5 ms·

It's a shame, but it really does feel like "free speech" has become a near dog-whistle. Almost any time I hear of a service billing itself with free speech as a

It's a shame, but it really does feel like "free speech" has become a near dog-whistle. Almost any time I hear of a service billing itself with free speech as a primary selling point, a quick visit is more than enough to turn me off of ever returning. Besides this, there's a clear feedback loop that happens regardless of the intent of the service's creators. The people most likely to get kicked off of social media platforms nowadays seem to be far-right kooks. So when they are looking for a new platform, they'll go somewhere that advertises for no moderation. What happens next is pretty obvious; the more those sort of people migrate to the service, the more visible their content will be to any visitor. And that content tends to be pretty effective at driving away non-kooky users, which leads to a reinforcing cycle that, over time, turns you into yet another take on Voat.

coldtea 6y ago
>It's a shame, but it really does feel like "free speech" has become a near dog-whistle. Almost any time I hear of a service billing itself with free speech as a primary selling point, a quick visit is more than enough to turn me off of ever returning. That's because you're on the side of those doing the censoring. If it was the 80s and it was the conservatives doing the censoring, you'd say the opposite...
- threeseed 6y ago
  You can be against censorship and also be against the type of racist, xenophobic, sexist etc content you find unchecked on places like Parler, Gab, 4chan.
  - bxk1 6y ago
    It's not that simple. Xenophobic content, for example, is "unchecked" on any U.S. owned platform, so is some racism, but not racism against black people specifically. At the same time in most other countries in the world racism, and especially racism against black people, isn't even a thing, but xenophobia is. So it's very unlikely for someone to truly sincerely be both against racist content and xenophobic content at the same time and even more unlikely to also sincerely be against censorship, then it's getting into very dystopian views territory, you can't hold such views without being exposed to massive amounts of propaganda.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Kind of like how you can be against crime and also against prisons. The fact is that every decision is a balance of consequences.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I think this reveals that the conservative sudden claim for free speech is exactly this kind of hypocrisy?
- matwood 6y ago
  Can we agree that there is a difference between an on screen nipple or saying fuck on TV and the POTUS actively undermining democracy? The general talk of free speech and censoring is not really useful here without specifics. Just like someone can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, there are other things we are finding that may be similar in nature. I think a more useful discussion could be around the specifics. Should the POTUS be able to communicate anything they want? Should platforms be forced to carry it?
  - 0x445442 6y ago
    So you think Trump is the first POTUS to make objectively false statements and have those amplified over mass media?
    - giantg2 6y ago
      Which one hasn't, might be a better question.
    - matwood 6y ago
      First? No. Most prolific? I think so. He's also one of the first to make heavy use of direct social media, which is different than mass media of old. Notice also I didn't say Trump, but POTUS in general. What do we want to do here going forward? Should the POTUS be treated differently than a private citizen? What this current period reminds me of historically is McCarthyism, except we have the POTUS lobbing baseless claims instead of a senator. I don't think McCarthyism impacted the general public as much as claims undermining the election does though.
      - 0x445442 6y ago
        The problem is not all the claims you might consider baseless actually are and neither you nor I have any way of really knowing.
        Scharkenberg 6y ago
        Gaslighting now?
- tom_ 6y ago
  I think this comment gets at part of the issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100584
christophilus 6y ago
I tend to straddle the line between Republican and libertarian, so I consider myself more conservative than liberal. But I have to agree with you. I recently tried out Voat. Holy hell, what a dumpster fire.
simmons 6y ago
I'm about as close to a free-speech absolutist as there is, and it's very frustrating that the market for these platforms seems to be settling into ruts where we have to choose between the hyper-conformity of highly managed platforms and the dumpster fires of the unmanaged platforms. I think the feedback loop you describe is a big part of it. I also wonder if we're experiencing a decline in education and critical thinking skills that could be fueling these ruts. This greatly saddens me. Can't there be some way to build a platform that encourages intelligent, reasonable, polite debate? Discussions of ideas based on their merits instead of personal attacks and tribal allegiances? Some way to provide free speech without providing free amplification? Has society devolved to a point where this is no longer possible?
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  There can, I’m surprised no one has implemented this: Start everyone off with a maximum influence credit of say 10 people, like in your local neighborhood. As you contribute to thoughtful discussion, as determined by the diversity and ratio of up/down arrows, your maximum influence credit grows as a function of your geography.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Taking this idea further, maybe part of the problem is that platforms reduce the quality metric for posts down to effectively a single dimension: upvotes / likes / thumbs up. What if there were separate dimensions for: Factually accurate, Morally agreeable, and Polite? A machine learning algorithm could quickly work out which groups of users have different ideological positions, and which topics are likely to devolve into flame wars, so it could require that users have a minimum politeness score to be able to participate in a debate. It could also, as you say, check for echo chambers forming and incentivise people with differing opinions to enter a discussion to balance it out.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > There can, I’m surprised no one has implemented this: The reason is you're inappropriately applying an technical solution to a social problem. You also make at least one critical error: > As you contribute to thoughtful discussion, as determined by the diversity and ratio of up/down arrows Upvotes/downvotes pretty much never measure "thoughtfulness," because for them to do so would require a level of social cohesion that would probably make upvotes/downvote unnecessary.

coldtea 6y ago

>It's a shame, but it really does feel like "free speech" has become a near dog-whistle. Almost any time I hear of a service billing itself with free speech as a primary selling point, a quick visit is more than enough to turn me off of ever returning. That's because you're on the side of those doing the censoring. If it was the 80s and it was the conservatives doing the censoring, you'd say the opposite...

threeseed 6y ago
You can be against censorship and also be against the type of racist, xenophobic, sexist etc content you find unchecked on places like Parler, Gab, 4chan.
- bxk1 6y ago
  It's not that simple. Xenophobic content, for example, is "unchecked" on any U.S. owned platform, so is some racism, but not racism against black people specifically. At the same time in most other countries in the world racism, and especially racism against black people, isn't even a thing, but xenophobia is. So it's very unlikely for someone to truly sincerely be both against racist content and xenophobic content at the same time and even more unlikely to also sincerely be against censorship, then it's getting into very dystopian views territory, you can't hold such views without being exposed to massive amounts of propaganda.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Kind of like how you can be against crime and also against prisons. The fact is that every decision is a balance of consequences.
pjc50 6y ago
I think this reveals that the conservative sudden claim for free speech is exactly this kind of hypocrisy?
matwood 6y ago
Can we agree that there is a difference between an on screen nipple or saying fuck on TV and the POTUS actively undermining democracy? The general talk of free speech and censoring is not really useful here without specifics. Just like someone can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, there are other things we are finding that may be similar in nature. I think a more useful discussion could be around the specifics. Should the POTUS be able to communicate anything they want? Should platforms be forced to carry it?
- 0x445442 6y ago
  So you think Trump is the first POTUS to make objectively false statements and have those amplified over mass media?
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Which one hasn't, might be a better question.
  - matwood 6y ago
    First? No. Most prolific? I think so. He's also one of the first to make heavy use of direct social media, which is different than mass media of old. Notice also I didn't say Trump, but POTUS in general. What do we want to do here going forward? Should the POTUS be treated differently than a private citizen? What this current period reminds me of historically is McCarthyism, except we have the POTUS lobbing baseless claims instead of a senator. I don't think McCarthyism impacted the general public as much as claims undermining the election does though.
    - 0x445442 6y ago
      The problem is not all the claims you might consider baseless actually are and neither you nor I have any way of really knowing.
      - Scharkenberg 6y ago
        Gaslighting now?
tom_ 6y ago
I think this comment gets at part of the issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100584

christophilus 6y ago

I tend to straddle the line between Republican and libertarian, so I consider myself more conservative than liberal. But I have to agree with you. I recently tried out Voat. Holy hell, what a dumpster fire.

simmons 6y ago

I'm about as close to a free-speech absolutist as there is, and it's very frustrating that the market for these platforms seems to be settling into ruts where we have to choose between the hyper-conformity of highly managed platforms and the dumpster fires of the unmanaged platforms. I think the feedback loop you describe is a big part of it. I also wonder if we're experiencing a decline in education and critical thinking skills that could be fueling these ruts. This greatly saddens me. Can't there be some way to build a platform that encourages intelligent, reasonable, polite debate? Discussions of ideas based on their merits instead of personal attacks and tribal allegiances? Some way to provide free speech without providing free amplification? Has society devolved to a point where this is no longer possible?

mensetmanusman 6y ago
There can, I’m surprised no one has implemented this: Start everyone off with a maximum influence credit of say 10 people, like in your local neighborhood. As you contribute to thoughtful discussion, as determined by the diversity and ratio of up/down arrows, your maximum influence credit grows as a function of your geography.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  Taking this idea further, maybe part of the problem is that platforms reduce the quality metric for posts down to effectively a single dimension: upvotes / likes / thumbs up. What if there were separate dimensions for: Factually accurate, Morally agreeable, and Polite? A machine learning algorithm could quickly work out which groups of users have different ideological positions, and which topics are likely to devolve into flame wars, so it could require that users have a minimum politeness score to be able to participate in a debate. It could also, as you say, check for echo chambers forming and incentivise people with differing opinions to enter a discussion to balance it out.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > There can, I’m surprised no one has implemented this: The reason is you're inappropriately applying an technical solution to a social problem. You also make at least one critical error: > As you contribute to thoughtful discussion, as determined by the diversity and ratio of up/down arrows Upvotes/downvotes pretty much never measure "thoughtfulness," because for them to do so would require a level of social cohesion that would probably make upvotes/downvote unnecessary.