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It's definitely not making arguments 1 or 2. The underlying premise is that we don't want to build our digital infrastructure such that "fascism, harassment and

It's definitely not making arguments 1 or 2. The underlying premise is that we don't want to build our digital infrastructure such that "fascism, harassment and crime" can be memetic. It then argues that as long as our online communication is dominated by a couple giant services, we won't be able to prevent that. It's certainly possible to build services to limit the damage of e.g. harassment, without censorship. Look at Mastodon. If you run your own instance, you can publish whatever you'd like. By default, any two instances can communicate. If one instance doesn't like what another publishes, they can block it. Also, with regard to your allegations around NYT's opinion of itself: the article was written by Cory Doctorow. I doubt he's particularly rooting for NYT to be an even more powerful gatekeeper.

beaner 7y ago
Re #1, my other comment below: > I think if the author were calling for censorship to be lifted, his first and loudest argument would be for it to be removed from existing networks. But his ultimate judgment is that the existing networks are bad because they can't properly apply censorship, and that the answer is smaller networks. What criteria would a large, abstract social network be broken up by? The only answer is content, meaning ideas would be relegated to certain spaces so that they cannot propagate as easily. That's an argument for censorship while trying to sell it as something else. Re #2, From the article: > Only the largest companies can afford the kinds of filters we’ve demanded of them, and that means that any would-be trustbuster who wants to break up the companies and bring them to heel first must unwind the mesh of obligations we’ve ensnared the platforms in and build new, state-based mechanisms to perform those duties. I don't know a whole lot about Mastodon yet, but the reason it "solves the problem" (according to you and the author) isn't because of how it changes network dynamics, but because it is federated and technically limited. Meaning it is not meant for any single instance to handle the load of e.g. Twitter. Its design basically prevents people from interacting as they would like to, which means we're deferring the power of our speech to an inferior technology designed for a different use case. If that was all we had, then someone would invent a large centralized network because that is what people want because that is how information travels quickly. Mandating federated networks would be an attack on the rights to free speech and property. As for who the author is, I don't think it matters, it still supports NYT's whole viewpoint of itself and the world.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  No current networks are "censoring" anything. They have policies against certain types of content. If I run a printing press for anyone to use but won't let people use it for what I consider to be harassment, am I "censoring" those people? Mostly, we're talking about social norms that cover behavior and speech. These get called "censorship" to form a negative connotation, but literally zero people are consistently against them. For example, there's a norm against child pornography (this one actually is government censorship). NDAs are a form of government censorship too, but people are generally okay with it because you opt into it explicitly. What if you continually insult your boss? There's no law against it, but you'll probably get fired. If you divulge all your family secrets, are you being "censored" if you no longer get invited to the holidays? Behavior that violates norms gets pushed to the margins. That's how society works. Centralized networks are making people uncomfortable because it's centering behavior that people want marginalized; that's a bug, not a feature. And when we do force them to marginalize it, they'll do it badly. Because we're placing a lot of power and responsibility in a few giant corporations, accountable to their shareholders and clumsily coerced by voters. Which is why the article supports breaking up the networks: the best way to ensure everyone has a voice is to distribute power to them. Re: Federated networks, people don't care whether their networks are centralized. Email has existed federated for decades! People care that they can easily talk to the people they want; the ability to do this is orthogonal to how centralized the network is.

beaner 7y ago

Re #1, my other comment below: > I think if the author were calling for censorship to be lifted, his first and loudest argument would be for it to be removed from existing networks. But his ultimate judgment is that the existing networks are bad because they can't properly apply censorship, and that the answer is smaller networks. What criteria would a large, abstract social network be broken up by? The only answer is content, meaning ideas would be relegated to certain spaces so that they cannot propagate as easily. That's an argument for censorship while trying to sell it as something else. Re #2, From the article: > Only the largest companies can afford the kinds of filters we’ve demanded of them, and that means that any would-be trustbuster who wants to break up the companies and bring them to heel first must unwind the mesh of obligations we’ve ensnared the platforms in and build new, state-based mechanisms to perform those duties. I don't know a whole lot about Mastodon yet, but the reason it "solves the problem" (according to you and the author) isn't because of how it changes network dynamics, but because it is federated and technically limited. Meaning it is not meant for any single instance to handle the load of e.g. Twitter. Its design basically prevents people from interacting as they would like to, which means we're deferring the power of our speech to an inferior technology designed for a different use case. If that was all we had, then someone would invent a large centralized network because that is what people want because that is how information travels quickly. Mandating federated networks would be an attack on the rights to free speech and property. As for who the author is, I don't think it matters, it still supports NYT's whole viewpoint of itself and the world.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
No current networks are "censoring" anything. They have policies against certain types of content. If I run a printing press for anyone to use but won't let people use it for what I consider to be harassment, am I "censoring" those people? Mostly, we're talking about social norms that cover behavior and speech. These get called "censorship" to form a negative connotation, but literally zero people are consistently against them. For example, there's a norm against child pornography (this one actually is government censorship). NDAs are a form of government censorship too, but people are generally okay with it because you opt into it explicitly. What if you continually insult your boss? There's no law against it, but you'll probably get fired. If you divulge all your family secrets, are you being "censored" if you no longer get invited to the holidays? Behavior that violates norms gets pushed to the margins. That's how society works. Centralized networks are making people uncomfortable because it's centering behavior that people want marginalized; that's a bug, not a feature. And when we do force them to marginalize it, they'll do it badly. Because we're placing a lot of power and responsibility in a few giant corporations, accountable to their shareholders and clumsily coerced by voters. Which is why the article supports breaking up the networks: the best way to ensure everyone has a voice is to distribute power to them. Re: Federated networks, people don't care whether their networks are centralized. Email has existed federated for decades! People care that they can easily talk to the people they want; the ability to do this is orthogonal to how centralized the network is.