4 ms·

The difference between censoring false information and censoring wrongthink is pretty clear, and (more to the point) there is a concerted effort to engage in th

by ihsw2 8y ago

The difference between censoring false information and censoring wrongthink is pretty clear, and (more to the point) there is a concerted effort to engage in the latter while claiming to engage in the former.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Not trying to anger any of the people on either side of this argument, but my interest is genuinely peaked here. How would you define the difference between false information and "wrongthink"? Is "wrongthink" just ideas which we have no ability to test in a complete fashion? So something like geocentrism is false information, but asian supremacy would be "wrongthink"? And if so, what about historical things? Slavery for instance. Is it false information to assert that slavery would be good? Or is it "wrongthink"? The answer to questions like that is going to determine how much stock the average person is willing to put into the idea that "wrongthink" is appreciably different than "false information".
- rayiner 8y ago
  > Slavery for instance. Is it false information to assert that slavery would be good? Or is it "wrongthink"? Here's a concrete example: https://qz.com/1271960/google-has-banned-ads-for-bail-bonds-services https://qz.com/1271960/google-has-banned-ads-for-bail-bonds-.... That's "wrongthink"--a view that seems obviously true to a certain set, only because they're not willing to think too hard about the situation.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    And that's where people will reject the notion of "wrongthink". If accepting the idea of "wrongthink" means accepting that slavery would be good, then surely you can see where many, many people will jump off the fence onto the other side can't you? Because many, many people believe the institution of slavery is inherently NOT good. People don't think it's simply "wrongthink" or a bad idea, people believe it's a patently false assertion. (Just to be clear, I believe it to be patently false as well.) That belief today is as strong as it was during the Civil War. And there are multiple subjects out there like slavery. Is holocaust style genetic cleansing "good"? If you assert such a thing, people will not consider that "wrongthink", they'll consider it to be patently false. The list of issues like that goes on and on. I only listed the obvious examples as a sort of reductio ad absurdum.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      People reflexively believe lots of things. Some of those beliefs are more defensible than others. In the 1950s, almost everyone would've said that interracial marriage was "inherently NOT good." Would that belief have justified censorship? To use a more contemporary example: I've been pretty frustrated with the evolving liberal American consensus on colonialism. I think lots of people (especially people pulling the levers at Google and Facebook) would say that colonialism is "inherently NOT good." But that's wrongthink. As an English-speaking person of Indian descent, I think colonialism was, on the net, quite a boon for the subcontinent in the long term. Americans easily reach the opposite conclusion because they've never had to think too hard about the problem or had to consider the counterfactual. The universe of things people have strident beliefs about is a lot broader than the universe of things people are justified in having strident beliefs about. Which is why the whole idea of censoring based on content is a morass that Google and Facebook should not be stepping into.
      - bilbo0s 8y ago
        But you just conceded that there are things that people are justified in having strident beliefs about. When you conflate those things with something like, "are bail bondsmen good?" Or, "is colonialism good?" All you do is make people think you're not engaging them seriously in the discussion. Because bail bondsmen can be thought good or bad for society. Everyone here can take his/her position and then debate the topic in a serious fashion. But no one is going to take seriously a desire for discussion when you begin by asserting that slavery was good. Or that the holocaust was good. As you said, there exists a universe of things that people are justified in having strident beliefs about.
        rayiner 8y ago
        The people who have strident beliefs about slavery and colonialism can’t tell that one might be justified and the other not. Which is why it’s dangerous to censor the web based on peoples’ strident beliefs. I should also point out that it’s one thing to accept that slavery was an unmitigated evil and another to censor things based on that premise. It creates a powerful incentive to attempt to reduce peoples’ points of view to a straw man that you can then have censored. Without diving into the merits of Kanye’s recent statements, its a great example of taking a complex thought and reducing it to an easily-refuted straw man.
  - throwawayjava 8y ago
    > That's "wrongthink"--a view that seems obviously true to a certain set, only because they're not willing to think too hard about the situation. That's extremely uncharitable. It's possible for people who disagree with you to have well-justified opinions. E.g., this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17021747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17021747
- ihsw2 8y ago
  It boils down to intent -- are the censorship czars engaging in social constructivism where they try to "steer" society in a certain direction (some kind of Utopian ideal) or are they simply enforcing accuracy in content?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    the latter is a subset of the former.
    - ihsw2 8y ago
      Only from an absolutist vantage point where one narrative is declared universally self-evident. At the risk of descending into moral relativism (which seems is where the internet governance is heading), this is simply not the case. Gender noncomformity theory is just one of numerous issues that are exclusive to an extremely narrow section of global society, where censorship of rejection of gender noncomformity theory is necessitated within this extremely narrow section of society. The key here is the audience -- for some, censorship of opinions rejecting (or being skeptical of) gender non-binary ideology is important and that claims of heteronormative superiority are self-evidently inaccurate, but the (in)accuracy of such statements are subjective and as such censorship moves from being a plainly neutral act to one attempting to engage in social constructivism. The nuance is important and yes it does leave open the possibility of communities (for example) rallying around geocentrism and attacking heliocentrists, but that is the nature of free speech.

by ihsw2 8y ago

bilbo0s 8y ago

Not trying to anger any of the people on either side of this argument, but my interest is genuinely peaked here. How would you define the difference between false information and "wrongthink"? Is "wrongthink" just ideas which we have no ability to test in a complete fashion? So something like geocentrism is false information, but asian supremacy would be "wrongthink"? And if so, what about historical things? Slavery for instance. Is it false information to assert that slavery would be good? Or is it "wrongthink"? The answer to questions like that is going to determine how much stock the average person is willing to put into the idea that "wrongthink" is appreciably different than "false information".

rayiner 8y ago
> Slavery for instance. Is it false information to assert that slavery would be good? Or is it "wrongthink"? Here's a concrete example: https://qz.com/1271960/google-has-banned-ads-for-bail-bonds-services https://qz.com/1271960/google-has-banned-ads-for-bail-bonds-.... That's "wrongthink"--a view that seems obviously true to a certain set, only because they're not willing to think too hard about the situation.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  And that's where people will reject the notion of "wrongthink". If accepting the idea of "wrongthink" means accepting that slavery would be good, then surely you can see where many, many people will jump off the fence onto the other side can't you? Because many, many people believe the institution of slavery is inherently NOT good. People don't think it's simply "wrongthink" or a bad idea, people believe it's a patently false assertion. (Just to be clear, I believe it to be patently false as well.) That belief today is as strong as it was during the Civil War. And there are multiple subjects out there like slavery. Is holocaust style genetic cleansing "good"? If you assert such a thing, people will not consider that "wrongthink", they'll consider it to be patently false. The list of issues like that goes on and on. I only listed the obvious examples as a sort of reductio ad absurdum.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    People reflexively believe lots of things. Some of those beliefs are more defensible than others. In the 1950s, almost everyone would've said that interracial marriage was "inherently NOT good." Would that belief have justified censorship? To use a more contemporary example: I've been pretty frustrated with the evolving liberal American consensus on colonialism. I think lots of people (especially people pulling the levers at Google and Facebook) would say that colonialism is "inherently NOT good." But that's wrongthink. As an English-speaking person of Indian descent, I think colonialism was, on the net, quite a boon for the subcontinent in the long term. Americans easily reach the opposite conclusion because they've never had to think too hard about the problem or had to consider the counterfactual. The universe of things people have strident beliefs about is a lot broader than the universe of things people are justified in having strident beliefs about. Which is why the whole idea of censoring based on content is a morass that Google and Facebook should not be stepping into.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      But you just conceded that there are things that people are justified in having strident beliefs about. When you conflate those things with something like, "are bail bondsmen good?" Or, "is colonialism good?" All you do is make people think you're not engaging them seriously in the discussion. Because bail bondsmen can be thought good or bad for society. Everyone here can take his/her position and then debate the topic in a serious fashion. But no one is going to take seriously a desire for discussion when you begin by asserting that slavery was good. Or that the holocaust was good. As you said, there exists a universe of things that people are justified in having strident beliefs about.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        The people who have strident beliefs about slavery and colonialism can’t tell that one might be justified and the other not. Which is why it’s dangerous to censor the web based on peoples’ strident beliefs. I should also point out that it’s one thing to accept that slavery was an unmitigated evil and another to censor things based on that premise. It creates a powerful incentive to attempt to reduce peoples’ points of view to a straw man that you can then have censored. Without diving into the merits of Kanye’s recent statements, its a great example of taking a complex thought and reducing it to an easily-refuted straw man.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  > That's "wrongthink"--a view that seems obviously true to a certain set, only because they're not willing to think too hard about the situation. That's extremely uncharitable. It's possible for people who disagree with you to have well-justified opinions. E.g., this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17021747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17021747
ihsw2 8y ago
It boils down to intent -- are the censorship czars engaging in social constructivism where they try to "steer" society in a certain direction (some kind of Utopian ideal) or are they simply enforcing accuracy in content?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  the latter is a subset of the former.
  - ihsw2 8y ago
    Only from an absolutist vantage point where one narrative is declared universally self-evident. At the risk of descending into moral relativism (which seems is where the internet governance is heading), this is simply not the case. Gender noncomformity theory is just one of numerous issues that are exclusive to an extremely narrow section of global society, where censorship of rejection of gender noncomformity theory is necessitated within this extremely narrow section of society. The key here is the audience -- for some, censorship of opinions rejecting (or being skeptical of) gender non-binary ideology is important and that claims of heteronormative superiority are self-evidently inaccurate, but the (in)accuracy of such statements are subjective and as such censorship moves from being a plainly neutral act to one attempting to engage in social constructivism. The nuance is important and yes it does leave open the possibility of communities (for example) rallying around geocentrism and attacking heliocentrists, but that is the nature of free speech.