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It's a positive thing for these ejections to be across the political spectrum, because it makes the demand for distributed moderation come from across the polit
by hirundo 6y ago
It's a positive thing for these ejections to be across the political spectrum, because it makes the demand for distributed moderation come from across the political spectrum.
I hope that demand congeals on support for an open blogging protocol, such that people can very easily post once and direct it to multiple platforms or any listener. If this becomes popular enough, and posts aren't owned by a particular platform, the big platforms lose their power to control the conversation.
- quantified 6y agoAs long as the same types of ejectable communications are being published across the political spectrum. I assume the SWP was calling for violence against the government or various officials?
- mrec 6y agoGenerally agreed, although I think that only really applies to control at the social-network level, not to control exerted via e.g. Chrome or DNS or your ISP. This feels like the start of a very long road.
- convery 6y agoDidn't Mozilla recently-ish put out a statement about possibly having a black-list of sorts to remove bad sites / "think of the children"? On mobile so can't search for it but surely someone here remembers the link.
- mrec 6y agoYou're probably thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690941 The statement was vague and ambiguous and touched a lot of raw nerves, but coming as it did on the heels of major layoffs at Mozilla it felt a bit like Mitchell Baker pulling a "roll hard left and die".
- d3nj4l 6y agoDon’t spread FUD. The statement you’re referring to had nothing to do with blacklisting sites.
- mancerayder 6y ago> It's a positive thing for these ejections to be across the political spectrum, because it makes the demand for distributed moderation come from across the political spectrum. It's a positive thing for these ejections to be across the political spectrum, because it de-politicizes censorship, and folks on one side of the spectrum cheering for the other side begin to realize that censorship is always a scope creep issue.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI'm a little worried in a few years it will only be safe to put up recipes and tell people happy birthday on social media, everything else will be too controversial
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoReminds me of the idea that discussing salary didn’t used to be an issue; but now is considered rude and taboo. We don’t talk about salary because it isn’t “safe”. On the otherhand, I agree with other people here that maybe feeling like it isn’t “safe” to discuss things will lead to more open and free places to communicate.
- praptak 6y agoDiscussing salary has effects beyond someone being offended. The taboo on salary tilts the table in favor of employers at the expense of the employed. In particular it enables lowballing of employees.
- lenkite 6y agoSorry, "Happy Birthday" is an imperialist imposition of western cultural values. It also mocks the elderly. Such micro-aggressions are no longer permitted on our platform. You have been "fact-checked" and given your first and last warning and a temporary ban of 90 days.
- cudgy 6y ago
- PoignardAzur 6y agoThat's optimistic. What I'm seeing is a lot of "we should regulate things so that facebook isn't allowed to censor things I like but is obligated to censor things I don't like". If people reacted to censorship in a principled way, we wouldn't be where we are today.
- loceng 6y agoAnd then you posting your counter narrative - even if it's truth and reason - will result in you being ban/blocked from their threads. We're going to start to have big in-person forums where a person's truth and reason can't be quickly silenced so the potential mob will be smaller than otherwise.
- throwaway45349 6y agoExcept that in-person forums are illegal right now :(
- einpoklum 6y agoIf people reacted to censorship in a principled way, nobody would use Facebook. It's an inherently censorious platform. The whole argument is about regulating or influencing Facebook's patterns of censorship.
- cambalache 6y agoOr.... The media companies just like to have the middle-of-the-road, dont-rock-the-boat-too-much parties who will kowtow to them and give the masses the ILUSION of political choice.
- nitrogen 6y agoMiddle doesn't have to mean 100% pro-establishment or pro-status-quo. And the illusion of choice applies to the falsely compressed, single-issue, single-axis left/right extremes, too.
- cambalache 6y ago> Middle doesn't have to mean 100% pro-establishment or pro-status-quo. You are confusing centrist parties with "middle-of-the-road" parties which by axiomatic definition mean the mainstream parties. > And the illusion of choice applies to the falsely compressed, single-issue, single-axis left/right extremes, too. It is not an illusion if the media is massively invested on who wins. Vanilla Republican vs Vanilla Democrat = Illusion of Choice,it does not matter who wins, the media wont care and the status quo will be maintained. Trump vs Vanilla Democrats = Choice matters, media will align with the Democrats to maintain the status-quo. Vanilla Republicans vs Bernie Sanders, Choice matters, media will align with the Republicans to maintain the status-quo.
- tqi 6y agoPeople dont want distributed moderation, they just want the other side to be moderated.
- danielheath 6y agoModeration isn't censorship. I might entertain an emotional desire for the other side to be censored sometimes. But a good moderator? I want them for me and mine. I care about 'my side' making strong, principled arguments with actionable policy outcomes, and not advancing weaker ones.
- tqi 6y agoIf more people were like you then this would be a workable solution, but unfortunately I think you are in the minority.
- brigandish 6y ago> Moderation isn't censorship. It it if it only applies to one side and in a form that the other side approves of, and that was the point of the example you replied to. If it was your example, "I want them for me and mine" then there wouldn't be a problem (or this problem, there'll always be problems).
- sudosysgen 6y agoThis is true. There are already a few decentralized platforms being worked on, and some mainly by socialists!
- Guthur 6y agoIt possible that the only sensible option is to ban all political groups from these platforms. The reason is that ultimately no one what's to have extreme polar opinions on these sites, but it's going to be very difficult to determine that in a non partisan manner. Though also to be fair it might be difficult to truely flag all political groups.
- frabbit 6y agoThis assumes that there is a political spectrum and that all parts of it have equal power. The SWP have miniscule political clout. In general the left (not the liberal center often mislabeled as "left" in the USA) has few institutions and less power. The most likely outcome is the consolidation of censorship in the hands of Republican/Democratic censors. Left-wingers will be welcome to post to ten followers at a time on Mastodon. There really is only one obvious response to this: Facebook, Google etc are common carriers, not allowed to censor. They should also be broken up given their massive size which enables them to drive policy which affects them.
- mnd999 6y agoNah, I don’t want a platform for Nazis or white supremecists or paedophiles or heroine dealers. If that makes me a bad person in other people’s eyes then I’m fine with that.
- TheRealDunkirk 6y ago> I hope that demand congeals on support for an open blogging protocol One of the biggest takeaways from the past 25 years of "the internet" is that critical-mass-achieving walled gardens are the ticket to unicorndom, and that's the only kind of solution that VC dollars are chasing. I don't think there's a way for someone to make a self-sustaining alternative open platform in this "market."