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From the speech: > Twitter could deploy an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate-speech, but they have reportedly haven't because it would eject some

From the speech: > Twitter could deploy an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate-speech, but they have reportedly haven't because it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. > Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. While I appreciate the sentiment behind a lot of Baron Cohen's speech, and generally distrust Facebook, the idea of having what can be said on the platform regulated either by algorithms or by a large number of monitors does sound to me like a step too far. An algorithm that ejects prominent politicians is political censorship—that should not be OK. It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. Steps that are already being enacted, like “reduc[ing] the distribution of that content” and adding fact checking annotations to incorrect information, seems to do much of the same good while not also shifting the overton window towards Ministry of Truth roles for our already-too-powerful tech companies.

commandlinefan 7y ago
> ejects prominent politicians is political censorship And is evidence that the _algorithms aren’t working correctly_. They’re supposed to pinpoint indisputably hateful rhetoric and if they’re producing significant false positives then yes, Mr. Cohen, that _is_ a bad thing. A _very_ bad thing.
- methehack 7y ago
  Or is it evidence that the politicians aren't working correctly?
- tpush 7y ago
  ... or those "prominent politicians" are using "indisputably hateful rhetoric".
  - commandlinefan 7y ago
    Well, that’s the sound-bite/bumber-sticker/I’m-on-the-right-side-of-history-so-I-don’t-care-what-the-collateral-damage-is-as-long-as-Trump-suffers quip, but, no, no they aren’t. When I was young, the censors were all right-wing Christian conservatives, and we successfully (for the most part) fought back against them. One of the most often-repeated weapons in the fight against right-wing censorship back then was, “if you accept censorship of obscenity, you’re going to end up with censorship of political viewpoints”. Yet here we are, in spite of the relatively victory against right-wing censorship, staring down the barrel of much worse left-wing KGB-style censorship.
- badrequest 7y ago
  It's very generous of you to assume they're false positives.
tyre 7y ago
> It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. That's not working. The New York Times, Washington Post, testimony from state department officials, climate scientists, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetcetctectetc hasn't gotten through to this country. Believing that "truth wins in a marketplace of ideas" relies on a) people caring about the truth above all else, including their emotions b) people having access to the truth c) people being able to tell truth from fiction The counter-point to these is the entirety of human history. We have built technology that has hacked human nature for profit. Sugary and fatty foods overwhelm our capacity to differentiate food that is good from food that is good for us. Heroin creates tremendous addiction that is, for most people, entirely unbreakable. Social media has consumed a generation with performative outrage, diminishing attention spans, and hyper-targeted misinformation. The mortgage crisis was triggered by people buying homes on financial terms that they did not understand, which would have worked out only in an impossible scenario where home prices never go down, interest rates sit at near-zero, and their income continues to go up. It might be time to admit that "just give people options and they'll make the right choice" is bullshit. It doesn't work. People aren't rational creatures with infinite will. This isn't an argument between the Ministry of Truth and infinite freedom. Even the 1st Amendment—which doesn't apply here—has limitations, because we live in a society and some lies can get people killed. It's not as hard as people make it out to be to take incremental steps towards quelling humanity's worst impulses. We can do this.
- Veedrac 7y ago
  My opinion is based off the fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians. I'm not of the opinion that reduced visibility and annotations will solve the problem. I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship.
  - tyre 7y ago
    > cheer for the censorship of politicians This is almost willfully in bad faith. They didn't "cheer for the censorship of politicians", they want something done about lies that are eroding our democracy. If politicians are a part of that, well, okay! Are they "cheering for the censorship" of nation-state actors? Maybe! And that's…maybe not bad? > I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship. I mean, should they not remove child pornography, rape video, snuff films, or cruelty to animals? That is censorship and those things are on some part of the slope! Will there be edge cases and mistakes? Absolutely. Guaranteed. Are the risks of those edge or ambiguous cases sometimes going the "wrong" way worth so much to us that we throw up our hands and say, "Ah, shit, can't do anything about this. Literally any change at all would be treason to freedom."? I don't know. It just seems…
aglavine 7y ago
I don't care about algorithm automatic censorship. Probably a few perfectly fine posts would be deleted. But the amount of hate speech and manipulation in social platforms is way too much and it is an annoyance.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
amznthrowaway4 7y ago
Are you opposed to social media companies removing / hiding / reducing the reach of anti-western and terrorist propaganda? Do you think ISIS and Al Qaeda should have broader reach?
- Veedrac 7y ago
  I think terrorist propaganda is a clear case where censorship is reasonable, and I believe all major platforms already do so.
  - amznthrowaway4 7y ago
    Does your opinion change when referring to white American terrorists? (nazis, white nationalists, other groups that incite domestic terror) Or is your support of these limits scoped specifically to anti-western muslim terrorists?
    - Veedrac 7y ago
      No, not particularly. But bear in mind that I'm making a distinction between Muslim terrorist propaganda (censorship OK) and people arguing on behalf of the Quran (censorship generally not OK).
      - amznthrowaway4 7y ago
        The algorithms that ban Muslim terrorist propaganda also routinely ban non-terrorist Muslim content. They have essentially the exact same failure modes as anti-Nazi algorithms that also ban some politicians. Why are you tolerant of these problems in one case, but extremely bothered by them in the other?
tgv 7y ago
He later mentions that newspapers and TV are regulated and held to standards. These could be applied to facebook and twitter too.

commandlinefan 7y ago

> ejects prominent politicians is political censorship And is evidence that the _algorithms aren’t working correctly_. They’re supposed to pinpoint indisputably hateful rhetoric and if they’re producing significant false positives then yes, Mr. Cohen, that _is_ a bad thing. A _very_ bad thing.

methehack 7y ago
Or is it evidence that the politicians aren't working correctly?
tpush 7y ago
... or those "prominent politicians" are using "indisputably hateful rhetoric".
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Well, that’s the sound-bite/bumber-sticker/I’m-on-the-right-side-of-history-so-I-don’t-care-what-the-collateral-damage-is-as-long-as-Trump-suffers quip, but, no, no they aren’t. When I was young, the censors were all right-wing Christian conservatives, and we successfully (for the most part) fought back against them. One of the most often-repeated weapons in the fight against right-wing censorship back then was, “if you accept censorship of obscenity, you’re going to end up with censorship of political viewpoints”. Yet here we are, in spite of the relatively victory against right-wing censorship, staring down the barrel of much worse left-wing KGB-style censorship.
badrequest 7y ago
It's very generous of you to assume they're false positives.

tyre 7y ago

> It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. That's not working. The New York Times, Washington Post, testimony from state department officials, climate scientists, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetcetctectetc hasn't gotten through to this country. Believing that "truth wins in a marketplace of ideas" relies on a) people caring about the truth above all else, including their emotions b) people having access to the truth c) people being able to tell truth from fiction The counter-point to these is the entirety of human history. We have built technology that has hacked human nature for profit. Sugary and fatty foods overwhelm our capacity to differentiate food that is good from food that is good for us. Heroin creates tremendous addiction that is, for most people, entirely unbreakable. Social media has consumed a generation with performative outrage, diminishing attention spans, and hyper-targeted misinformation. The mortgage crisis was triggered by people buying homes on financial terms that they did not understand, which would have worked out only in an impossible scenario where home prices never go down, interest rates sit at near-zero, and their income continues to go up. It might be time to admit that "just give people options and they'll make the right choice" is bullshit. It doesn't work. People aren't rational creatures with infinite will. This isn't an argument between the Ministry of Truth and infinite freedom. Even the 1st Amendment—which doesn't apply here—has limitations, because we live in a society and some lies can get people killed. It's not as hard as people make it out to be to take incremental steps towards quelling humanity's worst impulses. We can do this.

Veedrac 7y ago
My opinion is based off the fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians. I'm not of the opinion that reduced visibility and annotations will solve the problem. I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship.
- tyre 7y ago
  > cheer for the censorship of politicians This is almost willfully in bad faith. They didn't "cheer for the censorship of politicians", they want something done about lies that are eroding our democracy. If politicians are a part of that, well, okay! Are they "cheering for the censorship" of nation-state actors? Maybe! And that's…maybe not bad? > I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship. I mean, should they not remove child pornography, rape video, snuff films, or cruelty to animals? That is censorship and those things are on some part of the slope! Will there be edge cases and mistakes? Absolutely. Guaranteed. Are the risks of those edge or ambiguous cases sometimes going the "wrong" way worth so much to us that we throw up our hands and say, "Ah, shit, can't do anything about this. Literally any change at all would be treason to freedom."? I don't know. It just seems…

aglavine 7y ago

I don't care about algorithm automatic censorship. Probably a few perfectly fine posts would be deleted. But the amount of hate speech and manipulation in social platforms is way too much and it is an annoyance.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

amznthrowaway4 7y ago

Are you opposed to social media companies removing / hiding / reducing the reach of anti-western and terrorist propaganda? Do you think ISIS and Al Qaeda should have broader reach?

Veedrac 7y ago
I think terrorist propaganda is a clear case where censorship is reasonable, and I believe all major platforms already do so.
- amznthrowaway4 7y ago
  Does your opinion change when referring to white American terrorists? (nazis, white nationalists, other groups that incite domestic terror) Or is your support of these limits scoped specifically to anti-western muslim terrorists?
  - Veedrac 7y ago
    No, not particularly. But bear in mind that I'm making a distinction between Muslim terrorist propaganda (censorship OK) and people arguing on behalf of the Quran (censorship generally not OK).
    - amznthrowaway4 7y ago
      The algorithms that ban Muslim terrorist propaganda also routinely ban non-terrorist Muslim content. They have essentially the exact same failure modes as anti-Nazi algorithms that also ban some politicians. Why are you tolerant of these problems in one case, but extremely bothered by them in the other?

tgv 7y ago

He later mentions that newspapers and TV are regulated and held to standards. These could be applied to facebook and twitter too.