5 ms·

Luckily, in civilized societies we have a system of checks and balances in place to ensure that doesn't happen.

remarkEon 8y ago
Do we anymore? Facebook and Twitter have become a digital public commons for discourse today. The check and balance is "what Facebook decides". That doesn't exactly seem like an adversarial check and balance system to me.
- toofy 8y ago
  > Facebook and Twitter have become a digital public commons for discourse today Absolutely correct, however, they aren’t the only places for public discourse. People have never been able to demand a newspaper print their article or that a magazine must include their story—people have always had the choice to start their own newspaper or their own magazine and build their own audience and this is still true today, in fact it’s much easier than it’s ever been. People who’s business is access to human inputs, whether they are newspapers, music venues, theaters, magazines, etc.. have almost always had the freedom to set their own standards and it isn’t clear to me why business owners shouldn’t have this freedom anymore.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Absolutely correct, however, they aren’t the only places for public discourse Small comfort if they are the main places for public discourse - so cutting people and ideas there essentially means relegating them to far less reach. Strange how when some foreign state censors FB or Twitter it's an outrage, but when FB or Twitter sensor people directly "there are other places". Not to mention the monetary deplatforming (e.g. Mastercard, PayPal, Patreon and co not allowing funding), in which case there are no "other places" (not many in any way, and not reputable for someone to go pay there). >People have never been able to demand a newspaper print their article or that a magazine must include their story Which is irrelevant, since newspapers and magazines where always top-down affairs, written and curated by a specific team. Social media and platforms were supposed to be open to society (hence "social"), not only for a select team of journalists to have an account there.
    - mike10010100 8y ago
      > Strange how when some foreign state censors FB or Twitter it's an outrage, but when FB or Twitter sensor people directly "there are other places". Because a government has a monopoly on violence, while a private company has freedom of association. You're conflating two different situations that are only superficially similar. > Social media and platforms were supposed to be open to society (hence "social") Yep, and that didn't work out so well. Hence, the bans.
    - BubRoss 8y ago
      An organization choosing not to publish someone is not censorship. People choosing not to listen is not censorship. A government choosing what information you have access to IS censorship. There are many organizations, anyone can start one. There is only one government and you can't escape it.
      - colordrops 8y ago
        That wouldn't be a problem if these organizations hadn't captured 95% of the discourse. There is nothing in the definition of censorship that requires it to be done by the government. The same sort power brokers that would drive censorship in a place like China are the ones who fund political campaigns, found think tanks, control media empires, and choose advertising spend, and use this leverage to drive censorship on social media. In the end if the rich and powerful have effectively squelched dissent does it matter if it was through government mandate or some more complex mechanism though private means?
        BubRoss 8y ago
        'a problem' and 'censorship' are two different things.
        colordrops 8y ago
        The censorship by private organizations would not be a problem if...
coldtea 8y ago
Luckily, "civilized societies" are some of the most deluded about this point. From McCarthyism, to J.E. Hoover, to MLK, Gary Webb, to WMD, to the Patriot Act, to Snowden, to the "collusion" BS, to today's de-platforming, the establishment and the media easily stomps on whoever they don't like with impunity.
- heavenlyhash 8y ago
  So, can we as humans learn from history? Can we establish better, more thoughtful, and more balanced societies as time and our understanding progresses? Or have we already built the pinnacle of society at some past point, and everything we ever do in the future is doomed to be as bad or worse than what we already have? I'd like to choose optimism here, personally.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, starting with free for everybody speech platforms, and letting people make up their mind, would be a good start. Banning ads would also be another good start, but I don't see the idea getting very popular.
    - mike10010100 8y ago
      How about instead of a one-stop-shop social network, we go back to the random topic-specific forums of yesteryear? It decentralizes discussion, allows individuals to freely associate among themselves, and doesn't result in a "one size fits all" mentality when it comes to moderation.
      - feanaro 8y ago
        Indeed, this is a decentralised problem in need of a decentralised solution. Also relevant are https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ and IPFS.
    - yawaramin 8y ago
      No, it would not be a good start. How do we know this? Because that's what the actual start was. And it led to Facebook becoming the carrier of all the hate people could convince each other to accept. And people targeted each other, conditioned each other, to normalize this hate and acceptance of violence against 'others'. And so we have the situation we have today, where Facebook was forced to acknowledge that they became a platform for hate.

Do we anymore? Facebook and Twitter have become a digital public commons for discourse today. The check and balance is "what Facebook decides". That doesn't exactly seem like an adversarial check and balance system to me.

toofy 8y ago
> Facebook and Twitter have become a digital public commons for discourse today Absolutely correct, however, they aren’t the only places for public discourse. People have never been able to demand a newspaper print their article or that a magazine must include their story—people have always had the choice to start their own newspaper or their own magazine and build their own audience and this is still true today, in fact it’s much easier than it’s ever been. People who’s business is access to human inputs, whether they are newspapers, music venues, theaters, magazines, etc.. have almost always had the freedom to set their own standards and it isn’t clear to me why business owners shouldn’t have this freedom anymore.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Absolutely correct, however, they aren’t the only places for public discourse Small comfort if they are the main places for public discourse - so cutting people and ideas there essentially means relegating them to far less reach. Strange how when some foreign state censors FB or Twitter it's an outrage, but when FB or Twitter sensor people directly "there are other places". Not to mention the monetary deplatforming (e.g. Mastercard, PayPal, Patreon and co not allowing funding), in which case there are no "other places" (not many in any way, and not reputable for someone to go pay there). >People have never been able to demand a newspaper print their article or that a magazine must include their story Which is irrelevant, since newspapers and magazines where always top-down affairs, written and curated by a specific team. Social media and platforms were supposed to be open to society (hence "social"), not only for a select team of journalists to have an account there.
  - mike10010100 8y ago
    > Strange how when some foreign state censors FB or Twitter it's an outrage, but when FB or Twitter sensor people directly "there are other places". Because a government has a monopoly on violence, while a private company has freedom of association. You're conflating two different situations that are only superficially similar. > Social media and platforms were supposed to be open to society (hence "social") Yep, and that didn't work out so well. Hence, the bans.
  - BubRoss 8y ago
    An organization choosing not to publish someone is not censorship. People choosing not to listen is not censorship. A government choosing what information you have access to IS censorship. There are many organizations, anyone can start one. There is only one government and you can't escape it.
    - colordrops 8y ago
      That wouldn't be a problem if these organizations hadn't captured 95% of the discourse. There is nothing in the definition of censorship that requires it to be done by the government. The same sort power brokers that would drive censorship in a place like China are the ones who fund political campaigns, found think tanks, control media empires, and choose advertising spend, and use this leverage to drive censorship on social media. In the end if the rich and powerful have effectively squelched dissent does it matter if it was through government mandate or some more complex mechanism though private means?
      - BubRoss 8y ago
        'a problem' and 'censorship' are two different things.
        colordrops 8y ago
        The censorship by private organizations would not be a problem if...

coldtea 8y ago

Luckily, "civilized societies" are some of the most deluded about this point. From McCarthyism, to J.E. Hoover, to MLK, Gary Webb, to WMD, to the Patriot Act, to Snowden, to the "collusion" BS, to today's de-platforming, the establishment and the media easily stomps on whoever they don't like with impunity.

heavenlyhash 8y ago
So, can we as humans learn from history? Can we establish better, more thoughtful, and more balanced societies as time and our understanding progresses? Or have we already built the pinnacle of society at some past point, and everything we ever do in the future is doomed to be as bad or worse than what we already have? I'd like to choose optimism here, personally.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, starting with free for everybody speech platforms, and letting people make up their mind, would be a good start. Banning ads would also be another good start, but I don't see the idea getting very popular.
  - mike10010100 8y ago
    How about instead of a one-stop-shop social network, we go back to the random topic-specific forums of yesteryear? It decentralizes discussion, allows individuals to freely associate among themselves, and doesn't result in a "one size fits all" mentality when it comes to moderation.
    - feanaro 8y ago
      Indeed, this is a decentralised problem in need of a decentralised solution. Also relevant are https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ and IPFS.
  - yawaramin 8y ago
    No, it would not be a good start. How do we know this? Because that's what the actual start was. And it led to Facebook becoming the carrier of all the hate people could convince each other to accept. And people targeted each other, conditioned each other, to normalize this hate and acceptance of violence against 'others'. And so we have the situation we have today, where Facebook was forced to acknowledge that they became a platform for hate.