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Anonymity and Free Speech go hand in hand, you can not have one with out the other. If you are in the US, then you should understand that Anonymous Speech wa

by syshum 8y ago

Anonymity and Free Speech go hand in hand, you can not have one with out the other. If you are in the US, then you should understand that Anonymous Speech was the bed rock foundation of this nation, most of the discourse around the constitution was done via anonymous pseudonyms. The Reality is "Real Names Policies" promote extremism, it does not reduce it. Real Names Policies further create eco chambers, Group isolation, and destroy discourse. This idea that Anonymous Speech is the cause of extremist is plainly false given that most of the violent extremists post for abhorrent beliefs under their real identities. Most Anonymous speakers are actually centrists want to engage in debate with out fear of retribution by the extremist on both sides. To remove that, is to remove the rational voices and only allow the extremist to yell at each other

cromwellian 8y ago
I used to believe that with all my heart until I started reading 4chan, now between that, deepfakes, and the imminent arrival of GPT-2 bots, I’m really fearful of the future of online publishing. We’re going to end up with defacto censorship because most if not all platforms will be threatened into it. Fundamentally it seems online discussion for human beings has serious bugs. Self policing used to work in the early internet but it seems the volume has overwhelmed most self policing systems.
- syshum 8y ago
  I believe we are seeing the end of Free Speech as well That however does not change my statement, If we regulate away Anonymous speech we regulate away Free Speech There is no getting around that fact, so we are going to destroy free speech while claiming we are "protecting it"
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    Well, that’s if you consider free speech to be hate speech. The kind of behavior I’m talking about is people posting explicitly racist memes or incitement to violence. Even today, a flood of racist caricatures of Andrew Yang are Flooding from 4chan onto YouTube, instagram, and twitter from maga trolls. The reason why censorship is coming is because the trolls have ruined a good thing. We can tolerate nazi marches and extremists as long as it is off in a small discredited corner. But when the fascists start running bots and troll armies flooding forums, making it hard to trust anything, speech has already been censored by sheer lowering of signal to noise. If I can drown you out with online armies, I don’t need the platforms to censor you, I just need to overwhelm you and make people feel reading the comments is useless and I will have achieved my mission. The left might be destroying speech in academia, but on the open internet it is decidedly the alt-right and radicals that are endangering free speech.
    - rudedogg 8y ago
      I think these issues are fundamental problems with communication. Sure some have been automated - but communicating is simply easier than it ever has been. The problems will be worked on, and like democracy we'll swing back and forth trying to find the right solution and balance, but the situation will hopefully keep improving.
    - syshum 8y ago
      >>Well, that’s if you consider free speech to be hate speech. I (like the US Supreme Court) consider all speech that 1. is not a directly call to immediate violence to a specific date, time, place, and individual(s) 2. Is not defamation To be Free Speech, this may include things you consider to be "Hate Speech" and/or offensive which is a subjective definition that is for ever changing, and changes based on the politics of an individual "Racist Memes" is free speech and should be protected "incitement to violence" would have to include a True Threat, which is a specific legal standard >>Even today, a flood of racist caricatures of Andrew Yang are Flooding from 4chan onto YouTube, instagram, and twitter from maga trolls. Of the 3 platforms you list, I only use YouTube, and I rarely look at the comments there. I do not believe the solution to your perceived problems with memes on these platforms is for mass censorship. The platforms should provide tools for people to block, hide and ignore content they do not personally want to see but not resort to wide scale censorship. Even if successful in this censorship what do you believe the victory will be? Will have eliminated any racist from the world, will have changed their minds, will have ended extremist? Do you think people that resort to violence are curbed because you can longer see their posts on twitter? We know this is not the case, infact it often makes the extremism worse when it pushed underground. >>on the open internet it is decidedly the alt-right and radicals that are endangering free speech. That depends on your definition of alt-right, which is heavily over used and at this point has no meaning. When Left Libertarians like myself are being labeled "alt-right" because we support free speech (real free speech) the term has lost all meaning. Authoritarian lefts believe that anyone that do not believe lock step in with their Authoritarian and Identitarian policies are some combination of racist, troll, alt-right or nazi. It is lazy and intellectually dishonest
      - 8y ago
ghaff 8y ago
It's complicated. It has become pretty clear that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is not the whole story even if (arguably) some lower signal/noise venues would get fewer random offensive comments even if only because any level of identity verification will get in the way of casual drive-by shitposting. But I don't really disagree with your basic point. There are nuanced topics I simply won't wade into online--which is probably fine as I probably don't have anything particular to add--as I may enrage someone who will make an issue of it within social/professional circles relevant to me.
zorpner 8y ago
This thesis ignores emergent properties of anonymous speech at scale, particularly when it's difficult or impossible to distinguish between real and automated "speech". The statement: Most Anonymous speakers are actually centrists want to engage in debate with out fear of retribution by the extremist on both sides. Not only would require significant evidence, but would need to specifically address the current issue of automated political speech online in order to be taken seriously.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  Just imagine a gazillion anonymous GPT-2 bots.
- syshum 8y ago
  >>would need to specifically address the current issue of automated political speech online in order to be taken seriously. I have yet to see significant evidence proving there is an issue with automated political speech online I see left activists claim that anyone that disagrees with the authoritarian left to be either "alt-right" or "bot accounts" but little by way of actual evidence Sure Twitter and other Tech companies like to talk about how they "banned thousands of bot accounts" but they offer not proof on how they came to that conclusion and given the bias of the companies I am not sure they are not just banning libertarian and conservative moderates under the guise of "abolishing bots"
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    The tech companies have decades of experience fighting spam. Your comment is like saying "Gmail blocked billions of spam messages but they don't offer proof that they're not just banning libertarian and conservative emails!" The mechanisms by which they've fought spam and fraud have been documented and there are numerous academic studies on the bot networks, actively tracing Twitter bot accounts back to their country of origin, and tracing by traffic analysis all of the reposts and reshares. You can find lots of papers written on publicly available data on pre-print services, like https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04291.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04291.pdf It wouldn't take you more than a few minutes to Google for this and read some of the papers instead of speculating in ignorance. The idea that they're somehow detecting libertarian messages and banning them is paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense.

by syshum 8y ago

cromwellian 8y ago

I used to believe that with all my heart until I started reading 4chan, now between that, deepfakes, and the imminent arrival of GPT-2 bots, I’m really fearful of the future of online publishing. We’re going to end up with defacto censorship because most if not all platforms will be threatened into it. Fundamentally it seems online discussion for human beings has serious bugs. Self policing used to work in the early internet but it seems the volume has overwhelmed most self policing systems.

syshum 8y ago
I believe we are seeing the end of Free Speech as well That however does not change my statement, If we regulate away Anonymous speech we regulate away Free Speech There is no getting around that fact, so we are going to destroy free speech while claiming we are "protecting it"
- cromwellian 8y ago
  Well, that’s if you consider free speech to be hate speech. The kind of behavior I’m talking about is people posting explicitly racist memes or incitement to violence. Even today, a flood of racist caricatures of Andrew Yang are Flooding from 4chan onto YouTube, instagram, and twitter from maga trolls. The reason why censorship is coming is because the trolls have ruined a good thing. We can tolerate nazi marches and extremists as long as it is off in a small discredited corner. But when the fascists start running bots and troll armies flooding forums, making it hard to trust anything, speech has already been censored by sheer lowering of signal to noise. If I can drown you out with online armies, I don’t need the platforms to censor you, I just need to overwhelm you and make people feel reading the comments is useless and I will have achieved my mission. The left might be destroying speech in academia, but on the open internet it is decidedly the alt-right and radicals that are endangering free speech.
  - rudedogg 8y ago
    I think these issues are fundamental problems with communication. Sure some have been automated - but communicating is simply easier than it ever has been. The problems will be worked on, and like democracy we'll swing back and forth trying to find the right solution and balance, but the situation will hopefully keep improving.
  - syshum 8y ago
    >>Well, that’s if you consider free speech to be hate speech. I (like the US Supreme Court) consider all speech that 1. is not a directly call to immediate violence to a specific date, time, place, and individual(s) 2. Is not defamation To be Free Speech, this may include things you consider to be "Hate Speech" and/or offensive which is a subjective definition that is for ever changing, and changes based on the politics of an individual "Racist Memes" is free speech and should be protected "incitement to violence" would have to include a True Threat, which is a specific legal standard >>Even today, a flood of racist caricatures of Andrew Yang are Flooding from 4chan onto YouTube, instagram, and twitter from maga trolls. Of the 3 platforms you list, I only use YouTube, and I rarely look at the comments there. I do not believe the solution to your perceived problems with memes on these platforms is for mass censorship. The platforms should provide tools for people to block, hide and ignore content they do not personally want to see but not resort to wide scale censorship. Even if successful in this censorship what do you believe the victory will be? Will have eliminated any racist from the world, will have changed their minds, will have ended extremist? Do you think people that resort to violence are curbed because you can longer see their posts on twitter? We know this is not the case, infact it often makes the extremism worse when it pushed underground. >>on the open internet it is decidedly the alt-right and radicals that are endangering free speech. That depends on your definition of alt-right, which is heavily over used and at this point has no meaning. When Left Libertarians like myself are being labeled "alt-right" because we support free speech (real free speech) the term has lost all meaning. Authoritarian lefts believe that anyone that do not believe lock step in with their Authoritarian and Identitarian policies are some combination of racist, troll, alt-right or nazi. It is lazy and intellectually dishonest
    - 8y ago

ghaff 8y ago

It's complicated. It has become pretty clear that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is not the whole story even if (arguably) some lower signal/noise venues would get fewer random offensive comments even if only because any level of identity verification will get in the way of casual drive-by shitposting. But I don't really disagree with your basic point. There are nuanced topics I simply won't wade into online--which is probably fine as I probably don't have anything particular to add--as I may enrage someone who will make an issue of it within social/professional circles relevant to me.

zorpner 8y ago

This thesis ignores emergent properties of anonymous speech at scale, particularly when it's difficult or impossible to distinguish between real and automated "speech". The statement: Most Anonymous speakers are actually centrists want to engage in debate with out fear of retribution by the extremist on both sides. Not only would require significant evidence, but would need to specifically address the current issue of automated political speech online in order to be taken seriously.

cromwellian 8y ago
Just imagine a gazillion anonymous GPT-2 bots.
syshum 8y ago
>>would need to specifically address the current issue of automated political speech online in order to be taken seriously. I have yet to see significant evidence proving there is an issue with automated political speech online I see left activists claim that anyone that disagrees with the authoritarian left to be either "alt-right" or "bot accounts" but little by way of actual evidence Sure Twitter and other Tech companies like to talk about how they "banned thousands of bot accounts" but they offer not proof on how they came to that conclusion and given the bias of the companies I am not sure they are not just banning libertarian and conservative moderates under the guise of "abolishing bots"
- cromwellian 8y ago
  The tech companies have decades of experience fighting spam. Your comment is like saying "Gmail blocked billions of spam messages but they don't offer proof that they're not just banning libertarian and conservative emails!" The mechanisms by which they've fought spam and fraud have been documented and there are numerous academic studies on the bot networks, actively tracing Twitter bot accounts back to their country of origin, and tracing by traffic analysis all of the reposts and reshares. You can find lots of papers written on publicly available data on pre-print services, like https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04291.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04291.pdf It wouldn't take you more than a few minutes to Google for this and read some of the papers instead of speculating in ignorance. The idea that they're somehow detecting libertarian messages and banning them is paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense.