5 ms·

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

by devmunchies 9y ago

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.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    So go start a site that guarantees free expression of "science-backed" arguments. Again: see what it becomes. Your right to science-backed arguments will be unimpeded.
  - actsasbuffoon 9y ago
    There are good reasons why we don't want to consider these sorts of pseudo-scientific claims for employment or other important matters. Let's say we live in a society with mandatory DNA testing with publicly available results. Your DNA shows that you have a genetic marker which indicates a tendency towards anti-social behavior. It's fine though; despite the increased risk, you're actually a very level-headed and agreeable person. You go apply for a job, and I apply for the same job. Perhaps your résumé is slightly stronger than mine, but the employer worries that you'll be difficult to get along with based not on your interview, but on your DNA test. I don't have the DNA markers for anti-social behavior that you have, though it turns out that I'm a bit of a jerk (not far-fetched; check my HN post history). This would be wildly unfair to you. While the DNA marker means there's an increased chance that you don't get along well with other people, it does not define you. You've just been denied a job based on a thing that you didn't choose, there's nothing you can do to change it, and is actually incorrect in your specific case. The good news is that we don't live in a world with mandatory public DNA testing. The bad news is that many minorities kind of do live in that world. They can't hide their ethnicity or sex. Just like how a DNA marker doesn't mean you're a jerk, it also doesn't mean you're less capable of being a good engineer. To make hiring decisions based on that kind of information would be horrifyingly immoral.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  Private ownership is not quite sufficient to be immune from the First Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama Granted, Marsh has not been very relevant in First Amendment jurisprudence of late, but it is standing precedent, and it could very well be extended to cyberspace. Also, private actors are not exempt from legislation restricting the use of censorship. There is a First Amendment right to not be made to speak, but if you're a common carrier you're considered to not be speaking when carrying others' speech; social media could well be classified as common carriers or some similar (new) classification with similar effect. Given this it is a fair question as to what the appropriate public policy is as to censorship on private platforms. You might say that no public policy is appropriate on that question other than "hands off", but then again, since Congress has the relevant power to legislate, others could reasonably propose limits on censorship by privately-owned social media. "Start your own" is good advice, but "lobby Congress" and "file suit" are also available avenues, and for some those are more realistic than the first. I suspect that before long we will find out if Marsh applies to social media. I'd love to read legal analyses of that matter.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    "Marsh v Alabama" applying to Medium is somewhat undercut by "1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996).", no?
delete2 9y ago
Medium isn't a respected platform in the first place.

> 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.
- tptacek 9y ago
  So go start a site that guarantees free expression of "science-backed" arguments. Again: see what it becomes. Your right to science-backed arguments will be unimpeded.
- actsasbuffoon 9y ago
  There are good reasons why we don't want to consider these sorts of pseudo-scientific claims for employment or other important matters. Let's say we live in a society with mandatory DNA testing with publicly available results. Your DNA shows that you have a genetic marker which indicates a tendency towards anti-social behavior. It's fine though; despite the increased risk, you're actually a very level-headed and agreeable person. You go apply for a job, and I apply for the same job. Perhaps your résumé is slightly stronger than mine, but the employer worries that you'll be difficult to get along with based not on your interview, but on your DNA test. I don't have the DNA markers for anti-social behavior that you have, though it turns out that I'm a bit of a jerk (not far-fetched; check my HN post history). This would be wildly unfair to you. While the DNA marker means there's an increased chance that you don't get along well with other people, it does not define you. You've just been denied a job based on a thing that you didn't choose, there's nothing you can do to change it, and is actually incorrect in your specific case. The good news is that we don't live in a world with mandatory public DNA testing. The bad news is that many minorities kind of do live in that world. They can't hide their ethnicity or sex. Just like how a DNA marker doesn't mean you're a jerk, it also doesn't mean you're less capable of being a good engineer. To make hiring decisions based on that kind of information would be horrifyingly immoral.
cryptonector 9y ago
Private ownership is not quite sufficient to be immune from the First Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama Granted, Marsh has not been very relevant in First Amendment jurisprudence of late, but it is standing precedent, and it could very well be extended to cyberspace. Also, private actors are not exempt from legislation restricting the use of censorship. There is a First Amendment right to not be made to speak, but if you're a common carrier you're considered to not be speaking when carrying others' speech; social media could well be classified as common carriers or some similar (new) classification with similar effect. Given this it is a fair question as to what the appropriate public policy is as to censorship on private platforms. You might say that no public policy is appropriate on that question other than "hands off", but then again, since Congress has the relevant power to legislate, others could reasonably propose limits on censorship by privately-owned social media. "Start your own" is good advice, but "lobby Congress" and "file suit" are also available avenues, and for some those are more realistic than the first. I suspect that before long we will find out if Marsh applies to social media. I'd love to read legal analyses of that matter.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  "Marsh v Alabama" applying to Medium is somewhat undercut by "1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996).", no?

delete2 9y ago

Medium isn't a respected platform in the first place.