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I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is logged and stored. There is no doubt

I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is logged and stored. There is no doubt in my mind these comments are easily associated to my real identity with very little effort. Another side of censorship I consider often is signal to noise. There is no reason to prevent people from saying whatever they want if no one will ever see it. I recall a stat I heard that YouTube receives ~400 hours of content uploaded every minute to their site. Or the long-tail of Twitch streamers with 0 viewers. Finally, there is a threat of violence. We all know what happens to high-profile journalists because of their high profile. I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.

slver 5y ago
> I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on no-traffic forums with anonymous authors. A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it.
- Cyph0n 5y ago
  > Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the paranoid [dictators] survive". You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat". This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large intelligence agencies keeping each other in check.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    Obligatory link to CGP Grey’s “The Rules for Rulers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- reggieband 5y ago
  I try not to be paranoid about it, but there are several governments that I just don't talk about online. They are known for aggressive Internet task forces and have histories of taking actions. I don't see any benefit publicly voicing my opinion on them. All it takes is for them to indefinitely store all content posted to certain sites (and you can bet reddit and hacker news are on that list), then run algorithms to de-anonymize it. Then they can score you. Maybe in the future you get a promotion. Maybe you're crossing a border. Maybe a YouTube video you post goes viral. Suddenly that scored record of you sets off an alarm. The digital history you are creating today isn't going away for the rest of your life.
- jbay808 5y ago
  It's typically after you end up in the public eye for some other reason that someone becomes motivated to hunt for material from your past. Today you're a random internet commentator; tomorrow you're in a fight with your kid's school board, publishing a popular book, who knows.
Workaccount2 5y ago
I'm haunted by Roko's Basilisk. The story in it's original incarnation may be a bit outlandish. However, dial it in a few notches and you get a powerful AI that can associate you with anything you have ever left a data trail for, in the hands of an unknown future bad actor. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that was the thrust for the initial conception of it. Given that, the Basilisk may already be in it's infant stage.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Tangent: You have nothing to fear from Roko's Basilisk. I analysed it from the perspective of four different decision theories, and in every one: • It doesn't make sense to build the evil AI agent; and • the evil AI agent has no incentive to torture people who decided not to build it (unless its utility function relates to such torture, but it doesn't make sense to build that AI agent unless you want to torture people – in which case, you should be scared of the mad scientist, not the AI). I didn't publish because I find my essays embarrassing, but if you have specific worries I can assuage them.
  - remarkEon 5y ago
    Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the point of the thought experiment was that the Basilisk builds itself?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      No, that would be impossible. The idea is that a future AI is built with the goal of [something good] and discovers self preservation and then does the torture stuff.
      - a1369209993 5y ago
        > a future AI is built with the goal of [something good] Er, no, the idea is that someone hypothesizes the (malicious) AI, and then is compelled to (intentionally) build it by threat of being tortured if anyone else builds and they did not. The AI is working as designed. See also prisoner's dilemma and tragedy of the commons; Roko's Basilisk is only concerning because of the reasoning that someone else will ruin things for everyone, so you had better ruin things first.
nixpulvis 5y ago
I post and edit. It's become an obsession frankly.
RIMR 5y ago
You seemed fairly reasonable up until you revealed that you believe in some paranoid conspiracy to disappear internet nobodies for their social media comments... >I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. The answer is zero. I hope this helps.
wcarss 5y ago
I do the same. I write tweets, or facebook notes to family or friends -- argumentative or loving. Or hacker news comments, or blog posts, or whatever. I often spend a surprising amount of time in editing, re-reading, and honing them out. Then, I tap `CTRL+A, delete, CTRL+W`. I have an old draft post where I mused about a coworker's hamfisted and awkward attempts to magnify the voices of those around him whom he felt were under-represented. He, a cisgender cissexual 30s-ish white tech guy, would often single out visible-minority individuals and then loudly try to cajole them into giving opinions on topics he felt they should have opinions about, or whenever he felt they were being unheard. It was surely coming from a good place, but without fail, it made his targets and everyone else uncomfortable. It was interesting, so I wrote about it. Then I didn't post it, because I really don't know if my own take as another 30s-ish blah blah white tech guy on some hamfisted attempt to be an ally would ring true or read well at the time. Or especially years later. But I wrote it and then stashed it. Part of that 'chilling effect,' right? But, I also wrote a big 'intro to contributing to open source' post, which I felt was too long and rambling, maybe had its own share of bad takes, and I honestly worry that I'm not qualified to post it. I'm just some guy! So I stashed that, too. Was I self-censoring in the most dangerous way in the first instance, but not in the second? What brings about the distinction? I felt in both cases that the post might reflect poorly on me, so I didn't post it. Snowden's post reads to me a bit like a writer's writing about having writer's block. I imagine him sitting down to write something, because he has this big new writing project he has to do, the newsletter. He comes up with 10 ideas, but then in thinking about really seriously grappling with each of them, he crosses each one out. Who is he, after all? Just some guy! He did a great thing that one time, that doesn't make him an expert on every info-sec/cultural/political topic du-jour. So... what's left? Well, he can write about what he's going though! And 'how bad it is to censor yourself' is a pretty unique and elevated take on writing about 'how hard it is to figure out what to write', so, voila. (And I'd love to just delete this rather than post it.)
- mplanchard 5y ago
  Thanks for fighting the urge to delete and posting this. I appreciate the nuance of your perspective, and I think it brings a lot of value to this discussion. I don’t particularly want to express an opinion about the broader topic under discussion, but I do think that regardless of the cause, introspection of our “hot takes” as to whether they’re worth taking public or not is a valuable thing, and something it seems like not enough people do.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

slver 5y ago

> I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on no-traffic forums with anonymous authors. A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it.

Cyph0n 5y ago
> Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the paranoid [dictators] survive". You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat". This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large intelligence agencies keeping each other in check.
- teddyh 5y ago
  Obligatory link to CGP Grey’s “The Rules for Rulers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
reggieband 5y ago
I try not to be paranoid about it, but there are several governments that I just don't talk about online. They are known for aggressive Internet task forces and have histories of taking actions. I don't see any benefit publicly voicing my opinion on them. All it takes is for them to indefinitely store all content posted to certain sites (and you can bet reddit and hacker news are on that list), then run algorithms to de-anonymize it. Then they can score you. Maybe in the future you get a promotion. Maybe you're crossing a border. Maybe a YouTube video you post goes viral. Suddenly that scored record of you sets off an alarm. The digital history you are creating today isn't going away for the rest of your life.
jbay808 5y ago
It's typically after you end up in the public eye for some other reason that someone becomes motivated to hunt for material from your past. Today you're a random internet commentator; tomorrow you're in a fight with your kid's school board, publishing a popular book, who knows.

Workaccount2 5y ago

I'm haunted by Roko's Basilisk. The story in it's original incarnation may be a bit outlandish. However, dial it in a few notches and you get a powerful AI that can associate you with anything you have ever left a data trail for, in the hands of an unknown future bad actor. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that was the thrust for the initial conception of it. Given that, the Basilisk may already be in it's infant stage.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
Tangent: You have nothing to fear from Roko's Basilisk. I analysed it from the perspective of four different decision theories, and in every one: • It doesn't make sense to build the evil AI agent; and • the evil AI agent has no incentive to torture people who decided not to build it (unless its utility function relates to such torture, but it doesn't make sense to build that AI agent unless you want to torture people – in which case, you should be scared of the mad scientist, not the AI). I didn't publish because I find my essays embarrassing, but if you have specific worries I can assuage them.
- remarkEon 5y ago
  Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the point of the thought experiment was that the Basilisk builds itself?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    No, that would be impossible. The idea is that a future AI is built with the goal of [something good] and discovers self preservation and then does the torture stuff.
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      > a future AI is built with the goal of [something good] Er, no, the idea is that someone hypothesizes the (malicious) AI, and then is compelled to (intentionally) build it by threat of being tortured if anyone else builds and they did not. The AI is working as designed. See also prisoner's dilemma and tragedy of the commons; Roko's Basilisk is only concerning because of the reasoning that someone else will ruin things for everyone, so you had better ruin things first.

nixpulvis 5y ago

I post and edit. It's become an obsession frankly.

RIMR 5y ago

You seemed fairly reasonable up until you revealed that you believe in some paranoid conspiracy to disappear internet nobodies for their social media comments... >I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. The answer is zero. I hope this helps.

wcarss 5y ago

I do the same. I write tweets, or facebook notes to family or friends -- argumentative or loving. Or hacker news comments, or blog posts, or whatever. I often spend a surprising amount of time in editing, re-reading, and honing them out. Then, I tap `CTRL+A, delete, CTRL+W`. I have an old draft post where I mused about a coworker's hamfisted and awkward attempts to magnify the voices of those around him whom he felt were under-represented. He, a cisgender cissexual 30s-ish white tech guy, would often single out visible-minority individuals and then loudly try to cajole them into giving opinions on topics he felt they should have opinions about, or whenever he felt they were being unheard. It was surely coming from a good place, but without fail, it made his targets and everyone else uncomfortable. It was interesting, so I wrote about it. Then I didn't post it, because I really don't know if my own take as another 30s-ish blah blah white tech guy on some hamfisted attempt to be an ally would ring true or read well at the time. Or especially years later. But I wrote it and then stashed it. Part of that 'chilling effect,' right? But, I also wrote a big 'intro to contributing to open source' post, which I felt was too long and rambling, maybe had its own share of bad takes, and I honestly worry that I'm not qualified to post it. I'm just some guy! So I stashed that, too. Was I self-censoring in the most dangerous way in the first instance, but not in the second? What brings about the distinction? I felt in both cases that the post might reflect poorly on me, so I didn't post it. Snowden's post reads to me a bit like a writer's writing about having writer's block. I imagine him sitting down to write something, because he has this big new writing project he has to do, the newsletter. He comes up with 10 ideas, but then in thinking about really seriously grappling with each of them, he crosses each one out. Who is he, after all? Just some guy! He did a great thing that one time, that doesn't make him an expert on every info-sec/cultural/political topic du-jour. So... what's left? Well, he can write about what he's going though! And 'how bad it is to censor yourself' is a pretty unique and elevated take on writing about 'how hard it is to figure out what to write', so, voila. (And I'd love to just delete this rather than post it.)

mplanchard 5y ago
Thanks for fighting the urge to delete and posting this. I appreciate the nuance of your perspective, and I think it brings a lot of value to this discussion. I don’t particularly want to express an opinion about the broader topic under discussion, but I do think that regardless of the cause, introspection of our “hot takes” as to whether they’re worth taking public or not is a valuable thing, and something it seems like not enough people do.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]