5 ms·

I am getting really sick of these articles. NO: building protocols or decentralized networks, or anything really isn't going to solve the hate-speech/censorshi

by d--b 6y ago

I am getting really sick of these articles. NO: building protocols or decentralized networks, or anything really isn't going to solve the hate-speech/censorship problem. This. Is. A. Culture. Problem. The hate-speech/censorship problem exists everywhere. If you can publish somewhere, you can publish hate/spam. And if there is hate and/or spam, you need to censor. That's it. The very fact of publishing is the problem. In fact the only true way of solving the problem is to prevent people from publishing stuff. The internet from the 90s didn't solve that problem. It just wasn't a problem so much at the time. Mastodon is certainly not solving that problem. Email, IRC, Usenet, BBses, etc. don't even address the problem... Now, the real question is why do people get so worked up? And how can we shift the culture away from this partisan shithole we're in now? Certainly not for me to answer that question. It maybe because people are poor, it may be because people lack some sense of purpose, it may be because of opioids, or video games, or because of vaccines and Gwyneth Paltrow. I honestly don't have a clue. But stop making it about platforms vs decentralized crap.

ilaksh 6y ago
https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw Johnathan Haidt with Andrew Yang
vixen99 6y ago
Not defining terms and making huge assumptions is vital if you want to offer a comment like this.
CharlesW 6y ago
FWIW, I'm glad you posted this. I think most people on HN have the breadth of experience to understand your main point. For example, many of us have extensive experience running communities and/or have seen how quickly bad actors will overrun even well-intentioned unmoderated communities. Other folks here do not necessarily have this experience, don't see the extensive "gardening" that happens in the background of healthy online communities (see: dang), and believe that all human problems can be solved by implementation details like protocols. There's the saying, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Do HNers know of good resources for folks who only have a hammer, but want to develop a more holistic, humanistic understanding of online communities?
stale2002 6y ago
> In fact the only true way of solving the problem is to prevent people from publishing stuff. No, actually. The solution would be instead to allow you personally to choose what you read/listen to, and to let other people do the same. If you don't like certain content, you should certainly have the right to not see it. But other people should be able to see it if they choose to do so.
smoyer 6y ago
I agree that it's a culture problem but I don't think it's a new one. There are several problems with today's as I see it: 1) Each small town used to have a crazy person who didn't quite live up to societal expectations. They might even "publish" but they had a limited audience (their town) who wasn't receptive to the message. With the huge "communications platforms" we've adopted on the Internet, those crazies can now find each other quite easily and band together into a group that has a much louder voice. Please note here that my use of the word "crazies" is not a medical diagnosis but rather a description of someone whose thoughts are significantly outside the mainstream. 2) In those small towns, there was societal pressure to NOT act on every non-conforming thought that you had. If you got shunned from your town, you might not survive and/or would be actively hunted down. If everyone knew you, the town gossip mill would make sure that you were continuously under a microscope. Now that the non-conformists have banded together in a large forum, they're outside the confines of their own community. If the goal is to quash hate speech and calls to violence, I think it's also important to note that there are some types of non-conformance that are good for society. Some is a gradual constant pressure that keeps our society ready for the day we live in. Others result in scientific advancement - most of us here consider "thinking-outside-the-box" to be a good thing. Doc Brown's town all considered him a little crazy but he was a "harmless crazy". As you might have expected, I don't have an answer to the current problem either but I think this is a discussion we have to have. How do we put societal pressure to use on a large scale? Can we in fact have constructive arguments with these groups? If we're willing to endure censorship, where is the boundary and how do we keep it from expanding? I for one would like community guidelines to determine where those edges are - perhaps we're "too far gone" as a society and we're just headed into another version of the dark ages.

by d--b 6y ago

ilaksh 6y ago

https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw Johnathan Haidt with Andrew Yang

vixen99 6y ago

Not defining terms and making huge assumptions is vital if you want to offer a comment like this.

CharlesW 6y ago

FWIW, I'm glad you posted this. I think most people on HN have the breadth of experience to understand your main point. For example, many of us have extensive experience running communities and/or have seen how quickly bad actors will overrun even well-intentioned unmoderated communities. Other folks here do not necessarily have this experience, don't see the extensive "gardening" that happens in the background of healthy online communities (see: dang), and believe that all human problems can be solved by implementation details like protocols. There's the saying, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Do HNers know of good resources for folks who only have a hammer, but want to develop a more holistic, humanistic understanding of online communities?

stale2002 6y ago

> In fact the only true way of solving the problem is to prevent people from publishing stuff. No, actually. The solution would be instead to allow you personally to choose what you read/listen to, and to let other people do the same. If you don't like certain content, you should certainly have the right to not see it. But other people should be able to see it if they choose to do so.

smoyer 6y ago

I agree that it's a culture problem but I don't think it's a new one. There are several problems with today's as I see it: 1) Each small town used to have a crazy person who didn't quite live up to societal expectations. They might even "publish" but they had a limited audience (their town) who wasn't receptive to the message. With the huge "communications platforms" we've adopted on the Internet, those crazies can now find each other quite easily and band together into a group that has a much louder voice. Please note here that my use of the word "crazies" is not a medical diagnosis but rather a description of someone whose thoughts are significantly outside the mainstream. 2) In those small towns, there was societal pressure to NOT act on every non-conforming thought that you had. If you got shunned from your town, you might not survive and/or would be actively hunted down. If everyone knew you, the town gossip mill would make sure that you were continuously under a microscope. Now that the non-conformists have banded together in a large forum, they're outside the confines of their own community. If the goal is to quash hate speech and calls to violence, I think it's also important to note that there are some types of non-conformance that are good for society. Some is a gradual constant pressure that keeps our society ready for the day we live in. Others result in scientific advancement - most of us here consider "thinking-outside-the-box" to be a good thing. Doc Brown's town all considered him a little crazy but he was a "harmless crazy". As you might have expected, I don't have an answer to the current problem either but I think this is a discussion we have to have. How do we put societal pressure to use on a large scale? Can we in fact have constructive arguments with these groups? If we're willing to endure censorship, where is the boundary and how do we keep it from expanding? I for one would like community guidelines to determine where those edges are - perhaps we're "too far gone" as a society and we're just headed into another version of the dark ages.