3 ms·

> But I do think that physical violence resulting in part from the amplification of voices by algorithm would have been hard to foresee. I too would be curious

by kypro 6y ago

> But I do think that physical violence resulting in part from the amplification of voices by algorithm would have been hard to foresee. I too would be curious if his thinking would have evolved. Sadly, we'll never know. Something that always seems to be accepted without question in these conversations is that censoring violent language will reduce violent behaviour. Are we sure this is the case? For example, if you believed the election was stolen and all the platforms which would allow you discuss this civilly have banned you and those who think like you - what do you do? Sometimes I wonder if restricting peoples ability to express themselves freely (and also talking about them like they are scum for holding certain view points) might actually motative some number of people to make their voices heard through acts of violence. I also dislike how I've been pushed on to what I'd consider extremist platforms in recent months because a few people I follow have been banned from platforms like Twitter and YouTube. I think I'm strong minded enough to resist the constant bombardment of anti-semitic and racist content I am now exposed to, but I suspect some people are likely to be radicalised by this. ---- To your point though, I often wonder how Aaron would have felt about the internet today. I've seen many people's opinions on free speech change over the years (including my own). Tech platforms when they were the underdogs were overwhelming in favour of free speech - I know early on Reddit and Twitter explicitely expressed their support of freespeech. But in recent years they have become far more powerful and it would seem their opinion on what they will allow us to say has now changed. Ironically they've moved so far on this that if Twitter, Facebook or YouTube were started today they would probably be shut down because of how much extremist content they platform - I remember there was a time when Reddit was full of child porn and even allowed a subreddit dedicated to it to operate. I guess we'll never know how Aaron would have felt about all of this, but I know if there was anyone would could have proposed a workable solution it would have been him. It's a great shame he's no longer around to contribute to the future of the internet in the same way he did the internet of the past.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
Now I’m curious about who you follow that were banned from Twitter and YouTube. I don’t know if any research has been done on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that a normalization effect happens so that more exposure to certain modes of discourse change how you think about them. Our minds are not under our conscious control, even if we would prefer that they are. I suspect that our president’s mode of discourse has dramatically shifted what is seen as acceptable in a lot of people, for instance.
- thisrod 6y ago
  > I suspect that our president’s mode of discourse has dramatically shifted what is seen as acceptable Why isn't that a rational response? Many of Trump's actions were wrong. However, he got away with them, and acceptable and normal are about what you can get away with, not what's right.
  - fmoralesc 6y ago
    'normal' shifts with what people get away with, but 'acceptable' does not.
joshuahaglund 6y ago
It is not obvious that having someone publicly call for trial by combat at the capitol increases the probability of that happening, compared to no public proclamation? But what you're saying is that removing said content is going to somehow increase the violent behavior? By what means? Because you followed someone into to a cesspool? Then you were already drinking diluted pollution. People do not get banned simply for being a member of a political party, people get banned for spreading hate and inciting violence. Maybe you should reconsider who you follow if the people you follow wallow in hate and bigotry? Why doesn't the party of individual responsibility doesn't seem to understand you can just stop following the hate? Seek out and follow reasonable voices. But I'm afraid the whole appeal is more emotional resonance more than reason. Tolerating hateful violent rhetoric will not de radicalize anyone.
- btown 6y ago
  > Maybe you should reconsider who you follow if the people you follow wallow in hate and bigotry? Why doesn't the party of individual responsibility doesn't seem to understand you can just stop following the hate? Seek out and follow reasonable voices. There are a LOT of facets to an answer to that, but one that is entirely enabled by the technology industry is the concept of an algorithmic news feed promoting unsolicited content from not-yet-followed sources, especially when that algorithm is based on a function of "all of your activity over an extended period of time" and "the activity of people you interact with but whose views you never explicitly endorsed." You cannot simply "just stop following the hate" when the hate is repeatedly shoved down your throat daily in conspicuous "join this group" ads in Facebook. And this is far, far more prominent than we had believed, per https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-t... : > Facebook’s own research revealed that 64 percent of the time a person joins an extremist Facebook Group, they do so because the platform recommended it. Facebook has also acknowledged that pages and groups associated with QAnon extremism had at least 3 million members, meaning Facebook helped radicalize 2 million people. The frustrating thing about conversations about censorship on platforms is that you're not starting from a baseline of neutrality, because the algorithm itself is picking winners even if it wasn't coded that way. Any algorithm that takes engagement-after-clicking-a-promotion as an input will start to take advantage of people who are more susceptible to extremist content. Knowing what we know now, does the continued deployment of those algorithms constitute intentional corporate speech that emphasizes extremism? And in that case, would the removal or manual tuning of said corporate speech really be the censorship we're worried about?
webmaven 6y ago
> Something that always seems to be accepted without question in these conversations is that censoring violent language will reduce violent behaviour. Are we sure this is the case? Yes, there have been studies on the correlation and causative links between the two. Ethical experimentation to prove causation definitively is difficult to say the least, but there have been various "natural experiments" that can be learned from. At the very least, an extreme skeptic would still have to grudgingly acknowledge that violent speech is a leading indicator for violent behavior, and that interventions that reduce violent speech also reduce violent behavior, but the evidence is strong that the link goes beyond mere correlation. Here is one recent study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2013.852642 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2013.85... A quote from the abstract: "Across all three experiments, mild violent metaphors multiply support for political violence among aggressive citizens, especially among young adults." Not really a surprising result, but those who wish to employ violent speech for their own ends are of course quite resistant to the notion that there is a cause and effect link to be found.

by kypro 6y ago

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

Now I’m curious about who you follow that were banned from Twitter and YouTube. I don’t know if any research has been done on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that a normalization effect happens so that more exposure to certain modes of discourse change how you think about them. Our minds are not under our conscious control, even if we would prefer that they are. I suspect that our president’s mode of discourse has dramatically shifted what is seen as acceptable in a lot of people, for instance.

thisrod 6y ago
> I suspect that our president’s mode of discourse has dramatically shifted what is seen as acceptable Why isn't that a rational response? Many of Trump's actions were wrong. However, he got away with them, and acceptable and normal are about what you can get away with, not what's right.
- fmoralesc 6y ago
  'normal' shifts with what people get away with, but 'acceptable' does not.

joshuahaglund 6y ago

It is not obvious that having someone publicly call for trial by combat at the capitol increases the probability of that happening, compared to no public proclamation? But what you're saying is that removing said content is going to somehow increase the violent behavior? By what means? Because you followed someone into to a cesspool? Then you were already drinking diluted pollution. People do not get banned simply for being a member of a political party, people get banned for spreading hate and inciting violence. Maybe you should reconsider who you follow if the people you follow wallow in hate and bigotry? Why doesn't the party of individual responsibility doesn't seem to understand you can just stop following the hate? Seek out and follow reasonable voices. But I'm afraid the whole appeal is more emotional resonance more than reason. Tolerating hateful violent rhetoric will not de radicalize anyone.

btown 6y ago
> Maybe you should reconsider who you follow if the people you follow wallow in hate and bigotry? Why doesn't the party of individual responsibility doesn't seem to understand you can just stop following the hate? Seek out and follow reasonable voices. There are a LOT of facets to an answer to that, but one that is entirely enabled by the technology industry is the concept of an algorithmic news feed promoting unsolicited content from not-yet-followed sources, especially when that algorithm is based on a function of "all of your activity over an extended period of time" and "the activity of people you interact with but whose views you never explicitly endorsed." You cannot simply "just stop following the hate" when the hate is repeatedly shoved down your throat daily in conspicuous "join this group" ads in Facebook. And this is far, far more prominent than we had believed, per https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-their-role-in-the-insurrection/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-t... : > Facebook’s own research revealed that 64 percent of the time a person joins an extremist Facebook Group, they do so because the platform recommended it. Facebook has also acknowledged that pages and groups associated with QAnon extremism had at least 3 million members, meaning Facebook helped radicalize 2 million people. The frustrating thing about conversations about censorship on platforms is that you're not starting from a baseline of neutrality, because the algorithm itself is picking winners even if it wasn't coded that way. Any algorithm that takes engagement-after-clicking-a-promotion as an input will start to take advantage of people who are more susceptible to extremist content. Knowing what we know now, does the continued deployment of those algorithms constitute intentional corporate speech that emphasizes extremism? And in that case, would the removal or manual tuning of said corporate speech really be the censorship we're worried about?

webmaven 6y ago

> Something that always seems to be accepted without question in these conversations is that censoring violent language will reduce violent behaviour. Are we sure this is the case? Yes, there have been studies on the correlation and causative links between the two. Ethical experimentation to prove causation definitively is difficult to say the least, but there have been various "natural experiments" that can be learned from. At the very least, an extreme skeptic would still have to grudgingly acknowledge that violent speech is a leading indicator for violent behavior, and that interventions that reduce violent speech also reduce violent behavior, but the evidence is strong that the link goes beyond mere correlation. Here is one recent study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2013.852642 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2013.85... A quote from the abstract: "Across all three experiments, mild violent metaphors multiply support for political violence among aggressive citizens, especially among young adults." Not really a surprising result, but those who wish to employ violent speech for their own ends are of course quite resistant to the notion that there is a cause and effect link to be found.