7 ms·

Speed and reach, my friend. Lynchings happened in the US a while ago, but they weren't a universal phenomenon. A platform with the speed and reach of WhatsApp m

Speed and reach, my friend. Lynchings happened in the US a while ago, but they weren't a universal phenomenon. A platform with the speed and reach of WhatsApp makes disinformation more potent. Nowhere in my post did I suggest human beings shouldn't be allowed to freely communicate – what I'm suggesting is that maybe we haven't built the right tools to enable that safely, and instead, we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue.

lxrbst 8y ago
> we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue. There is no other side of this issue. This could and probably have happened with sms. This is 100% the mob's fault.
- user111233 8y ago
  SMS costs a lot in 3rd world countries. We are probably seeing these issues now because this is the first time these people have had access to cheap and easy communication. The rest of the world was eased in to it with email and the web but these countries are being dropped in to the deep end.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    Subtext: You primitives aren't mature enough to communicate in groups without supervision. Don't you find that an offensively paternalistic thing to tell whole societies?
solveit 8y ago
By that logic we should ban megaphones as well. You know what? Just ban shouting until people build the right tools to enable that safely.
- gooddelta 8y ago
  Okay, if you're going to be willfully obtuse about it, why don't you try to come up with a better solution? Because that's actually what I'm suggesting with literally all of my comments on this article. And if you really don't understand the difference between optionally-anonymous, broadcast communication and a person standing in a group of people holding a megaphone, I'm sure you won't mind sharing your full name and location here?
  - tepidandroid 8y ago
    Actually all i’ve seen you do in this thread is moralize about the use of technology. You haven’t really offered any solution to the problem at all, aside from suggesting that technologists ‘think about it more’ before creating such platforms.
  - dang 8y ago
    You've repeatedly broken the site guidelines in this thread. We ban accounts that do that, so can you please not do that? Someone else being wrong is no reason to break the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (I do appreciate that you apologized for going over the line in the previous comment.)
    - gooddelta 8y ago
      I apologize if it appears I've stepped out of line, or if this thread has been difficult for you to moderate; that wasn't the intention. If you go back to my first comment on this post, it seems reasonably clear that my message is not particularly contentious – I'm simply suggesting that people apply some amount of ethical rigor to their work. Sadly, that message was heavily twisted in all sorts of ways that somehow fit within this site's guidelines. Ethics and politics are indivisible from the act of creating software. It clearly stands to reason that software is fractal of the beliefs of the people that create it. By placing intellectual curiosity on a pedestal above morals and ethics, HN has managed to drive away some of the most talented and credible people in the industry from this site – and to promulgate a culture of no accountability for what we do, or fail to do. I've fought year-long battles that have come close to costing me my job, just so I could prevent inaccuracies in systems that likely process your credit score. I've consciously killed projects that would disadvantage entire groups of people, no matter how technically cool or interesting they were. In much the same way that I'm not willing to negligently let someone die, I'm also unwilling to be part of the next Manhattan project – but it's becoming clear to me that I'm in the minority of the Hacker News readership that feels that way, or has ever even considered the impact of their work. Over the past ten years, the attitude of this community has single-handedly convinced me that the end of our world will be because somebody could, so they did. If we can create "deep fakes" on demand, we will. If we can patrol the border with some hastily slapped-together CV and ML, we will. If we can use deep learning to decide who will go to prison, we will. All under the guise of intellectual curiosity. I honestly believed tech was a good thing at one point in my career – now I spend most of my time building systems to protect people from my peers. I know I can't delete my account here yet – I've tried. But I've never felt more disconnected from a community I'm supposed to be a part of.
- mijamo 8y ago
  Well if you start using a megaphone to encourage killing people you will have troubles in a few minutes. With whatsapp... Not that much. Whatsapp is probably the first medium of communication that is harf to monitor in many places. It is much safer to encourage hatred and violence there because you don't need physical interaction, it scales a lot and authorities cannot intercept it.
nradov 8y ago
What are the right tools?

lxrbst 8y ago

> we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue. There is no other side of this issue. This could and probably have happened with sms. This is 100% the mob's fault.

user111233 8y ago
SMS costs a lot in 3rd world countries. We are probably seeing these issues now because this is the first time these people have had access to cheap and easy communication. The rest of the world was eased in to it with email and the web but these countries are being dropped in to the deep end.
- stickfigure 8y ago
  Subtext: You primitives aren't mature enough to communicate in groups without supervision. Don't you find that an offensively paternalistic thing to tell whole societies?

solveit 8y ago

By that logic we should ban megaphones as well. You know what? Just ban shouting until people build the right tools to enable that safely.

gooddelta 8y ago
Okay, if you're going to be willfully obtuse about it, why don't you try to come up with a better solution? Because that's actually what I'm suggesting with literally all of my comments on this article. And if you really don't understand the difference between optionally-anonymous, broadcast communication and a person standing in a group of people holding a megaphone, I'm sure you won't mind sharing your full name and location here?
- tepidandroid 8y ago
  Actually all i’ve seen you do in this thread is moralize about the use of technology. You haven’t really offered any solution to the problem at all, aside from suggesting that technologists ‘think about it more’ before creating such platforms.
- dang 8y ago
  You've repeatedly broken the site guidelines in this thread. We ban accounts that do that, so can you please not do that? Someone else being wrong is no reason to break the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (I do appreciate that you apologized for going over the line in the previous comment.)
  - gooddelta 8y ago
    I apologize if it appears I've stepped out of line, or if this thread has been difficult for you to moderate; that wasn't the intention. If you go back to my first comment on this post, it seems reasonably clear that my message is not particularly contentious – I'm simply suggesting that people apply some amount of ethical rigor to their work. Sadly, that message was heavily twisted in all sorts of ways that somehow fit within this site's guidelines. Ethics and politics are indivisible from the act of creating software. It clearly stands to reason that software is fractal of the beliefs of the people that create it. By placing intellectual curiosity on a pedestal above morals and ethics, HN has managed to drive away some of the most talented and credible people in the industry from this site – and to promulgate a culture of no accountability for what we do, or fail to do. I've fought year-long battles that have come close to costing me my job, just so I could prevent inaccuracies in systems that likely process your credit score. I've consciously killed projects that would disadvantage entire groups of people, no matter how technically cool or interesting they were. In much the same way that I'm not willing to negligently let someone die, I'm also unwilling to be part of the next Manhattan project – but it's becoming clear to me that I'm in the minority of the Hacker News readership that feels that way, or has ever even considered the impact of their work. Over the past ten years, the attitude of this community has single-handedly convinced me that the end of our world will be because somebody could, so they did. If we can create "deep fakes" on demand, we will. If we can patrol the border with some hastily slapped-together CV and ML, we will. If we can use deep learning to decide who will go to prison, we will. All under the guise of intellectual curiosity. I honestly believed tech was a good thing at one point in my career – now I spend most of my time building systems to protect people from my peers. I know I can't delete my account here yet – I've tried. But I've never felt more disconnected from a community I'm supposed to be a part of.
mijamo 8y ago
Well if you start using a megaphone to encourage killing people you will have troubles in a few minutes. With whatsapp... Not that much. Whatsapp is probably the first medium of communication that is harf to monitor in many places. It is much safer to encourage hatred and violence there because you don't need physical interaction, it scales a lot and authorities cannot intercept it.

nradov 8y ago

What are the right tools?