4 ms·

“They are burning books and destroying value: art, teaching, literature. It’s not okay.” What are you referring to, specifically? “ their behavior needs to ch

“They are burning books and destroying value: art, teaching, literature. It’s not okay.” What are you referring to, specifically? “ their behavior needs to change before it hurts our society even more.” What specific harm to society occurs when using a toy gun for an emoji?

sneak 7y ago
I’m talking about censorship of legal content. These companies serve as sort of a web host, but also an application service provider. I have friends and acquaintances who have worked hard to build audiences, and then these platforms took that away from them via censorship. Of course, you can make the argument that it was really Facebook’s audience the whole time, but that ignores the content being generated by my friends which drove the whole thing. Useful instructional videos and webpages I liked watching/reading and wanted to revisit had been deleted in the intervening time. It’s destroying value, because these sites function as content-neutral hosting... until suddenly they don’t one day as the censorship hammer comes down. I have been telling people to start hosting on their own domains instead. This is the only way we can disintermediate our audience we work so hard to build. The gun emoji one is more subtle. Emoji are, recall, plain text. Changing the rendering of plain text to alter its meaning is really, really bad. Here’s an example scenario as to why such ambiguity is harmful: Imagine you’re a parent. It’s summer, and it’s hot. You have a squirt gun battle with your child. The next morning, you take them to school. (You’re a parent in the southern hemisphere, probably.) An hour later you get a text from them: johnny brought a (gun emoji) to school The rendering of this image is platform-specific. Their message is either harmless context-referencing fun, or cause for the most major of alarm. Which is it? Depending on the sender’s device, they could be indicating a toy gun or a real one. Depending on the receiver’s device, it could render the same or differently. Regardless of how you feel about weapons, surely you can recognize that introducing that communications ambiguity introduces a safety issue because it just impaired communications. Now realize that they did so as a political statement. That’s not okay, any more than changing the rendering of any other letter of plain text. I really, really do not want my text handling and rendering systems editorializing to me. Ever.
- dane-pgp 7y ago
  In case people think that your "text message with gun emoji" hypothetical is too contrived, it is worth remembering that software systems making assumptions about how to render characters, even with the most innocent of intentions, can occasionally result in disastrously unintended consequences: https://gizmodo.com/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people-puts-three-m-382026 https://gizmodo.com/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-peopl...
throwawaysea 7y ago
I am not a gun enthusiast like the grandparent commenter. However, the toy gun emoji is an act of editorialization and politicization. Apple (and some others) took an emoji that had a particular intent and changed it to something else, to better suit their ideological views. The harm is that it disallows citizens from expressing themselves precisely and accurately. It makes it harder to send communication involving guns (for example reacting to a comment with a gun emoji) and it sends guns to a less visible medium (full text). This change is a political stance on guns and therefore editorialization, since it diminishes the opinions of those who back the 2nd amendment. Likewise, taking a hotly debated politicized topic like transgender people, and adding gender neutral emojis, is also editorialization. And likewise, Apple fighting back to prevent a rifle emoji (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/20/apple-rifle-emoji-phones-unicode https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/20/apple-rif...) is editorialization. It's not just me noting that these changes are politically motivated. It's pretty clear to everyone. See https://www.wired.com/2016/08/apples-new-squirt-gun-emoji-hides-big-political-statement/ https://www.wired.com/2016/08/apples-new-squirt-gun-emoji-hi...

sneak 7y ago

I’m talking about censorship of legal content. These companies serve as sort of a web host, but also an application service provider. I have friends and acquaintances who have worked hard to build audiences, and then these platforms took that away from them via censorship. Of course, you can make the argument that it was really Facebook’s audience the whole time, but that ignores the content being generated by my friends which drove the whole thing. Useful instructional videos and webpages I liked watching/reading and wanted to revisit had been deleted in the intervening time. It’s destroying value, because these sites function as content-neutral hosting... until suddenly they don’t one day as the censorship hammer comes down. I have been telling people to start hosting on their own domains instead. This is the only way we can disintermediate our audience we work so hard to build. The gun emoji one is more subtle. Emoji are, recall, plain text. Changing the rendering of plain text to alter its meaning is really, really bad. Here’s an example scenario as to why such ambiguity is harmful: Imagine you’re a parent. It’s summer, and it’s hot. You have a squirt gun battle with your child. The next morning, you take them to school. (You’re a parent in the southern hemisphere, probably.) An hour later you get a text from them: johnny brought a (gun emoji) to school The rendering of this image is platform-specific. Their message is either harmless context-referencing fun, or cause for the most major of alarm. Which is it? Depending on the sender’s device, they could be indicating a toy gun or a real one. Depending on the receiver’s device, it could render the same or differently. Regardless of how you feel about weapons, surely you can recognize that introducing that communications ambiguity introduces a safety issue because it just impaired communications. Now realize that they did so as a political statement. That’s not okay, any more than changing the rendering of any other letter of plain text. I really, really do not want my text handling and rendering systems editorializing to me. Ever.

dane-pgp 7y ago
In case people think that your "text message with gun emoji" hypothetical is too contrived, it is worth remembering that software systems making assumptions about how to render characters, even with the most innocent of intentions, can occasionally result in disastrously unintended consequences: https://gizmodo.com/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people-puts-three-m-382026 https://gizmodo.com/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-peopl...

throwawaysea 7y ago

I am not a gun enthusiast like the grandparent commenter. However, the toy gun emoji is an act of editorialization and politicization. Apple (and some others) took an emoji that had a particular intent and changed it to something else, to better suit their ideological views. The harm is that it disallows citizens from expressing themselves precisely and accurately. It makes it harder to send communication involving guns (for example reacting to a comment with a gun emoji) and it sends guns to a less visible medium (full text). This change is a political stance on guns and therefore editorialization, since it diminishes the opinions of those who back the 2nd amendment. Likewise, taking a hotly debated politicized topic like transgender people, and adding gender neutral emojis, is also editorialization. And likewise, Apple fighting back to prevent a rifle emoji (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/20/apple-rifle-emoji-phones-unicode https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/20/apple-rif...) is editorialization. It's not just me noting that these changes are politically motivated. It's pretty clear to everyone. See https://www.wired.com/2016/08/apples-new-squirt-gun-emoji-hides-big-political-statement/ https://www.wired.com/2016/08/apples-new-squirt-gun-emoji-hi...