6 ms·

Our Thoughts on the New Zealand Massacre

52 points by DiabloD3 8y ago

trixie_ 8y ago
So thankful organizations like the EFF exist. If you work for a FAANG please take the Santa Clara Principles to heart and push them up through your ranks.
- vkou 8y ago
  > give notice to users who’ve had something removed about what was removed, under what rules; and The reason nobody actually does this, is because bad actors will use this as a unit test, to figure out how to get bad content onto your system. When you are trying to build a secure websystem, the common advice from the tech community is to deny all invalid, unauthorized, malformed requests - with a generic "Request failed" page. Don't give the attacker any information that they can use to understand your system. In the same breath, that same community completely disregards this best practice when it comes to social security.
  - bsder 8y ago
    > The reason nobody actually does this, is because bad actors will use this as a unit test, to figure out how to get bad content onto your system. The real reason nobody does this is because it requires a human in the system. And humans cost money. And, if your transaction cost isn't high enough, you can't pay for that human. This is the real reason why none of these services will do anything about this.
    - sparky_z 8y ago
      I disagree. There's no technical reason why an automated system couldn't be fully transparent to the end user about the criteria on which it is acting. That's not the reason why. I mean, you're correct about the fact that putting a human in the loop costs too much at scale, which is why it doesn't happen, and that sucks when you're an edge case that gets shafted. But that tangential to the question of transparency. Even if there were people in the loop, they wouldn't be fully transparent about the actions they take for exactly the reason the parent comment said. It would make it easier for the bad actors trying to exploit the system.
      - rixed 8y ago
        The human is not required for the transparency but for the possibility of appeal (last of the three bullet points)
        sparky_z 8y ago
        That's not the bullet point we were talking about, though.
      - benj111 8y ago
        If for example I post a picture of myself in a skin coloured top, that gets automatically flagged as nudity, and I'm notified as such is that really transparency? Yes I know why the post was removed, but based on the stated no nudity rule, the post should have been ok. If we go one stage further and appeal (to the same algorithm). That too will presumably fail. So what we are left with is a set of rules, and a set of defacto rules, that don't match up. That I wouldn't say is transparency, except in a limited and meaningless sense.
        sparky_z 8y ago
        What's opaque about the situation you're describing? Everyone understands what happened and why. What other definition of transparent is there?
        benj111 8y ago
        The rules as described and as implemented don't match. Saying you're doing something, when that something makes no sense and is unreasonable isn't transparency. Wikipedia's opening paragraph on transparency: "Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in other social contexts, is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. "[1] There is neither openness or accountability in my example. Yes in a narrow sense it is transparent, in the wider (I would say, most important) sense, it isn't. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior)
jaabe 8y ago
I recently saw the he head of Google’s Nordic cloud division give a keynote speech at an event for the public digitisation in Denmark called Offentlig Digitalisering. She talked about Google’s mission to democratise data. It probably would’ve been interesting to ask her what they planned to do to make sure their censorship filters knew the difference between hateful terrorists and human rights groups. Because if it can’t tell the difference between those two, then I don’t think it’s good enough to be allowed an editorial role on YouTube.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
My 0.02 c Youtube has (imo) two functions - an independent hosting platform (which can argue it is not appropriate for it to censor content) and a search engine which implies a recommendation algorithm. This second part is inescapably making editorial decisions. I don't think Santa Clara principles are sufficient at this point - it's basically assuming Facebook et al run a "town square". I am not sure the "town square" defence is useful if you cannot exclude certain content reliably and effectively (definitely an unproven point) I know this is heading down the Warren route - but Inwoukd be grateful for other thoughts Final note: I cannot conceive what twisted neurons male gunning unarmed people as a good idea, let alone livestreaming it but I will be unsurprised to find that the killer has live-streamed previous sick rubbish and got lots of likes and comments. Doing that in a normal town square would not have built a bubble of morons who laugh at a guy pretend killing muslims till the guy actually goes and does it - it would have built horrified approbium of a normal town. It's not a town square if the rest of the town does not see you.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- insickness 8y ago
  What's the 'Warren' route? I am not sure the "town square" defence is useful if you cannot exclude certain content reliably and effectively Beyond what is already existing illegal speech, such as telling someone to cause a specific crime, the whole point of this EFF article is that 'excluding certain content' does more harm than good.
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    If you are providing webspace then not knowing or caring what is stored there is a defence (but is limited the minute we say "but if it's illegal you should have known") But by indexing and then returning search results you are choosing and selecting - maybe being able to find "grot porn" or "that video of muslims being killed" is a public good (!) but if it is then I struggle to see how adverts and other minimisation schemes will not influence your decision to return it - the very act of making something findable is a curation decision - and curation implies responsibility. Perhaps we will work around it by having google publish it algorithm for search results - but that gets gnarly fast. In short I think webspace is like selling white banners and pens to a political rally - what people write on them is their business. But once you look at the banners and start to hand them out on street corners you are engaging in political speech - and worse speech someone else has written. i used to work for Demon Internet and our big USP (so we thought) was free webspace (10MB!!). And if you published your work on there you then needed to go through various cycles to get someone to come and read it - but Google and facebook have a domain name based leverage going on that means putting my stuff on facebook makes it easier to be found by orders of magnitude - and that implies curation and promotion of speech. In short - there is no "hands off approach" to free speech that is not hard disk space. And we and FAANG need to deal with the responsibility Edit: if you have the right to say awful things, you don't necessarily have the right to have those things promoted and published by some of the largest companies on the planet - but if they choose to edit your speech they need to start obeying everyone's speech laws (globally impossible) - so perhaps they should be split into Elizabeth Warrens platforms - and that would presumably allow duckduckgo to run its requests across google hardware and indexes on a free competition basis....
andkenneth 8y ago
I am from New Zealand. This was a terrible tragedy, and the appropriate response to this horrible video is to not watch, and not share. It's not only glorifying an awful act, but it's potentially traumatic. However I'm very uncomfortable with sties like liveleak being fully censored on NZ ISPs. I was unable to access liveleak.com at all from the few hours after the event, up to and including now. It sets a bad precedent and while I hope no one sees that video, the content itself is not illegal and we should not be censoring it as a kneejerk reaction. People who go to LiveLeak know what they're going to get.
- stoolpigeon 8y ago
  Are you sure liveleak was being blocked? Since a few days before this crime and especially since I get very frequent 503 errors from the site. I can't watch many videos, scroll var through videos, perform search, etc. It seems to be an issue with liveleak, not any blocking on the part of my isp. I'm in Hungary and have not heard anything about any videos being blocked here.
- externalreality 8y ago
  Watch it. Look at it. Many of us have to deal with this s$$t everyday. When it gets so out of control that it creeps up into your privileged world you want to look away. Don't forget that today's global structure is based on widespread massacres and genocide. This extreme comes from overlooking a racist status quo much like an infestation comes from overlooking the first signs of insects. You look away from your history too. Looking away is not going to change things. I don't care if it makes you feel bad. Its the truth. Deal with it because others have to.
  - tiredyam 8y ago
    While I don’t disagree with your sentiment; I would love for you to elaborate a bit and be more specific instead of painting such broad strokes without breaking down examples. It will help the next reader, particularly readers with little context, parse the message. Otherwise this comment will be read, nodded at, and forgotten
  - 8y ago
EdwardDiego 8y ago
Just looked at 8Chan's Twitter account. They've still got the shooter's preferred account image in their header. (The crass Australian wearing a hat). https://twitter.com/infinitechan?lang=en https://twitter.com/infinitechan?lang=en 8Chan is now blocked in NZ.
- ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
  I just checked and it’s still there.

52 points by DiabloD3 8y ago

So thankful organizations like the EFF exist. If you work for a FAANG please take the Santa Clara Principles to heart and push them up through your ranks.

vkou 8y ago
> give notice to users who’ve had something removed about what was removed, under what rules; and The reason nobody actually does this, is because bad actors will use this as a unit test, to figure out how to get bad content onto your system. When you are trying to build a secure websystem, the common advice from the tech community is to deny all invalid, unauthorized, malformed requests - with a generic "Request failed" page. Don't give the attacker any information that they can use to understand your system. In the same breath, that same community completely disregards this best practice when it comes to social security.
- bsder 8y ago
  > The reason nobody actually does this, is because bad actors will use this as a unit test, to figure out how to get bad content onto your system. The real reason nobody does this is because it requires a human in the system. And humans cost money. And, if your transaction cost isn't high enough, you can't pay for that human. This is the real reason why none of these services will do anything about this.
  - sparky_z 8y ago
    I disagree. There's no technical reason why an automated system couldn't be fully transparent to the end user about the criteria on which it is acting. That's not the reason why. I mean, you're correct about the fact that putting a human in the loop costs too much at scale, which is why it doesn't happen, and that sucks when you're an edge case that gets shafted. But that tangential to the question of transparency. Even if there were people in the loop, they wouldn't be fully transparent about the actions they take for exactly the reason the parent comment said. It would make it easier for the bad actors trying to exploit the system.
    - rixed 8y ago
      The human is not required for the transparency but for the possibility of appeal (last of the three bullet points)
      - sparky_z 8y ago
        That's not the bullet point we were talking about, though.
    - benj111 8y ago
      If for example I post a picture of myself in a skin coloured top, that gets automatically flagged as nudity, and I'm notified as such is that really transparency? Yes I know why the post was removed, but based on the stated no nudity rule, the post should have been ok. If we go one stage further and appeal (to the same algorithm). That too will presumably fail. So what we are left with is a set of rules, and a set of defacto rules, that don't match up. That I wouldn't say is transparency, except in a limited and meaningless sense.
      - sparky_z 8y ago
        What's opaque about the situation you're describing? Everyone understands what happened and why. What other definition of transparent is there?
        benj111 8y ago
        The rules as described and as implemented don't match. Saying you're doing something, when that something makes no sense and is unreasonable isn't transparency. Wikipedia's opening paragraph on transparency: "Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in other social contexts, is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. "[1] There is neither openness or accountability in my example. Yes in a narrow sense it is transparent, in the wider (I would say, most important) sense, it isn't. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior)

jaabe 8y ago

I recently saw the he head of Google’s Nordic cloud division give a keynote speech at an event for the public digitisation in Denmark called Offentlig Digitalisering. She talked about Google’s mission to democratise data. It probably would’ve been interesting to ask her what they planned to do to make sure their censorship filters knew the difference between hateful terrorists and human rights groups. Because if it can’t tell the difference between those two, then I don’t think it’s good enough to be allowed an editorial role on YouTube.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

My 0.02 c Youtube has (imo) two functions - an independent hosting platform (which can argue it is not appropriate for it to censor content) and a search engine which implies a recommendation algorithm. This second part is inescapably making editorial decisions. I don't think Santa Clara principles are sufficient at this point - it's basically assuming Facebook et al run a "town square". I am not sure the "town square" defence is useful if you cannot exclude certain content reliably and effectively (definitely an unproven point) I know this is heading down the Warren route - but Inwoukd be grateful for other thoughts Final note: I cannot conceive what twisted neurons male gunning unarmed people as a good idea, let alone livestreaming it but I will be unsurprised to find that the killer has live-streamed previous sick rubbish and got lots of likes and comments. Doing that in a normal town square would not have built a bubble of morons who laugh at a guy pretend killing muslims till the guy actually goes and does it - it would have built horrified approbium of a normal town. It's not a town square if the rest of the town does not see you.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
insickness 8y ago
What's the 'Warren' route? I am not sure the "town square" defence is useful if you cannot exclude certain content reliably and effectively Beyond what is already existing illegal speech, such as telling someone to cause a specific crime, the whole point of this EFF article is that 'excluding certain content' does more harm than good.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  If you are providing webspace then not knowing or caring what is stored there is a defence (but is limited the minute we say "but if it's illegal you should have known") But by indexing and then returning search results you are choosing and selecting - maybe being able to find "grot porn" or "that video of muslims being killed" is a public good (!) but if it is then I struggle to see how adverts and other minimisation schemes will not influence your decision to return it - the very act of making something findable is a curation decision - and curation implies responsibility. Perhaps we will work around it by having google publish it algorithm for search results - but that gets gnarly fast. In short I think webspace is like selling white banners and pens to a political rally - what people write on them is their business. But once you look at the banners and start to hand them out on street corners you are engaging in political speech - and worse speech someone else has written. i used to work for Demon Internet and our big USP (so we thought) was free webspace (10MB!!). And if you published your work on there you then needed to go through various cycles to get someone to come and read it - but Google and facebook have a domain name based leverage going on that means putting my stuff on facebook makes it easier to be found by orders of magnitude - and that implies curation and promotion of speech. In short - there is no "hands off approach" to free speech that is not hard disk space. And we and FAANG need to deal with the responsibility Edit: if you have the right to say awful things, you don't necessarily have the right to have those things promoted and published by some of the largest companies on the planet - but if they choose to edit your speech they need to start obeying everyone's speech laws (globally impossible) - so perhaps they should be split into Elizabeth Warrens platforms - and that would presumably allow duckduckgo to run its requests across google hardware and indexes on a free competition basis....

andkenneth 8y ago

I am from New Zealand. This was a terrible tragedy, and the appropriate response to this horrible video is to not watch, and not share. It's not only glorifying an awful act, but it's potentially traumatic. However I'm very uncomfortable with sties like liveleak being fully censored on NZ ISPs. I was unable to access liveleak.com at all from the few hours after the event, up to and including now. It sets a bad precedent and while I hope no one sees that video, the content itself is not illegal and we should not be censoring it as a kneejerk reaction. People who go to LiveLeak know what they're going to get.

stoolpigeon 8y ago
Are you sure liveleak was being blocked? Since a few days before this crime and especially since I get very frequent 503 errors from the site. I can't watch many videos, scroll var through videos, perform search, etc. It seems to be an issue with liveleak, not any blocking on the part of my isp. I'm in Hungary and have not heard anything about any videos being blocked here.
externalreality 8y ago
Watch it. Look at it. Many of us have to deal with this s$$t everyday. When it gets so out of control that it creeps up into your privileged world you want to look away. Don't forget that today's global structure is based on widespread massacres and genocide. This extreme comes from overlooking a racist status quo much like an infestation comes from overlooking the first signs of insects. You look away from your history too. Looking away is not going to change things. I don't care if it makes you feel bad. Its the truth. Deal with it because others have to.
- tiredyam 8y ago
  While I don’t disagree with your sentiment; I would love for you to elaborate a bit and be more specific instead of painting such broad strokes without breaking down examples. It will help the next reader, particularly readers with little context, parse the message. Otherwise this comment will be read, nodded at, and forgotten
- 8y ago

EdwardDiego 8y ago

Just looked at 8Chan's Twitter account. They've still got the shooter's preferred account image in their header. (The crass Australian wearing a hat). https://twitter.com/infinitechan?lang=en https://twitter.com/infinitechan?lang=en 8Chan is now blocked in NZ.

ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
I just checked and it’s still there.