11 ms·

Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

32 points by uptown 8y ago

notveryrational 8y ago
Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting published and started to do my own summaries. Facebook implemented a policy in which it would not let any post that contained a link to a Snowden Document. In some cases they would let the content get posted, but I confirmed with a friend's account that it was not visible when scrolling my feed from another account. Posts about other content were all visible and otherwise had no problems. I complained and Facebook got back to me with a customer relations paragraph about keeping their platform free of unwanted or questionable content. Not long after I discovered through media, and then some friends from Turkey, that what I experienced was identical to state sponsored censorship that Facebook extends to the Turkish government. This lasted for close to the entire duration of public attention on the global and domestic surveillance scandal. (Other links and content in other scenarios, for example May Day protest organization, was similarly blocked by Facebook - at least in Seattle for the organizers that I was in contact with).
- replies_to_all 8y ago
  we already have a solution with memo.cash, and Bitcoin Cash, why people are not use it is beyond me.
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".
  - grandmczeb 8y ago
    > It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.
    - ratsmack 8y ago
      And everyone seems to be fine with the censorship, until it is their own worldview that is censored. "First the came for the ..."
    - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
      Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).
      - ratsmack 8y ago
        When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating. Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.
        notveryrational 8y ago
        When well-defined rules include "content that the government wants to suppress because it criticized them" the rules provide censorship via moderation. In this case, Facebook - presuming what they did was "follow the rules" - is following censorship rules. So perhaps the thread should be about the US government forcing companies to censor free speech for them.
      - notveryrational 8y ago
        Something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time. You are presenting a false dichotomy.
jerkstate 8y ago
The product is getting restless, the customers aren't happy with their brand being next to all of this inflammatory content. This was bound to happen in an ad-supported internet.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  Howard stern. It doesnt matter that people are angry. People who hated him listened to howard stern more/longer than his fans. Facebook doesnt care that people are screaming mad. That emotion is just proof of how connected they are to the platform.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Hate clicks are important for media companies, since they will generate more shares, links, discussion and controversy, which, in an ad-funded business, is good (in the short term)
    - sandworm101 8y ago
      Short term is all that matters in media when platforms can rise and fall within a few years.
Ahjie1Ai 8y ago
I like the reddit and 4chan model. Content is clearly compartmentalized by topic with different rules for each subcommunity. Of course they are not totally free of moderation but it still allows a greater diversity of opinions with seemingly diametrically opposed groups existing side by side. Many of the big social networks lack compartmentalization. On the other hand twitter demonstrates that it's not necessary, just helpful.
- aldoushuxley001 8y ago
  Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estate in its name. Most new canadian redditors will at one point check out /r/canada because it's canada's subreddit. Unfortunately moderators largely stifle conservative perspectives, forcing them out to subreddits like /r/metacanada.
  - always_good 8y ago
    One problem is that the `/r/:subreddit` url creates name-squatting and the illusion of canonical forums. /r/canada is like <company>.com: anything else looks second-rate. /r/canada2? /r/bettercanada? /r/altcanada? /r/the_canada? /r/mapleleaf? I think reddit should've gone with `/r/:username/:subreddit` to remind everyone that every subreddit is just some random person's forum, not some canonical message board on that topic. It also makes it much easier to migrate to another subreddit because you aren't stuck picking some second-rate subreddit name like /r/bitcoin -> /r/btc. /r/spez/politics, for example, reminds you that it's the politics of whoever spez is (reddit co-founder) and his mod team.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      That's not a bad idea, but it definitely harms discoverability, and makes it easier to impersonate known subreddits. (It also could mean that a person deleting their account, or being banned, takes down the subreddit; it means transferring ownership becomes complicated.)
apocalypstyx 8y ago
It's been this way since the establishment of state-sanctioned copyright with the Statute of Anne in 1710. Only now, in the USA, the experiment to privatize everything has continued on. Proponents will argue you can own your own site, so long as the hosting is okay with what you say, you can run your own hardware, so long as the co-location center is okay with what you say, you can run the server from your home so long as your ISP is okay with what you say, and it will be delivered, so long as the various individual ISP of you readers also find what you say okay. The end result is the American population of free-er and free-er from the government (which won't, almost, anymore do something against an individual for being the wrong X,Y, or Z. Why should they expend the effort? All they have to do is enforce Right To Work laws, and private enterprise will do it for them.) (The US Post Office may no longer seize copies of Fanny Hill, but I will wager it couldn't be posted on Facebook.)
malvosenior 8y ago
There's great irony in the New York Times talking about Twitter's "lax handling of harassment", when the NYT just hired a major racially motivated Twitter troll to their editorial board. For context: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shouldnt-be-fired-for-her-tweets-that-doesnt-mean-liberals-have-to-defend-them.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shou...
sandworm101 8y ago
In some ways i envy the governments that block facebook. The threat of blocking is the only thing that changes facebook's behavior, normally by causing them to implement censorship. But western democracies cannot block facebook, and so lack real power. Facebook may scream about burdens and taxes, but those arent a problem if you have customers. Saudi Arabia controls access to customers and so is more important than any western legislature.
geggam 8y ago
HN voting is a groupthink censor
- geggam 8y ago
  Watching the points go up and down on this is interesting
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    I wrote a script to track my up-votes/down-votes based on time. I've only been running it a few months but I predict that this will get hit hard with down-votes around 4PM GMT and 7PM GMT (assuming this topis is still on the front page by then). Let's see if I'm right. Edit: Down-voted for trying to make a prediction without even passing judgement on the topic. Funny how that works.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Only if there is only one group on HN that votes, which isn't really the case.
- slg 8y ago
  Society is a groupthink censor. If your beliefs are too extreme in any number of directions, society will eventually shun you. Whether you think this behavior is wrong or not usually depends on how closely your beliefs match the beliefs that are currently being shunned.
  - geggam 8y ago
    Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Heh Galileo, similarly came to my mind.
    - geggam 8y ago
replies_to_all 8y ago
This is central to what is going on with Bitcoin as well these days. The main Reddit forum (r/bitcoin) is "heavily moderated" by a pro-Blockstream team with any mention of opposing implementations being censored. Arguably, the control of this main platform is the only reason Blockstream, along with Greg Maxwell, today controls the Bitcoin Github repo.
baud147258 8y ago
There's great irony in the New York Times talking about Twitter's "lax handling of harassment", when the NYT just hired a major racially motivated Twitter troll to their editorial board. For context: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shouldnt-be-fired-for-her-tweets-that-doesnt-mean-liberals-have-to-defend-them.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shou...
- setpatchaddress 8y ago
  That's a drastic oversimplification of the situation. If you're going to read the Slate article, be sure to read this too: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-times-tweets-backlash-racism https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t...
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    It's not an oversimplification. It's the best piece written about this controversy. The source material was raw, immature racism. Instead of reading Vox's protection of their employee, why don't you read her tweets directly (hint, there's nothing here worth defending): https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Funny how the Vox article spent little time defending their ex-employee and more time on other people.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Our lord and savior tptacek to the rescue of the quality of discussion of HN! Praise the Graham for these hallowed threads!
marenkay 8y ago
Perhaps this is a stupid question but why should e.g. treat these things _so_ fundamentally different than things we already have rules and regulations for? Going back in time, what about newspapers and letters to the editor? Those had a clear range of what was allowed and acceptable. Is there really anything stopping us from using these rules except for being afraid to not post bullshit everywhere unsanctioned any longer?
- Ahjie1Ai 8y ago
  Because a lot more communication is done over private platforms these days. When working from home even informal work conversations are done over some cloud-hosted chat.
kapauldo 8y ago
Non government censorship is not a black and white issue.

32 points by uptown 8y ago

Having been censored multiple times by tech firms, I fall squarely into one camp. During the Snowden Disclosures, I took to Facebook with the documents getting published and started to do my own summaries. Facebook implemented a policy in which it would not let any post that contained a link to a Snowden Document. In some cases they would let the content get posted, but I confirmed with a friend's account that it was not visible when scrolling my feed from another account. Posts about other content were all visible and otherwise had no problems. I complained and Facebook got back to me with a customer relations paragraph about keeping their platform free of unwanted or questionable content. Not long after I discovered through media, and then some friends from Turkey, that what I experienced was identical to state sponsored censorship that Facebook extends to the Turkish government. This lasted for close to the entire duration of public attention on the global and domestic surveillance scandal. (Other links and content in other scenarios, for example May Day protest organization, was similarly blocked by Facebook - at least in Seattle for the organizers that I was in contact with).

replies_to_all 8y ago
we already have a solution with memo.cash, and Bitcoin Cash, why people are not use it is beyond me.
lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
I love the unspoken sentiment behind your experience. "I took to facebook to post links to grey legal documents rather than hosting them myself because I wanted facebook to be liable; Im shocked when they told me they didn't appreciate the transfer of risk. It's literally censorship I tell you!" Freedom of speech is not, and hopefully never will be,"freedom to post on other people's servers unmoderated".
- grandmczeb 8y ago
  > It's literally censorship I tell you! It literally is. Most people would say that is justifiable given that Facebook owns the platform, but that dosen't change the fact that they're censoring what users say.
  - ratsmack 8y ago
    And everyone seems to be fine with the censorship, until it is their own worldview that is censored. "First the came for the ..."
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    Moderation != censorship. When facebook can send you to jail for your speech, then we can talk about censorship. I don't want to live in a world where I can't ban bad actors from my own servers (thus violating my freedom of speech).
    - ratsmack 8y ago
      When a moderator removes one of your comments because they disagree with the content, that is censorship. When a moderator removes your comment because it breaks a well defined rule, then that is moderating. Trying to moderate "hate speech", which is highly subjective, is a losing proposition.
      - notveryrational 8y ago
        When well-defined rules include "content that the government wants to suppress because it criticized them" the rules provide censorship via moderation. In this case, Facebook - presuming what they did was "follow the rules" - is following censorship rules. So perhaps the thread should be about the US government forcing companies to censor free speech for them.
    - notveryrational 8y ago
      Something can be both moderation and censorship at the same time. You are presenting a false dichotomy.

jerkstate 8y ago

The product is getting restless, the customers aren't happy with their brand being next to all of this inflammatory content. This was bound to happen in an ad-supported internet.

sandworm101 8y ago
Howard stern. It doesnt matter that people are angry. People who hated him listened to howard stern more/longer than his fans. Facebook doesnt care that people are screaming mad. That emotion is just proof of how connected they are to the platform.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Hate clicks are important for media companies, since they will generate more shares, links, discussion and controversy, which, in an ad-funded business, is good (in the short term)
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    Short term is all that matters in media when platforms can rise and fall within a few years.

Ahjie1Ai 8y ago

I like the reddit and 4chan model. Content is clearly compartmentalized by topic with different rules for each subcommunity. Of course they are not totally free of moderation but it still allows a greater diversity of opinions with seemingly diametrically opposed groups existing side by side. Many of the big social networks lack compartmentalization. On the other hand twitter demonstrates that it's not necessary, just helpful.

aldoushuxley001 8y ago
Moderators have too much power in the reddit model. Subreddit's become their own lil fiefdoms... literally virtual real estate that different special interests vie for influence of. Unforuntately, minority voices are stifled in almost every single subreddit. Sure you can say people are free to make their own subreddits for those voices, but for example a community like /r/canada has a very valuable virtual real estate in its name. Most new canadian redditors will at one point check out /r/canada because it's canada's subreddit. Unfortunately moderators largely stifle conservative perspectives, forcing them out to subreddits like /r/metacanada.
- always_good 8y ago
  One problem is that the `/r/:subreddit` url creates name-squatting and the illusion of canonical forums. /r/canada is like <company>.com: anything else looks second-rate. /r/canada2? /r/bettercanada? /r/altcanada? /r/the_canada? /r/mapleleaf? I think reddit should've gone with `/r/:username/:subreddit` to remind everyone that every subreddit is just some random person's forum, not some canonical message board on that topic. It also makes it much easier to migrate to another subreddit because you aren't stuck picking some second-rate subreddit name like /r/bitcoin -> /r/btc. /r/spez/politics, for example, reminds you that it's the politics of whoever spez is (reddit co-founder) and his mod team.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    That's not a bad idea, but it definitely harms discoverability, and makes it easier to impersonate known subreddits. (It also could mean that a person deleting their account, or being banned, takes down the subreddit; it means transferring ownership becomes complicated.)

apocalypstyx 8y ago

It's been this way since the establishment of state-sanctioned copyright with the Statute of Anne in 1710. Only now, in the USA, the experiment to privatize everything has continued on. Proponents will argue you can own your own site, so long as the hosting is okay with what you say, you can run your own hardware, so long as the co-location center is okay with what you say, you can run the server from your home so long as your ISP is okay with what you say, and it will be delivered, so long as the various individual ISP of you readers also find what you say okay. The end result is the American population of free-er and free-er from the government (which won't, almost, anymore do something against an individual for being the wrong X,Y, or Z. Why should they expend the effort? All they have to do is enforce Right To Work laws, and private enterprise will do it for them.) (The US Post Office may no longer seize copies of Fanny Hill, but I will wager it couldn't be posted on Facebook.)

malvosenior 8y ago

There's great irony in the New York Times talking about Twitter's "lax handling of harassment", when the NYT just hired a major racially motivated Twitter troll to their editorial board. For context: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shouldnt-be-fired-for-her-tweets-that-doesnt-mean-liberals-have-to-defend-them.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/sarah-jeong-shou...

sandworm101 8y ago

In some ways i envy the governments that block facebook. The threat of blocking is the only thing that changes facebook's behavior, normally by causing them to implement censorship. But western democracies cannot block facebook, and so lack real power. Facebook may scream about burdens and taxes, but those arent a problem if you have customers. Saudi Arabia controls access to customers and so is more important than any western legislature.

geggam 8y ago

HN voting is a groupthink censor

geggam 8y ago
Watching the points go up and down on this is interesting
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  I wrote a script to track my up-votes/down-votes based on time. I've only been running it a few months but I predict that this will get hit hard with down-votes around 4PM GMT and 7PM GMT (assuming this topis is still on the front page by then). Let's see if I'm right. Edit: Down-voted for trying to make a prediction without even passing judgement on the topic. Funny how that works.
whatshisface 8y ago
Only if there is only one group on HN that votes, which isn't really the case.
slg 8y ago
Society is a groupthink censor. If your beliefs are too extreme in any number of directions, society will eventually shun you. Whether you think this behavior is wrong or not usually depends on how closely your beliefs match the beliefs that are currently being shunned.
- geggam 8y ago
  Sucks for folks like Socrates doesnt it ?
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Heh Galileo, similarly came to my mind.
  - geggam 8y ago

replies_to_all 8y ago

This is central to what is going on with Bitcoin as well these days. The main Reddit forum (r/bitcoin) is "heavily moderated" by a pro-Blockstream team with any mention of opposing implementations being censored. Arguably, the control of this main platform is the only reason Blockstream, along with Greg Maxwell, today controls the Bitcoin Github repo.

baud147258 8y ago

setpatchaddress 8y ago
That's a drastic oversimplification of the situation. If you're going to read the Slate article, be sure to read this too: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-times-tweets-backlash-racism https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t...
- malvosenior 8y ago
  It's not an oversimplification. It's the best piece written about this controversy. The source material was raw, immature racism. Instead of reading Vox's protection of their employee, why don't you read her tweets directly (hint, there's nothing here worth defending): https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368
- baud147258 8y ago
  Funny how the Vox article spent little time defending their ex-employee and more time on other people.
tptacek 8y ago
Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Our lord and savior tptacek to the rescue of the quality of discussion of HN! Praise the Graham for these hallowed threads!

marenkay 8y ago

Perhaps this is a stupid question but why should e.g. treat these things _so_ fundamentally different than things we already have rules and regulations for? Going back in time, what about newspapers and letters to the editor? Those had a clear range of what was allowed and acceptable. Is there really anything stopping us from using these rules except for being afraid to not post bullshit everywhere unsanctioned any longer?

Ahjie1Ai 8y ago
Because a lot more communication is done over private platforms these days. When working from home even informal work conversations are done over some cloud-hosted chat.

kapauldo 8y ago

Non government censorship is not a black and white issue.