural monopoly. For instance, internet service providers like cable companies have a natural monopoly or duopoly at most. The financial and legal restrictions (establishing right of ways) makes it nearly impossible to compete in delivering internet to the last mile. Mobile carriers should also not be allowed to merge. There are only limited frequencies conducive to wireless transmissions -- a new carrier can't really come in if all of the frequencies are licensed.
- nikster 9y ago
  You're underestimating the problem here. For those of us who have awakened to the fact that mainstream media is a giant shitshow that is literally used to brainwash the masses into agendas of unelected powers, this is a major, major issue. The reason this planet is waking up now is that the media can't be controlled as they used to. People share on facebook, other social media, Medium, youtube - there's no stopping ALL information from coming out! In the past, if you had control of the media, you would control what people were thinking. It's that simple! All media is owned by 6 entities which have very close ties to each other, so it's really just one entity for all purposes. You are falling for an illusion when you think that media is in any way independent or impartial. Media mind control tells you what to think about. You get 2 or 3 prefab opinions that you can have about it, but they control what you're thinking about. You don't get to think about anything else. You don't get to think about things they don't want you to think about. Because they get you up in arms about whatever, they create a grand circus of different opinions, one against another - while you shout at your neighbor, or loudly complain how stupid NRA supporters are, they are doing whatever the hell they want behind the scenes, and nobody even thinks about questioning it. They start entire wars where millions die, while they have you talk about a staged shooting! It's absurd! So Medium going the way of censorship means they have joined the masses, the mainstream, and they are going to be controlled, just like anyone else. There's simply a myriad ways to control the feed once censorship has been established. It's sold to you with images of child molesters and nazis, but it's actually for one purpose only: To control your thinking. Have a good day :)
mindslight 9y ago
s/disinformation/information/ That is, unless they've perfected a test for what actually constitutes disinformation.
- actsasbuffoon 9y ago
  Laura Loomer is pushing the narrative that last week's school shooting was a false flag operation, and that the students were actors paid for by left-wing agitators. That is 100% disinformation.
  - mindslight 9y ago
    Sure, but the title is "can no longer spread disinformation", not "have been sanctioned for spreading disinformation" - the term "disinformation" is being used to refer to the general classification, rather than specific incident(s). As such, the only reason that [some members of one team of the political industry] can "no longer spread disinformation" is that they have been "prevented" from spreading all information. So directing the focus towards their inability to spread disinformation directs it away from the underlying action of broad person-based censorship, and is thus itself disinformation. Addendum: You've referenced her narrative for the assumption that I, or most everybody, will casually disregard it as nonsense. I do, and agree that it is a valid assumption... Which implies that broad-sweeping heavy-handed measures are nowhere near necessary for suppressing it, and thus we should be loudly condemning said measures rather than implicitly condoning them.
IronWolve 9y ago
Don't think its honest to label conservatives we don't like as alt-right just to ban them. If they are pushing violence, ban them under the TOS for violence.
- colanderman 9y ago
  Your suggestion is literally what Medium did. From the article: > The “Hate Speech” section has been significantly expanded […], disallowing posts that “glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups,” including “the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others.” Also prohibited: “calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above” and “hateful text, images, symbols, or other content in your username, profile, or bio.”
  - srslack 9y ago
    >“We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Medium account, and restrict access or availability to that account.” Can you cite the instances where the individuals in question were calling for violence on Medium, even considering off-platform communications which apparently they're now policing? Personally, I wish that leftists would stop wearing liberal's clothing. Free speech is free speech. "Disinformation" is a weasel word, and so is "hate speech."
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      Is calling for violence really the only limitation you'd accept? What about calling for segregation? Or calling all Islamic people savages? Those are things Laura Loomer has done. I'm about as far right as you can get economically and I wouldn't give her a platform in spite of fully supporting her right to spew nonsense. The freedom of association carries with it the freedom to not associate.
devmunchies 9y ago
> Time to start the countdown for an Alt-Right Medium How about just a platform that prides itself in free speech?
- tptacek 9y ago
  Start one, and see what it becomes. Your right to speech will be unimpeded.
  - actsasbuffoon 9y ago
    Recent events suggest this will not end well. From what I can tell, Voat was intended to be an alternative to Reddit. It wasn't supposed to be aimed at any particular group of people. Then Reddit banned Coontown, and many white supremacists and other bigots switched to Voat. As a result of the influx, Voat now features a shocking amount of bigoted content. I don't think this was the intention of the creator of Voat, but it's what they're stuck with now. If you really care about free speech, and you make a clone of Medium to allow any kind of speech, this is a probable enough scenario: 1. The non-bigots will be split. Many of them will just stick with Medium, but some die-hard free speech supporters will come to your site. 2. Unfortunately you'll probably get a sizable majority of the bigots, because they think Medium is waging war against them. They don't actually care about free speech, they just want a place where they can spew hatred and slander. 3. These bigots will post a large amount of bigoted content to your service. 4. Eventually the free speech supporters who are non-bigots will get tired of fighting it, and they'll go back to Medium 5. Now you own and operate a site that is pretty much just bigotry, which probably isn't something you want your name associated with. 6. Some site will ban a couple of bigots, and a person will recommend building a free-speech centered clone of it, and some idiot will tell you that it's a bad idea because of Voat.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Well, unimpeded, unless you make the mistake of using Google's DNS services and they decide to steal your domain name for the greater good. Or someone decides to impede your right to speech with DoS attacks (see: Quillette) and you made the mistake of using Cloudflare to protect yourself. At this point to reliably be able to express opinions that are based in science but offend some minority subgroup you would have to avoid basically all firms based in Silicon Valley. Note the quote from the new medium.com policy: But it is now more detailed and focused, disallowing posts ... including “the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others.” So basically an anti-Damore clause. If you state something based in scientific studies, but someone claims to feel "disempowered", you can't use Medium. I wonder how long before other Valley firms adopt similar usage policies. This reminds me of the quote by Urs Hoezle: As engineers, we're trained to pay attention to the details, think logically, challenge assumptions that may be incorrect (or just fuzzy), and so on. These are all excellent tools for technical discussions. But they can be terrible tools for discussion around race, discrimination, justice, and so on, because these discussions touch topics with a high cultural and emotional content. That's because questioning the exact details can easily be perceived as questioning the overall validity of the effort, or the veracity of the historical context. An entire subculture founded in the advancement of science is systematically turning its back on science, in case it 'offends' someone. A milestone in the (d)evolution of the Valley.
lj3 9y ago
Nope. I'm done. See you all in meatspace.
- tptacek 9y ago
  Twitter is choc-a-bloc with conservative accounts. That's a deeply dishonest (if unsurprising) story lede. (The comment to which this is a response originally included a link to a recent Russia Today story suggesting Twitter was purging conservatives).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
acconrad 9y ago
Can't they just stop the spread of false information in general? I feel like by saying it's targeting the alt-right leaders, it's doing precisely what those groups want - to attack the Press because it's singling them out.
- colanderman 9y ago
  They did target false information specifically. Third paragraph of the article: > By far the biggest change made by Medium is the addition of a section called “Related Content,” which reads “We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Medium account, and restrict access or availability to that account.” (Emphasis ours.)
nodesocket 9y ago
Free speech, as long as it's liberal free speech.
- actsasbuffoon 9y ago
  Claiming that last week's school shooting was a false flag operation isn't a conservative stance; it is a lunatic stance. I know conservatives, and I even have conservative positions on a number of topics. I don't know a single serious conservative who thinks it is acceptable to slander recently murdered children.
  - cryptonector 9y ago
    Regardless, it's also not worth censoring. Let me make my own mind up.
nikster 9y ago
R.I.P. Medium. It was good to know you. If there isn't a blockchain based censorship-proof publishing platform soon, I will work on one. Promise.

27 points by janemanos 9y ago

I'm completely cool with this, because -All platforms have the right to exercise editorial discretion, and -Those people are awful, and -This will only drive the adoption of censorship resistance platforms, which I'm generally in favor of. Free speech is important, but people too often forget about the freedom of association, and its inverse the freedom of non-association. And Medium should have the freedom to not associate with the alt-right any other conspiracy theorists if it chooses to.

dictum 9y ago
While it doesn't violate your argument (freedom of association) I'm less happy about how this isn't specifically about what's published in Medium: the criteria is specific individuals: "We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform" It's the "off-platform" part that bothers me about such policies. Thought experiment: Would Medium ban Henry Kissinger, were he to open an account?
- wombatpm 9y ago
  Only if he was charged with war crimes.
- bmcusick 9y ago
  I am completely, 100% cool with banning people based on "off platform" activity. I know that making Nazi comparisons is cliché, but would you allow a Nazi on your platform even if he only did Nazi stuff off your platform? I wouldn't. There a larger number of people I can amicably disagree with. I'd be unable to function professionally or socially if that weren't the case. But there are limits, and that's fine and good.
scarface74 9y ago
This has nothing to do with people's free speech rights. The constitutional right to free speech only applies to the government not being allowed to take away that tight - not a private company.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  Also quasi-government entities. Like a private town with public areas[0]. If all the "public" "digital town squares" are private, does Marsh v. Alabama apply? The only obvious answer is that that is for the Court to decide -- or Congress, via legislation. Related question: what is the best policy as to social media and censorship thereof by its owners: to regulate or not? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
  - scarface74 9y ago
    I'm against most regulation when it comes to technology. The only time I think the government should step in would be in cases where there is a natural monopoly. For instance, internet service providers like cable companies have a natural monopoly or duopoly at most. The financial and legal restrictions (establishing right of ways) makes it nearly impossible to compete in delivering internet to the last mile. Mobile carriers should also not be allowed to merge. There are only limited frequencies conducive to wireless transmissions -- a new carrier can't really come in if all of the frequencies are licensed.
nikster 9y ago
You're underestimating the problem here. For those of us who have awakened to the fact that mainstream media is a giant shitshow that is literally used to brainwash the masses into agendas of unelected powers, this is a major, major issue. The reason this planet is waking up now is that the media can't be controlled as they used to. People share on facebook, other social media, Medium, youtube - there's no stopping ALL information from coming out! In the past, if you had control of the media, you would control what people were thinking. It's that simple! All media is owned by 6 entities which have very close ties to each other, so it's really just one entity for all purposes. You are falling for an illusion when you think that media is in any way independent or impartial. Media mind control tells you what to think about. You get 2 or 3 prefab opinions that you can have about it, but they control what you're thinking about. You don't get to think about anything else. You don't get to think about things they don't want you to think about. Because they get you up in arms about whatever, they create a grand circus of different opinions, one against another - while you shout at your neighbor, or loudly complain how stupid NRA supporters are, they are doing whatever the hell they want behind the scenes, and nobody even thinks about questioning it. They start entire wars where millions die, while they have you talk about a staged shooting! It's absurd! So Medium going the way of censorship means they have joined the masses, the mainstream, and they are going to be controlled, just like anyone else. There's simply a myriad ways to control the feed once censorship has been established. It's sold to you with images of child molesters and nazis, but it's actually for one purpose only: To control your thinking. Have a good day :)

mindslight 9y ago

s/disinformation/information/ That is, unless they've perfected a test for what actually constitutes disinformation.

actsasbuffoon 9y ago
Laura Loomer is pushing the narrative that last week's school shooting was a false flag operation, and that the students were actors paid for by left-wing agitators. That is 100% disinformation.
- mindslight 9y ago
  Sure, but the title is "can no longer spread disinformation", not "have been sanctioned for spreading disinformation" - the term "disinformation" is being used to refer to the general classification, rather than specific incident(s). As such, the only reason that [some members of one team of the political industry] can "no longer spread disinformation" is that they have been "prevented" from spreading all information. So directing the focus towards their inability to spread disinformation directs it away from the underlying action of broad person-based censorship, and is thus itself disinformation. Addendum: You've referenced her narrative for the assumption that I, or most everybody, will casually disregard it as nonsense. I do, and agree that it is a valid assumption... Which implies that broad-sweeping heavy-handed measures are nowhere near necessary for suppressing it, and thus we should be loudly condemning said measures rather than implicitly condoning them.

IronWolve 9y ago

Don't think its honest to label conservatives we don't like as alt-right just to ban them. If they are pushing violence, ban them under the TOS for violence.

colanderman 9y ago
Your suggestion is literally what Medium did. From the article: > The “Hate Speech” section has been significantly expanded […], disallowing posts that “glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups,” including “the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others.” Also prohibited: “calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above” and “hateful text, images, symbols, or other content in your username, profile, or bio.”
- srslack 9y ago
  >“We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Medium account, and restrict access or availability to that account.” Can you cite the instances where the individuals in question were calling for violence on Medium, even considering off-platform communications which apparently they're now policing? Personally, I wish that leftists would stop wearing liberal's clothing. Free speech is free speech. "Disinformation" is a weasel word, and so is "hate speech."
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Is calling for violence really the only limitation you'd accept? What about calling for segregation? Or calling all Islamic people savages? Those are things Laura Loomer has done. I'm about as far right as you can get economically and I wouldn't give her a platform in spite of fully supporting her right to spew nonsense. The freedom of association carries with it the freedom to not associate.

devmunchies 9y ago

> Time to start the countdown for an Alt-Right Medium How about just a platform that prides itself in free speech?

tptacek 9y ago
Start one, and see what it becomes. Your right to speech will be unimpeded.
- actsasbuffoon 9y ago
  Recent events suggest this will not end well. From what I can tell, Voat was intended to be an alternative to Reddit. It wasn't supposed to be aimed at any particular group of people. Then Reddit banned Coontown, and many white supremacists and other bigots switched to Voat. As a result of the influx, Voat now features a shocking amount of bigoted content. I don't think this was the intention of the creator of Voat, but it's what they're stuck with now. If you really care about free speech, and you make a clone of Medium to allow any kind of speech, this is a probable enough scenario: 1. The non-bigots will be split. Many of them will just stick with Medium, but some die-hard free speech supporters will come to your site. 2. Unfortunately you'll probably get a sizable majority of the bigots, because they think Medium is waging war against them. They don't actually care about free speech, they just want a place where they can spew hatred and slander. 3. These bigots will post a large amount of bigoted content to your service. 4. Eventually the free speech supporters who are non-bigots will get tired of fighting it, and they'll go back to Medium 5. Now you own and operate a site that is pretty much just bigotry, which probably isn't something you want your name associated with. 6. Some site will ban a couple of bigots, and a person will recommend building a free-speech centered clone of it, and some idiot will tell you that it's a bad idea because of Voat.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Well, unimpeded, unless you make the mistake of using Google's DNS services and they decide to steal your domain name for the greater good. Or someone decides to impede your right to speech with DoS attacks (see: Quillette) and you made the mistake of using Cloudflare to protect yourself. At this point to reliably be able to express opinions that are based in science but offend some minority subgroup you would have to avoid basically all firms based in Silicon Valley. Note the quote from the new medium.com policy: But it is now more detailed and focused, disallowing posts ... including “the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others.” So basically an anti-Damore clause. If you state something based in scientific studies, but someone claims to feel "disempowered", you can't use Medium. I wonder how long before other Valley firms adopt similar usage policies. This reminds me of the quote by Urs Hoezle: As engineers, we're trained to pay attention to the details, think logically, challenge assumptions that may be incorrect (or just fuzzy), and so on. These are all excellent tools for technical discussions. But they can be terrible tools for discussion around race, discrimination, justice, and so on, because these discussions touch topics with a high cultural and emotional content. That's because questioning the exact details can easily be perceived as questioning the overall validity of the effort, or the veracity of the historical context. An entire subculture founded in the advancement of science is systematically turning its back on science, in case it 'offends' someone. A milestone in the (d)evolution of the Valley.

lj3 9y ago

Nope. I'm done. See you all in meatspace.

tptacek 9y ago
Twitter is choc-a-bloc with conservative accounts. That's a deeply dishonest (if unsurprising) story lede. (The comment to which this is a response originally included a link to a recent Russia Today story suggesting Twitter was purging conservatives).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

acconrad 9y ago

Can't they just stop the spread of false information in general? I feel like by saying it's targeting the alt-right leaders, it's doing precisely what those groups want - to attack the Press because it's singling them out.

colanderman 9y ago
They did target false information specifically. Third paragraph of the article: > By far the biggest change made by Medium is the addition of a section called “Related Content,” which reads “We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Medium account, and restrict access or availability to that account.” (Emphasis ours.)

nodesocket 9y ago

Free speech, as long as it's liberal free speech.

actsasbuffoon 9y ago
Claiming that last week's school shooting was a false flag operation isn't a conservative stance; it is a lunatic stance. I know conservatives, and I even have conservative positions on a number of topics. I don't know a single serious conservative who thinks it is acceptable to slander recently murdered children.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  Regardless, it's also not worth censoring. Let me make my own mind up.

nikster 9y ago

R.I.P. Medium. It was good to know you. If there isn't a blockchain based censorship-proof publishing platform soon, I will work on one. Promise.