3 ms·

I'd rather decide for myself what is "evil" and "poison" rather than have that decision made for me by a search engine who's only job is to return the informati

I'd rather decide for myself what is "evil" and "poison" rather than have that decision made for me by a search engine who's only job is to return the information I'm asking for. I could want this "evil" information for any number of non-evil reasons, it is not their nor anyone else's job to make that decision on behalf of the user.

michaelmrose 6y ago
I think I will be better off if social media and search engines don't help people poison their minds. That is to say its possible that your desire to be informed and my desire for you not to find what you are looking for might be opposed. If you think that you are missing out on legitimate information pick a different search engine or make one.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  There are lots of oppressive things we can do to help people not "poison their minds". Strictly controlling the information your citizens interact with, as is done in places like China, shows what an implementation of this may look like. It's also roundly criticized as repressive, anti-freedom, and ripe for almost unlimited abuse by every first world nation.
  - psd1 6y ago
    You're right, but the question is, how absolutist should we be on that principle? The results of free sharing of "information" can be seen in measles outbreaks, for example.
    - Karunamon 6y ago
      Completely, in my mind, because the alternatives have unbounded abuse potential.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        Even if you had freedom from legal coercion it doesn't imply a platform ought to use that freedom to help poisonous crap spread. Lets give an obvious example there was a lady spreading nonsense about how you could cure your autistic kid by giving them bleach anally. She is encouraging dumb people to torture their vulnerable mentally challenged children. Whether the government ought to let her spread her malicious lies is an entirely different question from whether for example amazon ought to carry her book or google ought to index her site. If your absolutist free speech position doesn't allow you to admit to the idea of the government censoring her I understand. However if you think that amazon and google ought to be morally obligated to help her spread her poison I don't understand your position at all. A rational person can tell the difference between a grey area obvious nonsense and pretending that there aren't plenty of trivially definable black and white situations in which not carrying poison makes the world a better place is complete nonsense as is the idea that ANY editorial discretion magically leads to 1984. Life is literally the finding a balance point and I think we can reasonably discover a point of homeostasis between free heroin on every corner and constantly strip searching everyone for drugs. If you don't think so you haven't considered the problem very deeply.
        Karunamon 6y ago
        I thought we were speaking mostly about governments in this discussion, but quite frankly, the amount of power that Google and Facebook combined have over the average internet user's information intake puts them in a similar place. I believe the "moral obligation" is to act like the common carriers they play at being when it's expedient to do so, keep their hands off, and allow the government apparatus equipped to handle incitement to violence to do its job. The problem at the end of the day is that we're not talking about extreme, contrived examples like the one just mentioned. We're talking about ideological things that rational people can disagree about in good faith, and there is no downside for tech companies to boost their preferred ideologies/candidates/etc and suppress their non-preferred ones. That is a huge problem with, just like the governments, unlimited abuse potential... except it's more insidious. Government suppression of speech comes at the point of a gun, tech suppression of speech happens passively, in that you won't know it's happening unless you know to look for it, or its application is exceedingly blunt. It's handwaved because many people find the list of boosting and suppressing targets acceptable.

michaelmrose 6y ago

I think I will be better off if social media and search engines don't help people poison their minds. That is to say its possible that your desire to be informed and my desire for you not to find what you are looking for might be opposed. If you think that you are missing out on legitimate information pick a different search engine or make one.

Karunamon 6y ago
There are lots of oppressive things we can do to help people not "poison their minds". Strictly controlling the information your citizens interact with, as is done in places like China, shows what an implementation of this may look like. It's also roundly criticized as repressive, anti-freedom, and ripe for almost unlimited abuse by every first world nation.
- psd1 6y ago
  You're right, but the question is, how absolutist should we be on that principle? The results of free sharing of "information" can be seen in measles outbreaks, for example.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    Completely, in my mind, because the alternatives have unbounded abuse potential.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Even if you had freedom from legal coercion it doesn't imply a platform ought to use that freedom to help poisonous crap spread. Lets give an obvious example there was a lady spreading nonsense about how you could cure your autistic kid by giving them bleach anally. She is encouraging dumb people to torture their vulnerable mentally challenged children. Whether the government ought to let her spread her malicious lies is an entirely different question from whether for example amazon ought to carry her book or google ought to index her site. If your absolutist free speech position doesn't allow you to admit to the idea of the government censoring her I understand. However if you think that amazon and google ought to be morally obligated to help her spread her poison I don't understand your position at all. A rational person can tell the difference between a grey area obvious nonsense and pretending that there aren't plenty of trivially definable black and white situations in which not carrying poison makes the world a better place is complete nonsense as is the idea that ANY editorial discretion magically leads to 1984. Life is literally the finding a balance point and I think we can reasonably discover a point of homeostasis between free heroin on every corner and constantly strip searching everyone for drugs. If you don't think so you haven't considered the problem very deeply.
      - Karunamon 6y ago
        I thought we were speaking mostly about governments in this discussion, but quite frankly, the amount of power that Google and Facebook combined have over the average internet user's information intake puts them in a similar place. I believe the "moral obligation" is to act like the common carriers they play at being when it's expedient to do so, keep their hands off, and allow the government apparatus equipped to handle incitement to violence to do its job. The problem at the end of the day is that we're not talking about extreme, contrived examples like the one just mentioned. We're talking about ideological things that rational people can disagree about in good faith, and there is no downside for tech companies to boost their preferred ideologies/candidates/etc and suppress their non-preferred ones. That is a huge problem with, just like the governments, unlimited abuse potential... except it's more insidious. Government suppression of speech comes at the point of a gun, tech suppression of speech happens passively, in that you won't know it's happening unless you know to look for it, or its application is exceedingly blunt. It's handwaved because many people find the list of boosting and suppressing targets acceptable.