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Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine

Whenever these topics come up, the comment section is full of people advocating for no limits based solely on slipper slope arguments: who is going to determine what is politcal? Who is going to determine what is true? But we all life with boundaries and we cope just fine. Why should this street in front of my house have a 35 MPH speed limit? What is special about 35? Why not 36? Why not 34? Who is to say that one is better than the other, so let's not try and all and let everyone pick their own speed. Just as it would be possible, but stupid, to invoke slippery slopes to argue there should be no speed limits, invoking slippery slopes to argue against any regulation is a cop-out. Why not advance a real argument vs just arguing picking the optimal boundary is impossible?

mattrp 7y ago
Heh... I find it funny that this issue underscores just how difficult it is for humans to uniformly decide on ground truth... but oh sure, let’s turn everything over to AI... that’ll be awesome! (Sorry for the non sequitor)
Barrin92 7y ago
yep, the whole "who decides on the truth?" thing is extremely irritating. Do we throw out every court case now because apparently it's impossible to determine what is fact and what is fiction, or to establish common rules or guidelines for conduct? We've been doing nothing else for thousands of years.
- ben509 7y ago
  A basic legal doctrine is that "it's better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be unjustly imprisoned." If anything, prosecutors have been taking your attitude and gaming the system with plea deals, so you're not merely wrong, but horribly wrong.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    and I don't see how this doctrine is violated if companies like twitter act with caution when in doubt. (which they have every incentive to do) But nobody says "Johnny the crazy axe murderer gets to roam free because who is to decide what is true or not?" Which is just about where the speech debate is for some people.
  - noelsusman 7y ago
    Treating everything as if the consequence of getting it wrong is sending an innocent person to prison doesn't make any sense. Courts don't even do that. They use different standards when imprisonment isn't an option.
- Clubber 7y ago
  It's more of a, "what is fact and what is opinion," rather than, "what is fact and what is fiction." "9 out of 10 doctors recommend Colgate," is a fact when Colgate picks the sample of doctors. A trained eye will realize that's actually an opinion, while it's designed to represent a fact. This works because people's opinions can be shaped by presenting an opinion as a majority. This technique is probably one of the most commonly used and it has many variants, such as, "Your child could be in danger of edibles in their Halloween candy." Technically a fact, but actually a disguised opinion.
humanrebar 7y ago
The concern is about categories, not magnitudes, though. A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks" so as to not harm blue collar small businesses. We would start seeing more personal vehicles designed to be "trucks" even if they weren't used for large hauls or some sort of business purpose. And, of course, we already see exactly that happen to car designs. The argument is that the incentives are there to follow the letter of the law and abuse the spirit, putting less onerous personalities at a disadvantage.
- airstrike 7y ago
  > A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks" That would be a pretty poor analogy since taxes are mandatory and imposed by the government. Nobody should feel obligated to use Twitter. You can't just decide to create an alternative tax system, but you're definitely free to build your own microblogging / social network.
  - humanrebar 7y ago
    You can decide to ride a bus or train. Or ride a bike. Or a motorcycle. And I wasn't going for a perfect analogy, just a better one.
friendlybus 7y ago
There are places where there are no speed limits. The autobahn for one. Arguing against 'the optimal boundary is impossible argument' assumes you agree with his base axioms, that things like money are more important than the exploration of other principles. These are not slippery slope arguments, but the very base of politics itself. Why have any rule.
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  You are begging the question by assuming that the autobahn is valuable beyond a speed-regulated road. I will agree the autobahn has novelty value for the sake of it's own peculiarity, but that isn't something you can generalize as valuable for other roads. If going as fast as you would like was valuable for any reason beyond novelty and/or tourism, we would be doing it already.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    >You are begging the question I would like to think, using the autobahn as an argument to make the point that parent's post wasn't as self-evident as it could appear. I agree the autobahn has it's own value judgement to be discussed if one so wishes.
- hk__2 7y ago
  > There are places where there are no speed limits. The autobahn for one. Notpick: only some portions of it don’t have speed limits. Even on those, it’s recommended to drive under the usual limit.
BurningFrog 7y ago
I think you just made a slippery slope argument against slippery slope arguments!!!
- donw 7y ago
  But it's so... smooth! (Yeah, I know, Reddit-style jokery, bring on the downvotes...)
- DavidSJ 7y ago
  I think it was an argument by analogy, not a slippery slope argument. Although I suppose the distinction between the two is a bit ... slippery.
zanny 7y ago
Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bags and get off for profit social media. You don't need to have an "argument" about "policy" on your own Mastodon instance. If upstream does something you don't like, you fork it. If another instance does something you don't like, you block it. Because thats actually your platform then.
- erichocean 7y ago
  Evergreen: Twitter is a public company. And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies. You're saying the opposite, now we can't regulate because they're quote-unquote "private"? Well, which is it? Can we regulate for-profit companies for the good of the nation or not? If not, why not?
  - aioprisan 7y ago
    We already regulate companies through laws. Pass the appropriate laws! The alternative is that we hope for companies to self-regulate, which may or may not align with what's good for society.
    - erichocean 7y ago
      My suggestions for lawmakers is as follows: If you have a user base in excess of 1% of the general population, you are a "Platform" and cannot restrict entrance by individuals or businesses, or full participation thereof, except upon a court order limiting said participation. [Fines t.b.d., but expect them to be punitive in nature.] This law supersedes any Terms of Service a provider might wish to enforce. Want to enforce "whatever you want" on your "platform"? Stay below the 1% threshold and you're good. Otherwise, you need to interact with the public in a completely neutral manner.
  - 7y ago
xkcd-sucks 7y ago
Most cops won't hassle you for going 45 in a 35 zone unless it's meaningfully unsafe, and the Autobahn's speed limit "don't be an idiot" at human discretion. One problem is the fuzzy nature of "political" advertising: For example, many people think of Planned Parenthood as a political organization, and some people think of Planned Parenthood as a health care provider. Ought Planned Parenthood to be allowed to advertise abortion services on Twitter?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  I would say yes because it's not actually a political ad, a political ad would be 'support abortion rights', 'keep abortion legal', etc, what you're talking about is directly an advertisement of a service. It could blur the line depending on the exact content but just because a service has been politicized doesn't mean ads about that service inherently become political.

mattrp 7y ago

Heh... I find it funny that this issue underscores just how difficult it is for humans to uniformly decide on ground truth... but oh sure, let’s turn everything over to AI... that’ll be awesome! (Sorry for the non sequitor)

Barrin92 7y ago

yep, the whole "who decides on the truth?" thing is extremely irritating. Do we throw out every court case now because apparently it's impossible to determine what is fact and what is fiction, or to establish common rules or guidelines for conduct? We've been doing nothing else for thousands of years.

ben509 7y ago
A basic legal doctrine is that "it's better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be unjustly imprisoned." If anything, prosecutors have been taking your attitude and gaming the system with plea deals, so you're not merely wrong, but horribly wrong.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  and I don't see how this doctrine is violated if companies like twitter act with caution when in doubt. (which they have every incentive to do) But nobody says "Johnny the crazy axe murderer gets to roam free because who is to decide what is true or not?" Which is just about where the speech debate is for some people.
- noelsusman 7y ago
  Treating everything as if the consequence of getting it wrong is sending an innocent person to prison doesn't make any sense. Courts don't even do that. They use different standards when imprisonment isn't an option.
Clubber 7y ago
It's more of a, "what is fact and what is opinion," rather than, "what is fact and what is fiction." "9 out of 10 doctors recommend Colgate," is a fact when Colgate picks the sample of doctors. A trained eye will realize that's actually an opinion, while it's designed to represent a fact. This works because people's opinions can be shaped by presenting an opinion as a majority. This technique is probably one of the most commonly used and it has many variants, such as, "Your child could be in danger of edibles in their Halloween candy." Technically a fact, but actually a disguised opinion.

humanrebar 7y ago

The concern is about categories, not magnitudes, though. A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks" so as to not harm blue collar small businesses. We would start seeing more personal vehicles designed to be "trucks" even if they weren't used for large hauls or some sort of business purpose. And, of course, we already see exactly that happen to car designs. The argument is that the incentives are there to follow the letter of the law and abuse the spirit, putting less onerous personalities at a disadvantage.

airstrike 7y ago
> A better analogy would be a certain tax rate for "cars" and another lower one for "trucks" That would be a pretty poor analogy since taxes are mandatory and imposed by the government. Nobody should feel obligated to use Twitter. You can't just decide to create an alternative tax system, but you're definitely free to build your own microblogging / social network.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  You can decide to ride a bus or train. Or ride a bike. Or a motorcycle. And I wasn't going for a perfect analogy, just a better one.

friendlybus 7y ago

There are places where there are no speed limits. The autobahn for one. Arguing against 'the optimal boundary is impossible argument' assumes you agree with his base axioms, that things like money are more important than the exploration of other principles. These are not slippery slope arguments, but the very base of politics itself. Why have any rule.

birdyrooster 7y ago
You are begging the question by assuming that the autobahn is valuable beyond a speed-regulated road. I will agree the autobahn has novelty value for the sake of it's own peculiarity, but that isn't something you can generalize as valuable for other roads. If going as fast as you would like was valuable for any reason beyond novelty and/or tourism, we would be doing it already.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  >You are begging the question I would like to think, using the autobahn as an argument to make the point that parent's post wasn't as self-evident as it could appear. I agree the autobahn has it's own value judgement to be discussed if one so wishes.
hk__2 7y ago
> There are places where there are no speed limits. The autobahn for one. Notpick: only some portions of it don’t have speed limits. Even on those, it’s recommended to drive under the usual limit.

BurningFrog 7y ago

I think you just made a slippery slope argument against slippery slope arguments!!!

donw 7y ago
But it's so... smooth! (Yeah, I know, Reddit-style jokery, bring on the downvotes...)
DavidSJ 7y ago
I think it was an argument by analogy, not a slippery slope argument. Although I suppose the distinction between the two is a bit ... slippery.

zanny 7y ago

Trying to make a slippery slope argument about a private corporations private, for-profit website is hilarious. Twitter will do whatever the hell it wants on its own property and has no obligation to listen to anyone except the voice of 51% of its shareholders. If you don't want your communications to be under the total absolute control of a corporate entity you have no influence over, you might want to pack your bags and get off for profit social media. You don't need to have an "argument" about "policy" on your own Mastodon instance. If upstream does something you don't like, you fork it. If another instance does something you don't like, you block it. Because thats actually your platform then.

erichocean 7y ago
Evergreen: Twitter is a public company. And the grandparent just argued that we should easily be able to regulate companies. You're saying the opposite, now we can't regulate because they're quote-unquote "private"? Well, which is it? Can we regulate for-profit companies for the good of the nation or not? If not, why not?
- aioprisan 7y ago
  We already regulate companies through laws. Pass the appropriate laws! The alternative is that we hope for companies to self-regulate, which may or may not align with what's good for society.
  - erichocean 7y ago
    My suggestions for lawmakers is as follows: If you have a user base in excess of 1% of the general population, you are a "Platform" and cannot restrict entrance by individuals or businesses, or full participation thereof, except upon a court order limiting said participation. [Fines t.b.d., but expect them to be punitive in nature.] This law supersedes any Terms of Service a provider might wish to enforce. Want to enforce "whatever you want" on your "platform"? Stay below the 1% threshold and you're good. Otherwise, you need to interact with the public in a completely neutral manner.
- 7y ago

xkcd-sucks 7y ago

Most cops won't hassle you for going 45 in a 35 zone unless it's meaningfully unsafe, and the Autobahn's speed limit "don't be an idiot" at human discretion. One problem is the fuzzy nature of "political" advertising: For example, many people think of Planned Parenthood as a political organization, and some people think of Planned Parenthood as a health care provider. Ought Planned Parenthood to be allowed to advertise abortion services on Twitter?

rtkwe 7y ago
I would say yes because it's not actually a political ad, a political ad would be 'support abortion rights', 'keep abortion legal', etc, what you're talking about is directly an advertisement of a service. It could blur the line depending on the exact content but just because a service has been politicized doesn't mean ads about that service inherently become political.