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First Discord bans the group, now Facebook, and in the meantime, Google has helpfully removed more than 100K negative reviews. Big tech is organized against th

by llampx 6y ago

First Discord bans the group, now Facebook, and in the meantime, Google has helpfully removed more than 100K negative reviews. Big tech is organized against the little guy and at the end, they are no worse than the Wall Street, whether they wear shorts and t-shirts, turtlenecks or suits.

mancerayder 6y ago
I enjoy listening to Greenwald's impassioned rants on the topic, with arguments in favor of freedom of speech and examples of what can go wrong historically. There's an interview/conversation with Unherd / Lockdown TV that's of particular interest on the topic.
- mr_woozy 6y ago
  so link it then.
  - dudeithinkBLM 6y ago
    Here you are: https://youtu.be/MSVNm7XbnYA https://youtu.be/MSVNm7XbnYA
fjabre 6y ago
I would hesitate from calling WallStreetBets or Reddit the 'little guy'. That's the part that gets me about this story. Both sides are immoral and wrong in manipulating the market and both sides have committed the crime of market manipulation.
- jjj123 6y ago
  I guess I don’t understand why manipulating the market is immoral if you’re open and honest about it the way wsb was.
  - loopz 6y ago
    The same way a coup can be immoral and wrong even if you lie upfront about it. It's abusive and destructive.
  - fjabre 6y ago
    I think both sides are doing the same thing and pointing fingers at each other. That's my point. Market manipulation is just that, whether it's done by a privileged class on their iPhone 11s (i.e. the Reddit mob) or Hedge fund managers. A privileged mob on reddit armed with Macbook pros does not equal the people sticking it to the man. Reddit itself is part of the oligarchy everyone is railing against.
    - jjj123 6y ago
      I don’t think you answered my question. I don’t disagree it’s market manipulation, and I agree no one is “sticking it to the man” here (though I’m always happy to see hedge funds lose 20 billion). What I’m asking is why market manipulation is a bad thing, as long as it’s happening out in the open and everyone trading GME knows it’s a manipulated stock.
- noxer 6y ago
  You are totally misinformed. To bet against people who took too much risk is exactly what the market should do. Not immoral and its not manipulation at all. The problem isn't the betting of either side the problem is that one side de-facto can not loose (the current situation is an exception and it needs to be seen how much they actually lost in the end). They either get bailouts or get almost "unlimited free" loans to keep going until the tides turn and profits cover previous loses. This is actually manipulation. No matter who bets and on what, a fair free market would liquidate the losers, end of the story. The problem is that the losers in this case aren't actually legally allowed to lose that money because they gamble with other peoples money. Nonetheless they should be liquidated and the rightful owner should sue them and what not but ultimately they have to take the lose. To give your money to someone so they make more is in itself a bet that comes with a risk. Just because someone lost your money in a possible illegal way doesn't mean you have the right to get it back. If I give you 100 bucks and you steal it instead of multiplying it you are a criminal but I still have to bear the lose. Hedge fund and other financial institutions should not be treated differently.
  - Banana699 6y ago
    When we look back on past injustices, there is almost a feeling of ridicule. As if we can't imagine how can those people fall for someone who says he (almost always a he) is appointed by god and bear so much of his bullshit for that. It is not victim blaming, but just barely so. It's a massive surge of disbelief, and an accompanying faith that no, those days are over now. We are better than this now. Only we aren't, and we are still soaking up massive shitloads of inqueqlity and blood-boiling rule-bending like the good folks we are. For reasons that are, for all practical purposes, exactly like "god says I can", only this god is called "the free market". Slightly less superstitious, but no less unreal or stupid as the old thing. It's amazing how much you can get depressed thinking about the sheer "same shit different day"-ness of human civilization.
kmeisthax 6y ago
Each one of those bans can be explained as WSB being a victim of their own success. None of these companies have a compromising financial connection to Melvin Capital in the same way that Robinhood did. For example, the WSB Discord was basically such a trainwreck that the WSB mod team themselves admitted they had significant problems keeping it under control. We can extrapolate that to Facebook as well. Hell, the WSB mod team even locked /r/WSB for a few hours to try and figure out a moderation plan. Most online platforms either rely heavily on community moderation (Discord, Reddit) or a small army of employee moderators that have to be rotated out frequently for the sake of their own mental health. Neither of these models work well for an already-rowdy community suddenly 10xing themselves in both scale and frequency of rules violations. It's basically uncontrollable and the only option is to shut it all down until you have a chance to cool off. (Again, that's why /r/WSB was locked yesterday.) As for Google, they took a third approach: heavy automation. They have shittons of antispam systems specifically targeted to prevent review spamming. A sudden burst of 100k negative reviews from legitimate users angry that they can no longer participate in a financial flash mob is technically indistinguishable from someone who bought and compromised 100k accounts and decided to threaten Robinhood with negative reviews. Your antispam system isn't going to understand context (e.g. Robinhood fixing the books in a particular direction) but it is going to understand timing. There isn't really a good way to handle this. The null option of "do nothing and let the problem fester" isn't a good option. This is because people will figure out that WSB is the server/subreddit/group you go on in order to break the rules and get away with it. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder about platforms having any sort of moderation rules will deliberately spam these corners of it, and normal people will assume that such behavior is now OK because there's no enforcement. This will spill over into other corners of the platform until everything is as bad as the lowest common denominator. (See also: what happens to subreddits as they grow, the entirety of 4chan, etc)
- Tenoke 6y ago
  This is pretty much it rather than coordinated tech action. I support WSB and am not even remotely a Trumper but what happened to Parler was a much better example of a Big Tech shut down.
- davvolun 6y ago
Person5478 6y ago
Until Google does something else I'd give them a pass. Steam, for example, will give you more information about the reviews to avoid brigading. I'm more inclined to believe Google is trying to head brigading off. When they start being more active however ... then we can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. But I'm 100% with you wrt Discord/FB.

by llampx 6y ago

mancerayder 6y ago

I enjoy listening to Greenwald's impassioned rants on the topic, with arguments in favor of freedom of speech and examples of what can go wrong historically. There's an interview/conversation with Unherd / Lockdown TV that's of particular interest on the topic.

mr_woozy 6y ago
so link it then.
- dudeithinkBLM 6y ago
  Here you are: https://youtu.be/MSVNm7XbnYA https://youtu.be/MSVNm7XbnYA

fjabre 6y ago

I would hesitate from calling WallStreetBets or Reddit the 'little guy'. That's the part that gets me about this story. Both sides are immoral and wrong in manipulating the market and both sides have committed the crime of market manipulation.

jjj123 6y ago
I guess I don’t understand why manipulating the market is immoral if you’re open and honest about it the way wsb was.
- loopz 6y ago
  The same way a coup can be immoral and wrong even if you lie upfront about it. It's abusive and destructive.
- fjabre 6y ago
  I think both sides are doing the same thing and pointing fingers at each other. That's my point. Market manipulation is just that, whether it's done by a privileged class on their iPhone 11s (i.e. the Reddit mob) or Hedge fund managers. A privileged mob on reddit armed with Macbook pros does not equal the people sticking it to the man. Reddit itself is part of the oligarchy everyone is railing against.
  - jjj123 6y ago
    I don’t think you answered my question. I don’t disagree it’s market manipulation, and I agree no one is “sticking it to the man” here (though I’m always happy to see hedge funds lose 20 billion). What I’m asking is why market manipulation is a bad thing, as long as it’s happening out in the open and everyone trading GME knows it’s a manipulated stock.
noxer 6y ago
You are totally misinformed. To bet against people who took too much risk is exactly what the market should do. Not immoral and its not manipulation at all. The problem isn't the betting of either side the problem is that one side de-facto can not loose (the current situation is an exception and it needs to be seen how much they actually lost in the end). They either get bailouts or get almost "unlimited free" loans to keep going until the tides turn and profits cover previous loses. This is actually manipulation. No matter who bets and on what, a fair free market would liquidate the losers, end of the story. The problem is that the losers in this case aren't actually legally allowed to lose that money because they gamble with other peoples money. Nonetheless they should be liquidated and the rightful owner should sue them and what not but ultimately they have to take the lose. To give your money to someone so they make more is in itself a bet that comes with a risk. Just because someone lost your money in a possible illegal way doesn't mean you have the right to get it back. If I give you 100 bucks and you steal it instead of multiplying it you are a criminal but I still have to bear the lose. Hedge fund and other financial institutions should not be treated differently.
- Banana699 6y ago
  When we look back on past injustices, there is almost a feeling of ridicule. As if we can't imagine how can those people fall for someone who says he (almost always a he) is appointed by god and bear so much of his bullshit for that. It is not victim blaming, but just barely so. It's a massive surge of disbelief, and an accompanying faith that no, those days are over now. We are better than this now. Only we aren't, and we are still soaking up massive shitloads of inqueqlity and blood-boiling rule-bending like the good folks we are. For reasons that are, for all practical purposes, exactly like "god says I can", only this god is called "the free market". Slightly less superstitious, but no less unreal or stupid as the old thing. It's amazing how much you can get depressed thinking about the sheer "same shit different day"-ness of human civilization.

kmeisthax 6y ago

Each one of those bans can be explained as WSB being a victim of their own success. None of these companies have a compromising financial connection to Melvin Capital in the same way that Robinhood did. For example, the WSB Discord was basically such a trainwreck that the WSB mod team themselves admitted they had significant problems keeping it under control. We can extrapolate that to Facebook as well. Hell, the WSB mod team even locked /r/WSB for a few hours to try and figure out a moderation plan. Most online platforms either rely heavily on community moderation (Discord, Reddit) or a small army of employee moderators that have to be rotated out frequently for the sake of their own mental health. Neither of these models work well for an already-rowdy community suddenly 10xing themselves in both scale and frequency of rules violations. It's basically uncontrollable and the only option is to shut it all down until you have a chance to cool off. (Again, that's why /r/WSB was locked yesterday.) As for Google, they took a third approach: heavy automation. They have shittons of antispam systems specifically targeted to prevent review spamming. A sudden burst of 100k negative reviews from legitimate users angry that they can no longer participate in a financial flash mob is technically indistinguishable from someone who bought and compromised 100k accounts and decided to threaten Robinhood with negative reviews. Your antispam system isn't going to understand context (e.g. Robinhood fixing the books in a particular direction) but it is going to understand timing. There isn't really a good way to handle this. The null option of "do nothing and let the problem fester" isn't a good option. This is because people will figure out that WSB is the server/subreddit/group you go on in order to break the rules and get away with it. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder about platforms having any sort of moderation rules will deliberately spam these corners of it, and normal people will assume that such behavior is now OK because there's no enforcement. This will spill over into other corners of the platform until everything is as bad as the lowest common denominator. (See also: what happens to subreddits as they grow, the entirety of 4chan, etc)

Tenoke 6y ago
This is pretty much it rather than coordinated tech action. I support WSB and am not even remotely a Trumper but what happened to Parler was a much better example of a Big Tech shut down.
davvolun 6y ago

Person5478 6y ago

Until Google does something else I'd give them a pass. Steam, for example, will give you more information about the reviews to avoid brigading. I'm more inclined to believe Google is trying to head brigading off. When they start being more active however ... then we can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. But I'm 100% with you wrt Discord/FB.