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We're going to see a lot of bullshit regulation on the internet and a lot of opportunists taking advantage of the current chaos to push their own agenda. Unfort

We're going to see a lot of bullshit regulation on the internet and a lot of opportunists taking advantage of the current chaos to push their own agenda. Unfortunately we handed them the weapons they need to push these arguments by building toxic (or at least very naive) platforms like Facebook and Bitcoin. It's a shame really but the tech community has itself to blame for a lot of this. The power struggles that have gone on in human societies for our entire existence are now starting to play out online. We should have seen this coming.

conradfr 8y ago
In the spirit of this thread, putting "toxic" or "hate" in front of things you don't like IS bullshit.
- arthurcolle 8y ago
  No it's not. He is making a very pertinent and truthful criticism of a trend that is swallowing up the Web and turning it into a terrible marketing cesspool.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    'Toxic' and 'hate' are at very least abusable just like 'fake news'. We need to be careful and verifiable about how something is 'toxic' or 'hate' - since as seen by any marketing slogan with soundalikes to defined terms undefined terms will mean what they want them to nothing more. Toxic should have a meaning and something /explainable/ in detail why it is toxic so that it can at least be a seed for discussion. Say for instance that League of Legend's gameplay is a breeder of toxic interactions due to its dependence on unknown teammates, anonymity, and the ability to allow disgruntled or incompetent actors to deliberately throw the game above and beyond under-performance by giving XP to the other team deliberately. Even if one disagrees with the reasoning it can lead to actual counter reasoning and it is less readily abusible as it needs a rationale for why something is toxic. As opposed to toxic as in 'pointing out that beloved approach X doesn't seem to work that well' just because it is disagreed with. It is for this reason why I personally think hate speech is an ambiguous term that should generally be defined more fully if it is used in a context where the definition will matter. Saying that you dislike this platform because it is full of hate speech is fine - it is a matter of personal opinion. Saying that the law should do something about hate speech needs to be well defined. Hate crimes are recognized and respected as a doctrine because they highlight an additional and separate aspect that makes it more heinous than just the initial crime. If someone burns an innocent man alive they are a horrible person who should be charged for the horrific murder. If someone burns a given person alive as an example to all of their class (minority, sexuality, religion) - they have committed two crimes - both the grisly murder and what may be termed 'ethnic intimidation' - it was a threat to the victim's whole class of people as an additional party wronged.
  - leppr 8y ago
    What does Bitcoin, certainly the most self-sovereign internet platform, have to do with the corporatization of the web? If anything, it seems to me like a move in the exact opposite direction.
- cageface 8y ago
  I feel pretty justified describing Facebook in its current form as toxic. It may be accidental to some degree but Facebook as it is exists today preys on people's weaknesses and insecurities, privileges fake and alarming content, encourages habituated, addictive usage, and undermines normal face-to-face human interaction. I think it's possible to design social media platforms without those qualities so I feel it's fair to call Facebook, like junk food or cigarettes, toxic.
leppr 8y ago
So "open" = "toxic"? Or is it another aspect of Facebook and Bitcoin that you're criticizing? I fail to see another common characteristic.
- cageface 8y ago
  Openness is not the issue. I think algorithmic feeds are the root of a lot of the problems. They tend over time to favor sensational and negative content because that's the easiest way to drive engagement. Valuing "engagement" over all other metrics has caused a lot of the problems with this generation of social platforms IMO. I guess I'd describe Bitcoin as more naive than toxic. The failure of its designers to see that it would mostly be used as a platform for money laundering is more a liability of an excessive faith in technology to solve human problems than it is the kind of cynical exploitation of human nature that drove Facebook.
  - leppr 8y ago
    Getting off-topic, but don't you think it's interesting how parallel the main problem of modern "democracies" is? The quinquennial election game is purely about engagement, over all other metrics. To come back to Bitcoin, I certainly agree that it is naive, but I don't see it as a failure. It's too simplistic to be a replacement for fiat currencies or be the new world currency™, yes. But it had to be simple. Before even thinking about macroeconomics or social impact, it had to prove it could function at all as a trustless medium of exchange. It did so very well for a long time, now scaling the model to the world is another problem.
  - tuesdayrain 8y ago
    > The failure of its designers to see that it would mostly be used as a platform for money laundering Is there a source on this? I have a hard time believing that's what it's "mostly" used for.

conradfr 8y ago

In the spirit of this thread, putting "toxic" or "hate" in front of things you don't like IS bullshit.

arthurcolle 8y ago
No it's not. He is making a very pertinent and truthful criticism of a trend that is swallowing up the Web and turning it into a terrible marketing cesspool.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  'Toxic' and 'hate' are at very least abusable just like 'fake news'. We need to be careful and verifiable about how something is 'toxic' or 'hate' - since as seen by any marketing slogan with soundalikes to defined terms undefined terms will mean what they want them to nothing more. Toxic should have a meaning and something /explainable/ in detail why it is toxic so that it can at least be a seed for discussion. Say for instance that League of Legend's gameplay is a breeder of toxic interactions due to its dependence on unknown teammates, anonymity, and the ability to allow disgruntled or incompetent actors to deliberately throw the game above and beyond under-performance by giving XP to the other team deliberately. Even if one disagrees with the reasoning it can lead to actual counter reasoning and it is less readily abusible as it needs a rationale for why something is toxic. As opposed to toxic as in 'pointing out that beloved approach X doesn't seem to work that well' just because it is disagreed with. It is for this reason why I personally think hate speech is an ambiguous term that should generally be defined more fully if it is used in a context where the definition will matter. Saying that you dislike this platform because it is full of hate speech is fine - it is a matter of personal opinion. Saying that the law should do something about hate speech needs to be well defined. Hate crimes are recognized and respected as a doctrine because they highlight an additional and separate aspect that makes it more heinous than just the initial crime. If someone burns an innocent man alive they are a horrible person who should be charged for the horrific murder. If someone burns a given person alive as an example to all of their class (minority, sexuality, religion) - they have committed two crimes - both the grisly murder and what may be termed 'ethnic intimidation' - it was a threat to the victim's whole class of people as an additional party wronged.
- leppr 8y ago
  What does Bitcoin, certainly the most self-sovereign internet platform, have to do with the corporatization of the web? If anything, it seems to me like a move in the exact opposite direction.
cageface 8y ago
I feel pretty justified describing Facebook in its current form as toxic. It may be accidental to some degree but Facebook as it is exists today preys on people's weaknesses and insecurities, privileges fake and alarming content, encourages habituated, addictive usage, and undermines normal face-to-face human interaction. I think it's possible to design social media platforms without those qualities so I feel it's fair to call Facebook, like junk food or cigarettes, toxic.

leppr 8y ago

So "open" = "toxic"? Or is it another aspect of Facebook and Bitcoin that you're criticizing? I fail to see another common characteristic.

cageface 8y ago
Openness is not the issue. I think algorithmic feeds are the root of a lot of the problems. They tend over time to favor sensational and negative content because that's the easiest way to drive engagement. Valuing "engagement" over all other metrics has caused a lot of the problems with this generation of social platforms IMO. I guess I'd describe Bitcoin as more naive than toxic. The failure of its designers to see that it would mostly be used as a platform for money laundering is more a liability of an excessive faith in technology to solve human problems than it is the kind of cynical exploitation of human nature that drove Facebook.
- leppr 8y ago
  Getting off-topic, but don't you think it's interesting how parallel the main problem of modern "democracies" is? The quinquennial election game is purely about engagement, over all other metrics. To come back to Bitcoin, I certainly agree that it is naive, but I don't see it as a failure. It's too simplistic to be a replacement for fiat currencies or be the new world currency™, yes. But it had to be simple. Before even thinking about macroeconomics or social impact, it had to prove it could function at all as a trustless medium of exchange. It did so very well for a long time, now scaling the model to the world is another problem.
- tuesdayrain 8y ago
  > The failure of its designers to see that it would mostly be used as a platform for money laundering Is there a source on this? I have a hard time believing that's what it's "mostly" used for.