6 ms·

I guess I’m one of the 28%. Politicians, the government, megacorporations other than social media, and the police as well as entire associated bureaucratic law

I guess I’m one of the 28%. Politicians, the government, megacorporations other than social media, and the police as well as entire associated bureaucratic law enforcement organizations have too much influence, period. The protests on all sides are a reaction to and expression of that rejection of unwanted, nonconsensual influence over free people. Social media is the megaphone of this protest movement. This is the establishment trying to chop the heads off the hydra, while counterprotesting heads stir up trouble and confuse the narrative on all sides. Will it work? For whom?

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
Pfizer and Exxon don’t get to decide which hashtags are allowed to be on trending or what stories people should see in their feed.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  However, their lobbyists in DC will threaten to give the other guy or gal more money than they’ll give their regular congresscritters if they don’t play ball. This is not Schoolhouse Rock. Laws don’t exist. They’re memes that have force of law, and like all memes, laws are subject to mutation and deep frying, as well as appropriation and recontextualization.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >However, their lobbyists in DC will threaten to give the other guy or gal more money than they’ll give their regular congresscritters if they don’t play ball The difference between being able to censor whatever unilaterally and having to get a legislator to do it for you could not be more massive. Having to play the lobbying game adds a huge amount of time, expense and outside scrutiny making it much harder to do bad things. Sure the fact that regulatory capture is possible and doable at a certain scale is bad but it's infinitly better than bigCos being able to act unilaterally. It's like the difference between the cops being able to kick down your door on a whim and them having to get a warrant and at least look like idiots on the official record and make other people who share no upside condone their stupidity.
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      HN is a hive of military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex shills who know very well how to get dang to drop the hammer on anyone who is espousing a point of view counter to their desired narrative for the collective. It starts with collective downvoting, continues with a flag or two, and eventually dang gets sick of dealing with the complaints and decides, asymmetrically, whether you will be visible to the broader HN collective, or not. You can see this with HN article submissions, alone. Even the well-written, well positioned anti-US war crimes articles, which make it in the top of the list within the first few hours - because people are legitimately interested in the subject and want to discuss it, are rapidly removed from the narrative once the shills wake up. In the "Collective Vs. Collective" Department, there are a group of us here on HN who want HN readers to understand America's illegal wars better, in order to gain more perspective about participating in the MIP-complex, and we work on promoting articles which seek to balance the narrative. We've learned: get these articles posted during USA night-times, otherwise there is no chance whatsoever: because a not-insignificant portion of the HN collective is pro-war and their narrative-setting ability rules.
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        In Daniel’s/(dang)‘s defense, he’s principled, but the users of HN have the home field advantage in this regard, somehow hoisting the mods by their own petard when flamewars break out. Or are they set intentionally? HN could benefit from user moderation and meta-moderation like Slashdot has. It’s a breath of fresh air (the implementation, not necessary Slashdot, sorry Slashdot), and I don’t know of any other platform, forum, product, or site that does it like that, but user moderation as an open source project would be a good place to start. Not sure if Slashdot’s source is open or not, now that I mention it. Oh wait, of course it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/
        aspenmayer 6y ago
        So Kuro5hin had meta-moderation, but it’s no longer online; so did GameFAQs, but they since stopped it? Slashdot seems to be the only large implementation remaining. Do these meta-moderation concepts seem like they might be useful in other contexts? Kind of reminds me of oracles and multi-signature digital instruments. Maybe also analogous concepts in AI? I am not in that field. Like a decentralized distributed parity bit hash table? DHT for .sfv? Just spitballing. > A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999, to moderate the moderators [user mods with mod points, and maybe also the paid mods, with unlimited mod points, unclear in context if paid mod or admin actions were themselves subject to meta-mod] and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-moderation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-moderation_system
- wwright 6y ago
  You think that Pfizer doesn’t have a whole team dedicated to managing what gets reported on them by TV news and major papers?
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    Marketing/PR isn't power. The ability to market isn't concentrated in the hands of a few companies. Meanwhile Twitter can block a trend on a whim. That's very different. That is direct, intentional manipulation of the conversation in the new (private) public square.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      Another good point. Just because a social media megacorp is useful to you doesn’t mean it needs you, or your followers, even if you’re verified. Maybe especially not if you’re verified. They can always verify someone else, and people will follow them instead. Especially if you’re banned from the service. Wait, is deplatformed the PC way to say it now? I’m trying here, folks. Anyone have a coat? I’m catching a cold from all these http://chillingeffects.com http://chillingeffects.com
    - wwright 6y ago
      Do you think PR teams don't have the ability to block topics on a whim?
      - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        Do you think they do? That's quite a novel conspiracy theory to me. But even if it's true, they obviously don't have as much direct influence as Twitter, Reddit, or newspapers themselves.
throwaway_kufu 6y ago
Social media companies are megacorporations. Not just that even among the megacorps they are 2nd to big pharma in terms of lobbying budgets. You call social media the megaphone of the protests, but when Trump went to threaten the protesters “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” he did it on social media.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  It isn't exclusive but it is deeply disingenuous to say it isn't their megaphone. That it can be used Trump to post doesn't subtract from it being the medium depend upon it. But unlike Trump who can give press releases, speeches to the nation, and press conferences essentially any time he wants the people lack that reach.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    The people don't really have that reach. Social media companies decide what messages are allowed, so only people the companies agree with have any reach on the platforms. In effect, social media users are just acting as speechwriters for the companies' political views. They submit comments, and mods chosen by the company decide which comments are published. Or sometimes the company simply bans particular viewpoints. What gets published on social media is increasingly company approved just like any other company's public messaging.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      > In effect, social media users are just acting as speechwriters for the companies' political views. Well, since you brought it up, which speeches of yours did you take this comment from, and who are you writing those speeches for? Whose agenda do your words subtly lend support to?
      - leereeves 6y ago
        You're taking the metaphor too literally, but to answer the second part: in this thread I'm lending support to the 72% of Americans who think social media companies have too much political influence. My agenda is simply that they should take a more hands off approach. The number of anti-cancel-culture posts on HN, as well as a post about "aggressive conformity" on HN right now by the founder of HN, suggest that HN has a similar agenda, so I suppose I am simply adding content that supports the company's position.
fit2rule 6y ago
Try this experiment: take the opposing side in the "USA should be free to start all the wars it wants" argument, and try and get a discourse going on HN. You will get censored into oblivion. THAT is the undue and undeserved influence of social media today.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  That isn't censorship it is more speech. Your message going so light grey that you need to highlight it means "and most people disagree with it" is appended to the discussion with more relevant information. Would having a thumbs down emoji/emoteicon with a large counter vastly overwhelming the tbumbs up one be something anyone could argue with any credibility as censorship?
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    Oh, the downvotes are one thing - and I fully concur that many times, individuals espouse points of view that do not gel with the mainstream narrative - and that is what the downvotes indicate - not necessarily whether someone is 'true' or not, but whether their position is agreed upon by the mainstream masses. But that's not what happens. Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. This is the danger of the collective reality. It isn't always the truth - but rather, what everyone thinks the truth is, and we can see time and again just how wrong collectivity can be through history.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      > Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. I like to think that dang gives us all just a sharp enough edge to his moderation for us to cut ourselves on, but I take your point. I found myself in a flame war, got rate limited by a mod, actually emailed Daniel, got a soft agreement to lift limits in a week or so with good behavior. In his and HN’s defense, I was a bit edgy and I agree it was not an isolated comment but closer to 15 across a couple threads with the same person. I thought I was having a spirited debate at the time and still do, while recognizing that protracted flamewars burn down the users’ and mods’ and admins’ morale and it is a kind of social contagion that self-reinforces negative reactionary behavior among and between users. So that’s to say I agree that I did something unsuitable for HN. What happened next was nothing. For almost a month, I was rate-limited. I just thought I was still letting Daniel down. I had no transparency into my mod action. No mod mail like on reddit. I ended up emailing about something else entirely, and casually mentioned it. Daniel almost didn’t really know what to think. He didn’t do the original action; a mod did. I did email him, but that was like 5 in a thread out of how many he must have to read a day? I sent him our original thread, he read it, and I wasn’t rate-limited anymore. He genuinely forgot. Daniel is too busy to care about anyone’s agenda but keeping the site what it’s meant to be, and trying to build it slowly into what it will become. He’s a good dude. Let’s not make this personal. I only email with him, but I know this much: HN is lucky to have him. Some more transparency into mod and flag actions wouldn’t go astray, either.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

Pfizer and Exxon don’t get to decide which hashtags are allowed to be on trending or what stories people should see in their feed.

aspenmayer 6y ago
However, their lobbyists in DC will threaten to give the other guy or gal more money than they’ll give their regular congresscritters if they don’t play ball. This is not Schoolhouse Rock. Laws don’t exist. They’re memes that have force of law, and like all memes, laws are subject to mutation and deep frying, as well as appropriation and recontextualization.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >However, their lobbyists in DC will threaten to give the other guy or gal more money than they’ll give their regular congresscritters if they don’t play ball The difference between being able to censor whatever unilaterally and having to get a legislator to do it for you could not be more massive. Having to play the lobbying game adds a huge amount of time, expense and outside scrutiny making it much harder to do bad things. Sure the fact that regulatory capture is possible and doable at a certain scale is bad but it's infinitly better than bigCos being able to act unilaterally. It's like the difference between the cops being able to kick down your door on a whim and them having to get a warrant and at least look like idiots on the official record and make other people who share no upside condone their stupidity.
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    HN is a hive of military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex shills who know very well how to get dang to drop the hammer on anyone who is espousing a point of view counter to their desired narrative for the collective. It starts with collective downvoting, continues with a flag or two, and eventually dang gets sick of dealing with the complaints and decides, asymmetrically, whether you will be visible to the broader HN collective, or not. You can see this with HN article submissions, alone. Even the well-written, well positioned anti-US war crimes articles, which make it in the top of the list within the first few hours - because people are legitimately interested in the subject and want to discuss it, are rapidly removed from the narrative once the shills wake up. In the "Collective Vs. Collective" Department, there are a group of us here on HN who want HN readers to understand America's illegal wars better, in order to gain more perspective about participating in the MIP-complex, and we work on promoting articles which seek to balance the narrative. We've learned: get these articles posted during USA night-times, otherwise there is no chance whatsoever: because a not-insignificant portion of the HN collective is pro-war and their narrative-setting ability rules.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      In Daniel’s/(dang)‘s defense, he’s principled, but the users of HN have the home field advantage in this regard, somehow hoisting the mods by their own petard when flamewars break out. Or are they set intentionally? HN could benefit from user moderation and meta-moderation like Slashdot has. It’s a breath of fresh air (the implementation, not necessary Slashdot, sorry Slashdot), and I don’t know of any other platform, forum, product, or site that does it like that, but user moderation as an open source project would be a good place to start. Not sure if Slashdot’s source is open or not, now that I mention it. Oh wait, of course it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        So Kuro5hin had meta-moderation, but it’s no longer online; so did GameFAQs, but they since stopped it? Slashdot seems to be the only large implementation remaining. Do these meta-moderation concepts seem like they might be useful in other contexts? Kind of reminds me of oracles and multi-signature digital instruments. Maybe also analogous concepts in AI? I am not in that field. Like a decentralized distributed parity bit hash table? DHT for .sfv? Just spitballing. > A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999, to moderate the moderators [user mods with mod points, and maybe also the paid mods, with unlimited mod points, unclear in context if paid mod or admin actions were themselves subject to meta-mod] and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either fair or unfair. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. troll, funny), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot#Peer_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-moderation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-moderation_system
wwright 6y ago
You think that Pfizer doesn’t have a whole team dedicated to managing what gets reported on them by TV news and major papers?
- marcusverus 6y ago
  Marketing/PR isn't power. The ability to market isn't concentrated in the hands of a few companies. Meanwhile Twitter can block a trend on a whim. That's very different. That is direct, intentional manipulation of the conversation in the new (private) public square.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    Another good point. Just because a social media megacorp is useful to you doesn’t mean it needs you, or your followers, even if you’re verified. Maybe especially not if you’re verified. They can always verify someone else, and people will follow them instead. Especially if you’re banned from the service. Wait, is deplatformed the PC way to say it now? I’m trying here, folks. Anyone have a coat? I’m catching a cold from all these http://chillingeffects.com http://chillingeffects.com
  - wwright 6y ago
    Do you think PR teams don't have the ability to block topics on a whim?
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Do you think they do? That's quite a novel conspiracy theory to me. But even if it's true, they obviously don't have as much direct influence as Twitter, Reddit, or newspapers themselves.

throwaway_kufu 6y ago

Social media companies are megacorporations. Not just that even among the megacorps they are 2nd to big pharma in terms of lobbying budgets. You call social media the megaphone of the protests, but when Trump went to threaten the protesters “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” he did it on social media.

Nasrudith 6y ago
It isn't exclusive but it is deeply disingenuous to say it isn't their megaphone. That it can be used Trump to post doesn't subtract from it being the medium depend upon it. But unlike Trump who can give press releases, speeches to the nation, and press conferences essentially any time he wants the people lack that reach.
- leereeves 6y ago
  The people don't really have that reach. Social media companies decide what messages are allowed, so only people the companies agree with have any reach on the platforms. In effect, social media users are just acting as speechwriters for the companies' political views. They submit comments, and mods chosen by the company decide which comments are published. Or sometimes the company simply bans particular viewpoints. What gets published on social media is increasingly company approved just like any other company's public messaging.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    > In effect, social media users are just acting as speechwriters for the companies' political views. Well, since you brought it up, which speeches of yours did you take this comment from, and who are you writing those speeches for? Whose agenda do your words subtly lend support to?
    - leereeves 6y ago
      You're taking the metaphor too literally, but to answer the second part: in this thread I'm lending support to the 72% of Americans who think social media companies have too much political influence. My agenda is simply that they should take a more hands off approach. The number of anti-cancel-culture posts on HN, as well as a post about "aggressive conformity" on HN right now by the founder of HN, suggest that HN has a similar agenda, so I suppose I am simply adding content that supports the company's position.

fit2rule 6y ago

Try this experiment: take the opposing side in the "USA should be free to start all the wars it wants" argument, and try and get a discourse going on HN. You will get censored into oblivion. THAT is the undue and undeserved influence of social media today.

Nasrudith 6y ago
That isn't censorship it is more speech. Your message going so light grey that you need to highlight it means "and most people disagree with it" is appended to the discussion with more relevant information. Would having a thumbs down emoji/emoteicon with a large counter vastly overwhelming the tbumbs up one be something anyone could argue with any credibility as censorship?
- fit2rule 6y ago
  Oh, the downvotes are one thing - and I fully concur that many times, individuals espouse points of view that do not gel with the mainstream narrative - and that is what the downvotes indicate - not necessarily whether someone is 'true' or not, but whether their position is agreed upon by the mainstream masses. But that's not what happens. Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. This is the danger of the collective reality. It isn't always the truth - but rather, what everyone thinks the truth is, and we can see time and again just how wrong collectivity can be through history.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    > Get downvoted too much, and you will get the dang hammer brought down on you, and its back to a rate limited life of communication for you. I like to think that dang gives us all just a sharp enough edge to his moderation for us to cut ourselves on, but I take your point. I found myself in a flame war, got rate limited by a mod, actually emailed Daniel, got a soft agreement to lift limits in a week or so with good behavior. In his and HN’s defense, I was a bit edgy and I agree it was not an isolated comment but closer to 15 across a couple threads with the same person. I thought I was having a spirited debate at the time and still do, while recognizing that protracted flamewars burn down the users’ and mods’ and admins’ morale and it is a kind of social contagion that self-reinforces negative reactionary behavior among and between users. So that’s to say I agree that I did something unsuitable for HN. What happened next was nothing. For almost a month, I was rate-limited. I just thought I was still letting Daniel down. I had no transparency into my mod action. No mod mail like on reddit. I ended up emailing about something else entirely, and casually mentioned it. Daniel almost didn’t really know what to think. He didn’t do the original action; a mod did. I did email him, but that was like 5 in a thread out of how many he must have to read a day? I sent him our original thread, he read it, and I wasn’t rate-limited anymore. He genuinely forgot. Daniel is too busy to care about anyone’s agenda but keeping the site what it’s meant to be, and trying to build it slowly into what it will become. He’s a good dude. Let’s not make this personal. I only email with him, but I know this much: HN is lucky to have him. Some more transparency into mod and flag actions wouldn’t go astray, either.