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1. how is this not a slippery slope? 2. have we completely given up on critical thinking and education? 3. free speech vs not so free speech. i guess we're ch

by kmlx 7y ago

1. how is this not a slippery slope? 2. have we completely given up on critical thinking and education? 3. free speech vs not so free speech. i guess we're choosing "not so free"?

krapp 7y ago
1. How is allowing the unchecked proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? 2. False dichotomy - Twitter attempting to label deepfakes and deceptive media has no negative effect on critical thinking or education, just as Twitter not doing has no positive effect on either. Twitter is not setting education policy for any society or government, here. 3. There is no government or society in the world which does not place some limits on speech in some form, even the US has laws against terrorist threats, slander, libel, lying under oath, misleading labels on food and drugs, misleading contracts, etc ... demonstrating that one common and widely accepted basis for limiting speech is deception and misleading information. Also, merely classifying data is not preventing its spread, and is not, therefore, a limit on free speech even in theory. If that were the case, then every tag on Twitter would also somehow be "not free speech." Also, Twitter is a privately owned platform, not a government or a public square.
- kmlx 7y ago
  > 1. How is allowing the proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change?
  - krapp 7y ago
    >we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? We've also had experts and arbiters of truth for 400 years. Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? >how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change? I personally have never made any such decision. Trust is unavoidable either way. Twitter wants people to trust their good judgement in determining what is and isn't a deepfake, fabricated of false information. If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias (created and fed from third party sources.) No one is able to independently and objectively verify every claim they encounter. The only (as yet undetermined) relevant factor here is whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. If so, then I see no harm done. If not, the feature will probably be abandoned. I don't particularly buy into the implied third option that Twitter and other platforms will be using features like this to intentionally mislead the public in order to further some radical political agenda of misinformation and thought control.
    - syshum 7y ago
      >>> Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Most of the time that type of narrative is being pushed by the same people that desire the tech companies to suppress certain kinds of speech >>If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. >>whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail
      - krapp 7y ago
        >The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Who are you quoting? >It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. So what you're saying is, people should trust "original" sources and "multiple" sources. But original sources can be misleading, deceptive or have ulterior motives, so how do you verify their authenticity without trusting a third party? And if no single source can be trusted, how can you trust multiple sources? Surely all sources are equally untrustworthy, even if they all report the same events. How do you verify that a commonly reported narrative is not simply well orchestrated propaganda? It has always been the case that trust is necessary. Before the internet, people trusted the news. Before television, people trusted newspapers, radio and newsreels. People trust Einstein, Bohr, Newton, Darwin, Euclid without personally doing the necessary experiments to rediscover the entire corpus of modern scientific thought from first principles. Before the printing press and the Enlightenment, people trusted the Clergy and town criers. Subjective truth is always based on implicit trust. Anyone who believes otherwise about themselves is simply unaware of the systems in which they place their faith and from which they form their biases. >The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. Absurd hyperbole. "most news" is decidedly not unverified claims from random twitter accounts. I'm guessing you've got some specific instance in mind that you're trying to conflate into a general practice, but if you look at the headlines and news from any mainstream source (CNN, Fox, BBC, AlJazeera, what have you) the vast majority are not the sort of sensationalized, unverified, Twitter-based stories you're describing. >This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail Do you have a whitepaper proving that an algorithmic solution to this problem is impossible? If so, let us see it. Otherwise, you're just posturing.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    It's been a concern all that time? "Yellow journalism" was a term coined in the 1890s. Wars have been started by propaganda. > how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? I'm not sure what this means - I find I have to rely on the judgement of others simply in order to get on, as there isn't enough time to evaluate everything myself and it would be irresponsible to conclude that it's all false. That line of reasoning leads to concluding that Chicago doesn't exist because I've never seen it. But I need to be incresingly careful about whose judgement I trust and in what subjects.
- syshum 7y ago
  >>Also, Twitter is a privately owned platform, not a government or a public square. This is a terrible argument and people need to stop, at least you did not all use the trite "can't yell fire" non-sense but "they are a private company" is right up there with that. >>Also, merely classifying data is not preventing its spread, It is highly unlikely that this stops at just classification and tagging. I am sure there is some element of Suppression as well
  - zerocrates 7y ago
    Hmm... "can't yell fire" is pretty much nonsense, but "private company" very much isn't. The rules for what the government can do and what private entities can are totally different, on purpose.
    - Pete_D 7y ago
      The problem is that this allows a neat loophole in which governments can sidestep any inconvenient civil rights obligations by privatisation of otherwise public space. For a real-life example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_Square#Occupy_London_and_public_space_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_Square#Occupy_Lond....
bilbo0s 7y ago
>3. free speech vs not so free speech. i guess we're choosing "not so free"? Well, to be fair, it's all free speech. The guy who uploaded the deep fake exercised his right to free expression to do so, and the private company that labeled it a deep fake also exercised their right to free expression. Technically speaking, this is an example of the radically open and unregulated nature of free speech in the private sector. Other people labeling your content as "lies" or whatever is a natural consequence of that radically open environment. It would be "not so free" if the government sent people around to question you whenever you upload a deep fake. Like they do when people mouth off while in, say, a CounterStrike session, about what they're going to do to the other kids at school.
- 0x445442 7y ago
  The private company argument holds no water when they selectively apply their standards to promote their ideologies. At that point they're not an unbiased content platform but a biased publisher and need to be regulated as such. So the government needs to force these companies to decide are they 8kun or CNN?
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    That only motivates companies insofar as you are not going to hold them accountable for illegal content on their servers in any case. But we've made clear to Twitter that they will be held accountable for such content. (That's why the guys and gals in the navy blue windbreakers are, effectively, a constant fixture at Twitter. There's literally nothing Twitter can do about it.) So if you're going to make them operate under those conditions whether they are a platform or not, what benefit is there to cooperate with you? I can understand Twitter's view. Just let the government guys in full time, and do your best to take out content you know is going to cause problems. If you miss anything, the government guys can kill it themselves. That way, you're never in a position where it can be said that you were not cooperating with the government. It's unsurprising that your argument isn't swaying any of the various corporate counsels. I mean, it's an argument that's purely theoretical in a world where the government has said they will hold you accountable for fake news and government agents siphon the communication feeds from your servers full time anyway. Think of it this way, a threat to chop off someone's arms, is only effective if you have not already chopped off their arms.
nathias 7y ago
the main antagonism is that private companies have become the infrastructure necessary for defacto free speech expression, i wonder how long it will take untill people recognize the proper function of a public space again

by kmlx 7y ago

1. how is this not a slippery slope? 2. have we completely given up on critical thinking and education? 3. free speech vs not so free speech. i guess we're choosing "not so free"?

krapp 7y ago

1. How is allowing the unchecked proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? 2. False dichotomy - Twitter attempting to label deepfakes and deceptive media has no negative effect on critical thinking or education, just as Twitter not doing has no positive effect on either. Twitter is not setting education policy for any society or government, here. 3. There is no government or society in the world which does not place some limits on speech in some form, even the US has laws against terrorist threats, slander, libel, lying under oath, misleading labels on food and drugs, misleading contracts, etc ... demonstrating that one common and widely accepted basis for limiting speech is deception and misleading information. Also, merely classifying data is not preventing its spread, and is not, therefore, a limit on free speech even in theory. If that were the case, then every tag on Twitter would also somehow be "not free speech." Also, Twitter is a privately owned platform, not a government or a public square.

kmlx 7y ago
> 1. How is allowing the proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change?
- krapp 7y ago
  >we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? We've also had experts and arbiters of truth for 400 years. Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? >how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change? I personally have never made any such decision. Trust is unavoidable either way. Twitter wants people to trust their good judgement in determining what is and isn't a deepfake, fabricated of false information. If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias (created and fed from third party sources.) No one is able to independently and objectively verify every claim they encounter. The only (as yet undetermined) relevant factor here is whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. If so, then I see no harm done. If not, the feature will probably be abandoned. I don't particularly buy into the implied third option that Twitter and other platforms will be using features like this to intentionally mislead the public in order to further some radical political agenda of misinformation and thought control.
  - syshum 7y ago
    >>> Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Most of the time that type of narrative is being pushed by the same people that desire the tech companies to suppress certain kinds of speech >>If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. >>whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail
    - krapp 7y ago
      >The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Who are you quoting? >It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. So what you're saying is, people should trust "original" sources and "multiple" sources. But original sources can be misleading, deceptive or have ulterior motives, so how do you verify their authenticity without trusting a third party? And if no single source can be trusted, how can you trust multiple sources? Surely all sources are equally untrustworthy, even if they all report the same events. How do you verify that a commonly reported narrative is not simply well orchestrated propaganda? It has always been the case that trust is necessary. Before the internet, people trusted the news. Before television, people trusted newspapers, radio and newsreels. People trust Einstein, Bohr, Newton, Darwin, Euclid without personally doing the necessary experiments to rediscover the entire corpus of modern scientific thought from first principles. Before the printing press and the Enlightenment, people trusted the Clergy and town criers. Subjective truth is always based on implicit trust. Anyone who believes otherwise about themselves is simply unaware of the systems in which they place their faith and from which they form their biases. >The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. Absurd hyperbole. "most news" is decidedly not unverified claims from random twitter accounts. I'm guessing you've got some specific instance in mind that you're trying to conflate into a general practice, but if you look at the headlines and news from any mainstream source (CNN, Fox, BBC, AlJazeera, what have you) the vast majority are not the sort of sensationalized, unverified, Twitter-based stories you're describing. >This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail Do you have a whitepaper proving that an algorithmic solution to this problem is impossible? If so, let us see it. Otherwise, you're just posturing.
- pjc50 7y ago
  It's been a concern all that time? "Yellow journalism" was a term coined in the 1890s. Wars have been started by propaganda. > how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? I'm not sure what this means - I find I have to rely on the judgement of others simply in order to get on, as there isn't enough time to evaluate everything myself and it would be irresponsible to conclude that it's all false. That line of reasoning leads to concluding that Chicago doesn't exist because I've never seen it. But I need to be incresingly careful about whose judgement I trust and in what subjects.
syshum 7y ago
>>Also, Twitter is a privately owned platform, not a government or a public square. This is a terrible argument and people need to stop, at least you did not all use the trite "can't yell fire" non-sense but "they are a private company" is right up there with that. >>Also, merely classifying data is not preventing its spread, It is highly unlikely that this stops at just classification and tagging. I am sure there is some element of Suppression as well
- zerocrates 7y ago
  Hmm... "can't yell fire" is pretty much nonsense, but "private company" very much isn't. The rules for what the government can do and what private entities can are totally different, on purpose.
  - Pete_D 7y ago
    The problem is that this allows a neat loophole in which governments can sidestep any inconvenient civil rights obligations by privatisation of otherwise public space. For a real-life example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_Square#Occupy_London_and_public_space_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_Square#Occupy_Lond....

bilbo0s 7y ago

>3. free speech vs not so free speech. i guess we're choosing "not so free"? Well, to be fair, it's all free speech. The guy who uploaded the deep fake exercised his right to free expression to do so, and the private company that labeled it a deep fake also exercised their right to free expression. Technically speaking, this is an example of the radically open and unregulated nature of free speech in the private sector. Other people labeling your content as "lies" or whatever is a natural consequence of that radically open environment. It would be "not so free" if the government sent people around to question you whenever you upload a deep fake. Like they do when people mouth off while in, say, a CounterStrike session, about what they're going to do to the other kids at school.

0x445442 7y ago
The private company argument holds no water when they selectively apply their standards to promote their ideologies. At that point they're not an unbiased content platform but a biased publisher and need to be regulated as such. So the government needs to force these companies to decide are they 8kun or CNN?
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  That only motivates companies insofar as you are not going to hold them accountable for illegal content on their servers in any case. But we've made clear to Twitter that they will be held accountable for such content. (That's why the guys and gals in the navy blue windbreakers are, effectively, a constant fixture at Twitter. There's literally nothing Twitter can do about it.) So if you're going to make them operate under those conditions whether they are a platform or not, what benefit is there to cooperate with you? I can understand Twitter's view. Just let the government guys in full time, and do your best to take out content you know is going to cause problems. If you miss anything, the government guys can kill it themselves. That way, you're never in a position where it can be said that you were not cooperating with the government. It's unsurprising that your argument isn't swaying any of the various corporate counsels. I mean, it's an argument that's purely theoretical in a world where the government has said they will hold you accountable for fake news and government agents siphon the communication feeds from your servers full time anyway. Think of it this way, a threat to chop off someone's arms, is only effective if you have not already chopped off their arms.

nathias 7y ago

the main antagonism is that private companies have become the infrastructure necessary for defacto free speech expression, i wonder how long it will take untill people recognize the proper function of a public space again