5 ms·

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
      - fit2rule 6y ago
        Definitely: > home field advantage .. with a $1.4 Trillion influence on the tech industry, there will never, for long anyway, be critical articles about the US' military industrial pharmaceutical complex, or Israel, or anything to do with war crimes prosecutions or crimes against humanity committed by the 5-eyes coalition on the front page of HN... Ensuring that the people who most need to be discussing such issues, don't.
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.

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
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      Definitely: > home field advantage .. with a $1.4 Trillion influence on the tech industry, there will never, for long anyway, be critical articles about the US' military industrial pharmaceutical complex, or Israel, or anything to do with war crimes prosecutions or crimes against humanity committed by the 5-eyes coalition on the front page of HN... Ensuring that the people who most need to be discussing such issues, don't.

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.