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> I won't address that argument here but personally I think it's a very dangerous way of thinking The problem is you’ve just said you won’t address the primary

> I won't address that argument here but personally I think it's a very dangerous way of thinking The problem is you’ve just said you won’t address the primary, most compelling reason to take these actions. Assuming that “sunshine is the best disinfectant” presupposes a lot of things about society that are, in my observation, no longer true. We do not have the time, through our own actions or not, for quiet contemplation and retrospection into deep topics. We have polarized ourselves into camps of right and wrong. We are exposed to a staggering volume of information that all seems mostly the same with some slight differences but widely varying outcomes. Your theory of how the world should work is very, almost simplistically, seductive. Woe but for the world to be like that, like the “perfectly rational actor” assumed in economic textbooks or the “perfectly smooth sphere on a frictionless plane” in physics.

ryankemper 6y ago
Yes, by not addressing that I put myself in the trap where I was forced to respond to it anyway in a later comment. So, in order to avoid repeating myself, I believe I addressed that notion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 In short, I am not saying that the truth will necessarily "win out" over the false. Rather I am saying - and this was my fault for not being clear enough - that I reject the notion that we should try to pick a side to suppress. Because the same part of human nature that leads to rampant spread of disinformation is the part of human nature that tries to decide what the capital-T Truth is. So, my personal belief system - and I know how unpopular this viewpoint is, especially in current times - is just let them have at it. Remove blatant calls for violence, and nothing more. ("nothing more" should include racism and other unpopular beliefs, by the way, in case my viewpoint isn't controversial enough thus far). So, saying "We should go out and attack $GROUP" should be removed. But saying "I think $GROUP is inferior due to highly discredited scientific-seeming reasons" should not be removed, because however wrong or distasteful it is, it's not directly advocating for violence. Similarly, something like holocaust denial or anti-vax beliefs, etc should similarly not be suppressed. Again, I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I hope that helps you understand my thoughts on these issues.
- kiba 6y ago
  OK. I guess we should let anti-vaxers spread disinformation causing a whole bunch of people dying unnecessarily because people believed it.
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    I agree anti Vaxers are ridiculous. But just to play devils advocate. What if there ever was a dangerous vaccine out there, wouldn’t we want people to be able to speak out? Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.
    - knzhou 6y ago
      There indeed were a few dangerous vaccines, about three generations ago. That's exactly why we have the elaborate clinical trial system today: they stop potentially unsafe vaccines all the time. A large fraction of the COVID vaccines might go this way. Nobody is against banning unsafe vaccines, but some are for banning people from spreading baseless, conspiratorial anti-vax bullshit.
      - mrfusion 6y ago
        Exactly. But who are we trusting to tell the difference between bullshit and not? Would you trust youtube employees with that?
        knzhou 6y ago
        No, which is exactly why I'm happy they defer to the WHO. I don't trust the WHO unconditionally either, but I trust it much much more than David Icke.
        mrfusion 6y ago
        But will youtube defer to the right group on every issue? Is there always a right group? This issue will pass but now they have a precedent.
jfnixon 6y ago
Therefore we should let those with power choose what everyone can say and hear? Sorry, I'm not following.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  Here's a question for you: Do you believe HN has an obligation to allow anything to be posted here? If someone wanted to post about how much they hate a certain race, do you believe the moderators here have an obligation to allow that post to remain?
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    If a majority of the population was using HN, then we’d be getting closer to an apples to apples comparison. The crux of the issue includes Google’s reach.
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      Does it matter if the majority is using it or not? The same concept of freedom of speech should matter. And HN is one of the largest tech forums on the internet; making it effectively the 'Youtube' of tech forums. So given HN's expansive reach, why do you think it deserves to be excluded from the concept of being a provider? Why shouldn't it be forced to house all content?
      - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        HN has negligible reach compared to Youtube, Facebook, or Google.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  Extremely paraphrasing, ryankemper's original comment was something like "We shouldn't let private companies decide who to boot off. Besides, booting them off doesn't work anyway". Then techsupporter said something like "actually, booting them off does work". Finally, paraphrasing your comment, "so you're saying you should let private companies decide?" No, that is clearly not what techsupporter's comment meant. It's ok to disagree with the second half of that first comment ("booting them off doesn't work") without expressing an opinion on the first half. In fact the way the original comment ties together those two things has has led to the quagmire of crossed arguments you're seeing in these comments, so untying them is quite important.
jariel 6y ago
"presupposes a lot of things about society that are, in my observation, no longer true." If you're thinking that 'society used to be able to tell what was a lie from the truth' I'm sorry to say but that was never close to being true. Newspapers were a pretty strong filter of information and therefore could have some kind of 'rough' credibility, biases notwithstanding obviously. But with 'every Instagram a source of news' ... we have an existential truthiness problem that we're only beginning to learn to deal with.
colordrops 6y ago
Believing that shutting down "bad" speech will help things is also simplistic and seductive.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> We do not have the time, through our own actions or not, for quiet contemplation and retrospection into deep topics. This is a problem, but how does censorship solve it? You would in fact need to solve that problem for all ideas in order to correctly know what to censor, which nobody has time to do, hence the problem. > We have polarized ourselves into camps of right and wrong. This is exactly what the censorship makes worse. You say "not here, go somewhere else" to anyone who disagrees and everyone who disagrees is separated, so that each camp has no exposure to the other side's arguments and whoever is wrong will remain so. > We are exposed to a staggering volume of information that all seems mostly the same with some slight differences but widely varying outcomes. The world is complicated. Not everybody is going to understand everything. That isn't possible, but it isn't required. What you need are two things. One is free and open debate, so that the people who choose to allocate their time to a given specific topic enough to come to an accurate conclusion on that topic are free to do so. And the other is trusted thought leaders who consult a variety of domain experts on a given topic to determine the consensus of the experts and relay it to all of the people who don't have time to look at the specific details on that specific topic. This is what has completely imploded. The news media has lost their credibility by explicitly abandoning even the pretense of impartiality and chasing clickbait nonsense for ratings, so nobody trusts them anymore. As it should be when they're publishing things like that. But you either do the research yourself (which nobody has time to do for everything) or you trust somebody else to do it for you. So now people need to figure out who they can trust to distill the informed consensus. But you don't do that by censoring the debate, you do it by being so consistently right that people begin to trust you over the lies of the blaring partisans. That doesn't come from force, it comes from hard work, which nobody seems willing to do anymore, which is why everything is messed up.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  The biggest issue is that the open debate is vulnerable to astroturfing with corporate influence and financial backing, which can completely drown out others and turn public opinion, through sheer exposure. And when it comes to subjects like human rights, there is a definite right and wrong, not a "truth in the middle".

ryankemper 6y ago

Yes, by not addressing that I put myself in the trap where I was forced to respond to it anyway in a later comment. So, in order to avoid repeating myself, I believe I addressed that notion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 In short, I am not saying that the truth will necessarily "win out" over the false. Rather I am saying - and this was my fault for not being clear enough - that I reject the notion that we should try to pick a side to suppress. Because the same part of human nature that leads to rampant spread of disinformation is the part of human nature that tries to decide what the capital-T Truth is. So, my personal belief system - and I know how unpopular this viewpoint is, especially in current times - is just let them have at it. Remove blatant calls for violence, and nothing more. ("nothing more" should include racism and other unpopular beliefs, by the way, in case my viewpoint isn't controversial enough thus far). So, saying "We should go out and attack $GROUP" should be removed. But saying "I think $GROUP is inferior due to highly discredited scientific-seeming reasons" should not be removed, because however wrong or distasteful it is, it's not directly advocating for violence. Similarly, something like holocaust denial or anti-vax beliefs, etc should similarly not be suppressed. Again, I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I hope that helps you understand my thoughts on these issues.

kiba 6y ago
OK. I guess we should let anti-vaxers spread disinformation causing a whole bunch of people dying unnecessarily because people believed it.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  I agree anti Vaxers are ridiculous. But just to play devils advocate. What if there ever was a dangerous vaccine out there, wouldn’t we want people to be able to speak out? Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.
  - knzhou 6y ago
    There indeed were a few dangerous vaccines, about three generations ago. That's exactly why we have the elaborate clinical trial system today: they stop potentially unsafe vaccines all the time. A large fraction of the COVID vaccines might go this way. Nobody is against banning unsafe vaccines, but some are for banning people from spreading baseless, conspiratorial anti-vax bullshit.
    - mrfusion 6y ago
      Exactly. But who are we trusting to tell the difference between bullshit and not? Would you trust youtube employees with that?
      - knzhou 6y ago
        No, which is exactly why I'm happy they defer to the WHO. I don't trust the WHO unconditionally either, but I trust it much much more than David Icke.
        mrfusion 6y ago
        But will youtube defer to the right group on every issue? Is there always a right group? This issue will pass but now they have a precedent.

jfnixon 6y ago

Therefore we should let those with power choose what everyone can say and hear? Sorry, I'm not following.

fzeroracer 6y ago
Here's a question for you: Do you believe HN has an obligation to allow anything to be posted here? If someone wanted to post about how much they hate a certain race, do you believe the moderators here have an obligation to allow that post to remain?
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  If a majority of the population was using HN, then we’d be getting closer to an apples to apples comparison. The crux of the issue includes Google’s reach.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    Does it matter if the majority is using it or not? The same concept of freedom of speech should matter. And HN is one of the largest tech forums on the internet; making it effectively the 'Youtube' of tech forums. So given HN's expansive reach, why do you think it deserves to be excluded from the concept of being a provider? Why shouldn't it be forced to house all content?
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      HN has negligible reach compared to Youtube, Facebook, or Google.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
quietbritishjim 6y ago
Extremely paraphrasing, ryankemper's original comment was something like "We shouldn't let private companies decide who to boot off. Besides, booting them off doesn't work anyway". Then techsupporter said something like "actually, booting them off does work". Finally, paraphrasing your comment, "so you're saying you should let private companies decide?" No, that is clearly not what techsupporter's comment meant. It's ok to disagree with the second half of that first comment ("booting them off doesn't work") without expressing an opinion on the first half. In fact the way the original comment ties together those two things has has led to the quagmire of crossed arguments you're seeing in these comments, so untying them is quite important.

jariel 6y ago

"presupposes a lot of things about society that are, in my observation, no longer true." If you're thinking that 'society used to be able to tell what was a lie from the truth' I'm sorry to say but that was never close to being true. Newspapers were a pretty strong filter of information and therefore could have some kind of 'rough' credibility, biases notwithstanding obviously. But with 'every Instagram a source of news' ... we have an existential truthiness problem that we're only beginning to learn to deal with.

colordrops 6y ago

Believing that shutting down "bad" speech will help things is also simplistic and seductive.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> We do not have the time, through our own actions or not, for quiet contemplation and retrospection into deep topics. This is a problem, but how does censorship solve it? You would in fact need to solve that problem for all ideas in order to correctly know what to censor, which nobody has time to do, hence the problem. > We have polarized ourselves into camps of right and wrong. This is exactly what the censorship makes worse. You say "not here, go somewhere else" to anyone who disagrees and everyone who disagrees is separated, so that each camp has no exposure to the other side's arguments and whoever is wrong will remain so. > We are exposed to a staggering volume of information that all seems mostly the same with some slight differences but widely varying outcomes. The world is complicated. Not everybody is going to understand everything. That isn't possible, but it isn't required. What you need are two things. One is free and open debate, so that the people who choose to allocate their time to a given specific topic enough to come to an accurate conclusion on that topic are free to do so. And the other is trusted thought leaders who consult a variety of domain experts on a given topic to determine the consensus of the experts and relay it to all of the people who don't have time to look at the specific details on that specific topic. This is what has completely imploded. The news media has lost their credibility by explicitly abandoning even the pretense of impartiality and chasing clickbait nonsense for ratings, so nobody trusts them anymore. As it should be when they're publishing things like that. But you either do the research yourself (which nobody has time to do for everything) or you trust somebody else to do it for you. So now people need to figure out who they can trust to distill the informed consensus. But you don't do that by censoring the debate, you do it by being so consistently right that people begin to trust you over the lies of the blaring partisans. That doesn't come from force, it comes from hard work, which nobody seems willing to do anymore, which is why everything is messed up.

KozmoNau7 6y ago
The biggest issue is that the open debate is vulnerable to astroturfing with corporate influence and financial backing, which can completely drown out others and turn public opinion, through sheer exposure. And when it comes to subjects like human rights, there is a definite right and wrong, not a "truth in the middle".