4 ms·

I really don't recognize the society that we are moving towards. People are welcoming censorship with open arms. Twitter and other social media are the public s

I really don't recognize the society that we are moving towards. People are welcoming censorship with open arms. Twitter and other social media are the public spaces of the internet. Deplatforming someone there is essentially as if the governments bans the public speech of someone in the "real" world. It truly gives me shivers down my spine...

jlokier 6y ago
The Mozilla blog post you are replying about is suggesting increasing transparency, not suggesting more censorship.
- rowanG077 6y ago
  Yes and that's good. But it's also very much pro censorship.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
  You're being quite glib if you're honestly pretending not to see the glaring subtext there. The intention is obviously to increase transparency in order to stamp out unwanted opinions before they even spread.
  - solipsism 6y ago
    Yes. Unwanted opinions like "we should overthrow the will of the people using force".
    - gotoeleven 6y ago
      Yes I agree unwanted opinions are the worst only wanted opinions should be allowed.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    If an opinion doesn't spread because people decide not to spread it after transparency reveals who is paying for advertisements and how platform algorithms are deciding which opinions to promote, isn't that just better democracy? The Mozilla blog entry, subtext and all, does not say that they should decide what opinions are unwanted.
- Lammy 6y ago
  "Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Who gets to decide which is which? Why would I want to tell people they are wrong about how they experience the world when they disagree with the way I do?
  - solarmist 6y ago
    A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified. It is a fact regardless of a person’s experience. The word you’re thinking of is opinion. Which is how someone interprets a fact or a set of facts.
    - Lammy 6y ago
      Facts are just opinions we share with enough other people. Consensus reality is the only reality imo
    - war1025 6y ago
      > A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified The past four years of "fact checking" have demonstrated those are not the sort of "facts" anyone is talking about.
    - jlokier 6y ago
      As you can see from replies, people do not agree on the meaning of "fact". To be fair this is because the word is used to mean different things, not just objective truths, even in formal contexts. Unfortunately because people don't hold the same idea about what the word "fact" means, and some don't believe in the concept of objective reality at all, one person can talk of "fact-checking website" and be thinking of only objective facts, while another person hears that as "prevailing-opinion-promoting website" to be used for non-objective facts. "Objective truth checking website" would be better. The intent is unambiguous at least. 1+1=2, pi is definitely irrational, and the Earth is not flat. Unfortunately when it comes to things like "evidence of widespread electoral fraud sufficient to overturn the result", that doesn't apply perfectly. That type of fact cannot be known absolutely; there's always that bit of wiggle room of possibility which feeds conspiracy theories, especially in a population distressed about many issues and distrustful of institutions and each other. Such things can however be known beyond reasonable doubt to the man on the Clapham omnibus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus).
- bassman9000 6y ago
  These are the kind of misleading takes that are more dangerous IMHO, because they play into the good faith of most people, and their fears of being placed on "the wrong side". Classic postmodern word games. It's not censorship, that's bad: it's Transparent Deplatforming™
sinity 6y ago
The shift started at least months, if not years ago. At least one could laugh at the internal contradictions of the people championing for this, since they're mostly also "pro privacy". At least they think so. People can really fluidly go between "yay E2E encryption" and "Facebook needs to make sure only 'truth' is allowed". Ban the lies! Funniest thing was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook was booed, nearly universally, because they had an fairly open API (which enabled people to consent to share their data with CA). Few tech-illiterate news articles later, and everyone is convinced that Trump won the elections because of Facebook evilness (and, of course, CA had 'magic algorithms' which could change peoples' minds en masse just by showing them few targeted ads; that's completely undeniable; "trusted journalist" said so). Eh.
lazyjones 6y ago
Let's not forget how this started: with people attacking free speech because they felt they had a right to be offended by things they didn't like. That's when censorship became mainstream again.

jlokier 6y ago

The Mozilla blog post you are replying about is suggesting increasing transparency, not suggesting more censorship.

rowanG077 6y ago
Yes and that's good. But it's also very much pro censorship.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
You're being quite glib if you're honestly pretending not to see the glaring subtext there. The intention is obviously to increase transparency in order to stamp out unwanted opinions before they even spread.
- solipsism 6y ago
  Yes. Unwanted opinions like "we should overthrow the will of the people using force".
  - gotoeleven 6y ago
    Yes I agree unwanted opinions are the worst only wanted opinions should be allowed.
- jlokier 6y ago
  If an opinion doesn't spread because people decide not to spread it after transparency reveals who is paying for advertisements and how platform algorithms are deciding which opinions to promote, isn't that just better democracy? The Mozilla blog entry, subtext and all, does not say that they should decide what opinions are unwanted.
Lammy 6y ago
"Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Who gets to decide which is which? Why would I want to tell people they are wrong about how they experience the world when they disagree with the way I do?
- solarmist 6y ago
  A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified. It is a fact regardless of a person’s experience. The word you’re thinking of is opinion. Which is how someone interprets a fact or a set of facts.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Facts are just opinions we share with enough other people. Consensus reality is the only reality imo
  - war1025 6y ago
    > A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified The past four years of "fact checking" have demonstrated those are not the sort of "facts" anyone is talking about.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    As you can see from replies, people do not agree on the meaning of "fact". To be fair this is because the word is used to mean different things, not just objective truths, even in formal contexts. Unfortunately because people don't hold the same idea about what the word "fact" means, and some don't believe in the concept of objective reality at all, one person can talk of "fact-checking website" and be thinking of only objective facts, while another person hears that as "prevailing-opinion-promoting website" to be used for non-objective facts. "Objective truth checking website" would be better. The intent is unambiguous at least. 1+1=2, pi is definitely irrational, and the Earth is not flat. Unfortunately when it comes to things like "evidence of widespread electoral fraud sufficient to overturn the result", that doesn't apply perfectly. That type of fact cannot be known absolutely; there's always that bit of wiggle room of possibility which feeds conspiracy theories, especially in a population distressed about many issues and distrustful of institutions and each other. Such things can however be known beyond reasonable doubt to the man on the Clapham omnibus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus).
bassman9000 6y ago
These are the kind of misleading takes that are more dangerous IMHO, because they play into the good faith of most people, and their fears of being placed on "the wrong side". Classic postmodern word games. It's not censorship, that's bad: it's Transparent Deplatforming™

sinity 6y ago

The shift started at least months, if not years ago. At least one could laugh at the internal contradictions of the people championing for this, since they're mostly also "pro privacy". At least they think so. People can really fluidly go between "yay E2E encryption" and "Facebook needs to make sure only 'truth' is allowed". Ban the lies! Funniest thing was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook was booed, nearly universally, because they had an fairly open API (which enabled people to consent to share their data with CA). Few tech-illiterate news articles later, and everyone is convinced that Trump won the elections because of Facebook evilness (and, of course, CA had 'magic algorithms' which could change peoples' minds en masse just by showing them few targeted ads; that's completely undeniable; "trusted journalist" said so). Eh.

lazyjones 6y ago

Let's not forget how this started: with people attacking free speech because they felt they had a right to be offended by things they didn't like. That's when censorship became mainstream again.