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I think the point I'm trying to drive more is: the opportunity and ability to moderate content, speech, etc. needs to be in the hands of the people, not just th
by docmars 7y ago
I think the point I'm trying to drive more is: the opportunity and ability to moderate content, speech, etc. needs to be in the hands of the people, not just the entity.
On Facebook, I have the ability to report or flag a post, and that's a fair amount of power I have, especially since I have the opportunity to fact-check said post if I want to, and contribute to a sincere and meaningful debate around whether that content should be available to others or not.
I don't think an organization should be able to blanket-determine what's acceptable or not, lacking transparency into the exact vetting process used show or hide a piece of content, because their values may be at odds with enough of the people using it (i.e. a large enough group of people hold a political view that Facebook may deem "dangerous").
I am confident we can agree that fraud is universally something that most people do not want, except for our lovely fraudsters.
When it comes to politics, that is an entirely different ballgame. We are dealing with equally valid views on both ends of the spectrum, in an environment where the majority of those in power are condemning and attempting to control speech coming from the one side.
I say this because of the sheer number of anecdotes (including my own) that have noticed practically unanimous support from most major media institutions for one side, while also condemning the other side. I'm not going to specify which sides, because I believe it's obvious.
- 18pfsmt 7y agoWhen I joined HN, people were advocating for the creation of organizations that get people to voluntarily support them with their attention or $. Now people openly advocate for government force to be used to achieve admirable outcomes (even though the claimed benefits are unachievable). Your comment and mine are being pummeled. I'm at -3 for nominating Warren for Minster of Truth (attempt at levity). You?
- docmars 7y agoIndeed they are! Heh, I got a good laugh out of your comment about Warren :)
- 18pfsmt 7y agoEnded-up at -2. How did you fare? I moved off the Navajo reservation in 80s. My cousin (he just got electricity to his house this year; he's had solar for 20 years) still lives there. I can give tours, if you have interest. I'm there 2 weeks in Oct or Nov. Great trout fishing on the San Juan River at that time.
- skybrian 7y agoI'm sure lots of stuff gets flagged on Facebook, and in theory they could let people debate it sometimes, but then they still have to make a decision, right? On what basis do they do it? We have lots of experience with online communities now and it's been pretty well proven that "the people" don't spontaneously organize into well-moderated communities. Software architecture can help make that more likely, but even places like Hacker News don't run themselves - the moderators have to keep tweaking things. Having some good choices between communities that are moderated differently is about the best we can do.