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Here is the video link hosted on the "greatest propaganda machine in history": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq

Here is the video link hosted on the "greatest propaganda machine in history": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM

jedberg 7y ago
Thank you, that was excellent.
gfodor 7y ago
I mean, it's a nice speech but it's not surfacing any new thinking or ideas. SBC's argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand, he paints tech companies as greedy, untrustworthy, and arguably evil. At the same time, he feels that these companies should be trusted to regulate speech to a degree beyond what they already are doing. (In his example, through regulatory force telling them to do so.) In general, he wants the end (no "bad" speech) but doesn't provide a clear picture of the means to get there. This is common. The argument against companies regulating more speech is that people who are not Nazis will be caught in the crossfire, and that will lead to unintended consequences. In his speech, SBC admits as much, citing Twitter's claim that algorithmic regulation of speech would result in de-platforming politicians. SBC claims that this may not be a bad thing. This illustrates the problem: SBC like many others are perfectly fine with people being de-platformed not just for true hate speech, but for speech they disagree with, because it is algorithmically similar to hate speech. This is the crux of the issue, and it's at least good for someone to admit it: typically proponents of centralized speech regulation pretend like the issue of false positives doesn't exist. Such false positives will result in law-abiding citizens being de-platformed, and that is unacceptable to many. To whatever degree that strategy is taken, you can bet your money on these companies losing their power to decentralized platforms. If it's no longer possible to post on social media without a reasonable risk that your words will get nuked because of being mis-flagged (and your reputation unjustly soiled) -- people will move elsewhere. The irony will be that the net effect will be way worse than today: completely unmoderated, unregulated speech with global reach. (this is probably inevitable for a variety of reasons, but this current dynamic probably accelerates it.) edit: appreciate the downvotes, feel free to check back here in 10 years when facebook + twitter are no longer serious platforms because they're policed by over-zealous, government-mandated moderators, and anyone posting anything interesting is on a decentralized platform or some new centralized platform which has yet to be put under public scrutiny.
- basch 7y ago
  And not just law abiding speech being deplatformed, but what will AI do with new speech it has never seen before? Will it understand its context, its references, its sarcasm, its wink, its intention? It's another way to trap us into only having conversations that have already been pre-approved by the past.
- wyldfire 7y ago
  > In general, he wants the end (no "bad" speech) but doesn't provide a clear picture of the means to get there. This is common. The MPAA example is a perfect and very clear example. Lots of publishers have gone through the same thing: regulate yourself or be regulated by the people.
  - gfodor 7y ago
    As long the Internet is not subject to government packet filtering based upon content (ie, the US doesn't become China), there's no way to prevent the eventual outcome that someone can say bad things and it reach millions of people. If that person breaks the law, the legal system can hold them accountable. But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It's not a new lesson. It's hundreds of years old, all that is different now is the speed of dissemination and scale of reach. The current centralized platforms are transitional technology. There's some kind of Nash equilibrium where they can exist in a regime where a certain level of legal speech is stifled, but as soon as that threshold is breached and a sufficient sub-network of people conclude their speech needs to go around any centralized provider, the incentives are there to do the work to make it possible -- and internet infrastructure which already exists would arguably be the hardest problem they'd need to solve.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It can't be stopped, but it can be severely limited. See: 8chan and Stormfront.

Here is the video link hosted on the "greatest propaganda machine in history": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM

jedberg 7y ago

Thank you, that was excellent.

gfodor 7y ago

I mean, it's a nice speech but it's not surfacing any new thinking or ideas. SBC's argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand, he paints tech companies as greedy, untrustworthy, and arguably evil. At the same time, he feels that these companies should be trusted to regulate speech to a degree beyond what they already are doing. (In his example, through regulatory force telling them to do so.) In general, he wants the end (no "bad" speech) but doesn't provide a clear picture of the means to get there. This is common. The argument against companies regulating more speech is that people who are not Nazis will be caught in the crossfire, and that will lead to unintended consequences. In his speech, SBC admits as much, citing Twitter's claim that algorithmic regulation of speech would result in de-platforming politicians. SBC claims that this may not be a bad thing. This illustrates the problem: SBC like many others are perfectly fine with people being de-platformed not just for true hate speech, but for speech they disagree with, because it is algorithmically similar to hate speech. This is the crux of the issue, and it's at least good for someone to admit it: typically proponents of centralized speech regulation pretend like the issue of false positives doesn't exist. Such false positives will result in law-abiding citizens being de-platformed, and that is unacceptable to many. To whatever degree that strategy is taken, you can bet your money on these companies losing their power to decentralized platforms. If it's no longer possible to post on social media without a reasonable risk that your words will get nuked because of being mis-flagged (and your reputation unjustly soiled) -- people will move elsewhere. The irony will be that the net effect will be way worse than today: completely unmoderated, unregulated speech with global reach. (this is probably inevitable for a variety of reasons, but this current dynamic probably accelerates it.) edit: appreciate the downvotes, feel free to check back here in 10 years when facebook + twitter are no longer serious platforms because they're policed by over-zealous, government-mandated moderators, and anyone posting anything interesting is on a decentralized platform or some new centralized platform which has yet to be put under public scrutiny.

basch 7y ago
And not just law abiding speech being deplatformed, but what will AI do with new speech it has never seen before? Will it understand its context, its references, its sarcasm, its wink, its intention? It's another way to trap us into only having conversations that have already been pre-approved by the past.
wyldfire 7y ago
> In general, he wants the end (no "bad" speech) but doesn't provide a clear picture of the means to get there. This is common. The MPAA example is a perfect and very clear example. Lots of publishers have gone through the same thing: regulate yourself or be regulated by the people.
- gfodor 7y ago
  As long the Internet is not subject to government packet filtering based upon content (ie, the US doesn't become China), there's no way to prevent the eventual outcome that someone can say bad things and it reach millions of people. If that person breaks the law, the legal system can hold them accountable. But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It's not a new lesson. It's hundreds of years old, all that is different now is the speed of dissemination and scale of reach. The current centralized platforms are transitional technology. There's some kind of Nash equilibrium where they can exist in a regime where a certain level of legal speech is stifled, but as soon as that threshold is breached and a sufficient sub-network of people conclude their speech needs to go around any centralized provider, the incentives are there to do the work to make it possible -- and internet infrastructure which already exists would arguably be the hardest problem they'd need to solve.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It can't be stopped, but it can be severely limited. See: 8chan and Stormfront.