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The marketplace of ideas has failed. I wish it weren’t true. I loved the concept. Russia killed it. Trolls killed it. Fake news killed it. Click bait killed it.

The marketplace of ideas has failed. I wish it weren’t true. I loved the concept. Russia killed it. Trolls killed it. Fake news killed it. Click bait killed it. It’s sad and I mourn it. Free speech on the internet isn’t looking too hot. We must demand that platforms do more to police what people can send and post. I don’t envy their position. Perhaps one of the new user-controlled data models will help. Perhaps AI will help. Perhaps only human-moderation will work. I don’t know but I don’t see things getting better.

Forge36 5y ago
Moderation feels irrelevant if the host is unwilling out encouraging the behavior. I wonder if they best approach it better DNS blocking. ISPs forced to comply with law, however alternate DNS "get the full internet" are left legal. I want to be careful with opening the door to banning sites/people from the internet. I can't imagine leaving the system in place as-is an acceptable solution.
- farias0 5y ago
  I have a feeling moderating online speech is a losing game. There will always be platforms such as 4chan and KF willing to provide a space to any kind of speech. Maybe I've become too cynical, but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online, such as through compartmentalizing different aspects of your online social life through different social media accounts. I know this sounds like victim-blaming, but this is not my intention. It's just that maybe we humans were not built to be judged by everyone everywhere. For those that watched the anime Evangelion, there was a nice, forward-thinking discussion about this idea there.
  - xf1cf 5y ago
    > but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online I've been on the internet for almost 30 years. This is something that we've lost in the last decade of people dying to tie their real identity to everything. The wild west internet was actively hostile and you had to be smart about not only what you said, but who you were associating with. This form of "internet bullying" has existed since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't make it any more correct and it's only gotten more vicious with age. Especially because finding exploitable weaknesses is extremely easy when people leave themselves exposed on social media, twitter, discord, etc. We haven't solved it because I don't believe there is an actual solution. You get rid of KF and 4chan, another 10 communities pop up and the most popular one survives. You hit the registars, and they find another. Eventually they'll end up on one of the many registrars located outside the US that could not care any less what is hosted there. The best thing you can do is compartmentalize. The problem is people, for better or worse, tie their entire identity to whatever they do on the internet. This is fraught with danger because it makes you easy to attack. But being easy to attack isn't enough, you have to also have to have shown some weakness they can use as leverage. Near is an unfortunate example of this. KF bullied them mercilessly because they possessed enough exploitable traits to make it profitable. This isn't victim blaming, but unfortunately something we must learn from. Privacy, compartmentalization, and good operational security are the only things that can protect you. Maybe we can return to the internet of psuedonyms and lies that I remember. It was safer then, because no one trusted anyone implicitly and no one was willing to expose weaknesses that could be exploited.
    - pretentious7 5y ago
      But there's a lot of eccentrics whose life is the internet. To disconnect for them is essentially the same as solitary confinement. Insofar as privacy, compartmentalization, and good opsec, near did all of that, doesn't help when the mob goes after friends and family.
      - farias0 5y ago
        Did he, though? He was famous for being an incredible hacker, and then he conflated this profile with his furry persona and used it to talk about LGBT stuff. It saddens me so much that things have to be this way, that people can't put themselves out there without being (literally) bullied to death, but being pragmatic he could have separated those two "personalities", especially considering one of those is extremely well known in certain circles.
        0dayz 5y ago
        I don't entirely agree with this premise. I do agree on the furry + anime vices stuff that mixing that in with the legendary byuu was silly and wouldn't surprise me if it was unfortunately due to their autism (they they have it in the twitter thread). However I don't think LGBT + incredible hacker is a huge blunder IF and only IF, you can be assertive about it, which is much easier said than done when: A: Most people just want to live their lives without none-sense B: LGBT people are far more likely to be brought up either through parents or environment to feel the need to be introverted about themselves to protect themselves from harm. But say someone like say Rupaul, even if they get hate, they simply would never take it.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      The problem is that now people dedicate time and effort to "doxing" people so there's no real way to ensure that you're safely anonymous for any extended set of interaction as a persona. Unless you're for some 4chan like system where everyone is anonymous for every message, people will invest in their online personas and will be upset or devastated if they are attacked or destroyed. The real difference now compared to the past IMO is that as a society we haven't really internalized that will large, possibly global reach and the benefits it may bring come an associated set of dangers. The larger the audience, the larger the possible benefits of your interactions. Linus Torvalds leverages a global audience into a volunteer workforce for what is likely the greatest software engineering product of the human race to date. Another person makes a poor decision or hurtful comment or is just interpreted wrong, and is the zeitgeist of a day or two, but a day or two of almost the whole world's ire. That can have major personal and professional consequences, as we've seen. Managing a one-on-one interaction and explaining yourself to someone is generally trivial, for mature people. Doing so for a group of 10 is harder, but also possible much of the time. For 100, adequately assuaging them all is unlikely, some will retain reservations you'll likely never know are directly related. It worsens at every level. At the point where thousands or millions of people have negative impressions of you, many will never even see counterfactual evidence to what was initially presented, and your reputation may be tarnished, possibly to a sizeable fractions of the human race, and there's not much you can do about it, because the novel situation that got information about you in front of them initially is extremely unlikely to be repeated.
  - gtvwill 5y ago
    Eh bullying could be culled on many platforms with a simple rule. Require photo ID for an account. Bit hard to insight violence when your able to be held accountable. Tbh should be mandatory for a FB account and Twitter given their large hold on social media. They want to allow non verifiable or accountable users. Give me the user the ability to block interaction with all non verified accounts. Problem mostly sorted.
    - beprogrammed 5y ago
      Oh I would love to see that leak
ATsch 5y ago
I wouldn't say it has failed, but succeeded. The framing of the "marketplace of ideas" has really always been about paving over power dynamics and justify continuing harm by appealing to something external. In your marketplace of ideas, the hundreds of abstract individuals that are hararassers are equally as valid as one abstract individual just trying to live their life. It's working as intended.
- badRNG 5y ago
  It might be more accurate to say that the marketplace of ideas isn't all it's cracked up to be. It has failed to be the utopian dream some hoped it would.
  - ta2163 5y ago
    But it's still better than the alternatives.
  - ATsch 5y ago
    That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. Saying the market place of ideas was an utopian dream that failed is like saying the divine right of kings was an utopian idea that failed. At best, it is something people were conned into agreeing with. These ideas weren't invented out of thin air, but to defend things that are hard to defend on their own merits. And just as the devinity of kings mysteriously only brought rights and no responsibilities, it is equally telling that the only time the "marketplace of ideas" is ever brought is in the context of why we shouldn't be doing anything about all of the hate speech.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      > These ideas weren't invented out of thin air, but to defend things that are hard to defend on their own merits. No, they were invented to provide air for all things to be considered on their merits, and to defeat dogma and traditionalism. That it also allows bad ideas to get some air is not the purpose, but a necessary feature to allow the good but discriminated against ideas surface. > And just as the devinity of kings mysteriously only brought rights and no responsibilities Making nonsensical allusions between dissimilar things doesn't mean they are similar. A marketplace of ideas is exactly the kind of thing that allows the divinity of kings to be questioned and reconsidered in the first place, so equating them is particularly odd. > it is equally telling that the only time the "marketplace of ideas" is ever brought is in the context of why we shouldn't be doing anything about all of the hate speech. That the things that are considered but wrong generate a lot of noise continuously as they keep being wrong is not unexpected. The correct and or good things that eventually supplant the prior things stop making noise by nature of be accepted. Equality of races and sexes is something you get out of the marketplace of ideas, as well as race and gender superiority. Once upon a time, race and gender superiority was the accepted norm, and calls for equality were the loud complaints that people had to hear and decide whether to agree with. Eventually equality supplanted the prior norm, and we hear some noisy ideas about superiority. I doubt that will supplant the norm in the majority though, it's an obviously inferior situation for the majority than equality, because everyone is a minority depending on how you slice it.

Forge36 5y ago

Moderation feels irrelevant if the host is unwilling out encouraging the behavior. I wonder if they best approach it better DNS blocking. ISPs forced to comply with law, however alternate DNS "get the full internet" are left legal. I want to be careful with opening the door to banning sites/people from the internet. I can't imagine leaving the system in place as-is an acceptable solution.

farias0 5y ago
I have a feeling moderating online speech is a losing game. There will always be platforms such as 4chan and KF willing to provide a space to any kind of speech. Maybe I've become too cynical, but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online, such as through compartmentalizing different aspects of your online social life through different social media accounts. I know this sounds like victim-blaming, but this is not my intention. It's just that maybe we humans were not built to be judged by everyone everywhere. For those that watched the anime Evangelion, there was a nice, forward-thinking discussion about this idea there.
- xf1cf 5y ago
  > but I've come to accept that the only way to not be bullied or harassed online is to not expose yourself too much online I've been on the internet for almost 30 years. This is something that we've lost in the last decade of people dying to tie their real identity to everything. The wild west internet was actively hostile and you had to be smart about not only what you said, but who you were associating with. This form of "internet bullying" has existed since the dawn of the internet. That doesn't make it any more correct and it's only gotten more vicious with age. Especially because finding exploitable weaknesses is extremely easy when people leave themselves exposed on social media, twitter, discord, etc. We haven't solved it because I don't believe there is an actual solution. You get rid of KF and 4chan, another 10 communities pop up and the most popular one survives. You hit the registars, and they find another. Eventually they'll end up on one of the many registrars located outside the US that could not care any less what is hosted there. The best thing you can do is compartmentalize. The problem is people, for better or worse, tie their entire identity to whatever they do on the internet. This is fraught with danger because it makes you easy to attack. But being easy to attack isn't enough, you have to also have to have shown some weakness they can use as leverage. Near is an unfortunate example of this. KF bullied them mercilessly because they possessed enough exploitable traits to make it profitable. This isn't victim blaming, but unfortunately something we must learn from. Privacy, compartmentalization, and good operational security are the only things that can protect you. Maybe we can return to the internet of psuedonyms and lies that I remember. It was safer then, because no one trusted anyone implicitly and no one was willing to expose weaknesses that could be exploited.
  - pretentious7 5y ago
    But there's a lot of eccentrics whose life is the internet. To disconnect for them is essentially the same as solitary confinement. Insofar as privacy, compartmentalization, and good opsec, near did all of that, doesn't help when the mob goes after friends and family.
    - farias0 5y ago
      Did he, though? He was famous for being an incredible hacker, and then he conflated this profile with his furry persona and used it to talk about LGBT stuff. It saddens me so much that things have to be this way, that people can't put themselves out there without being (literally) bullied to death, but being pragmatic he could have separated those two "personalities", especially considering one of those is extremely well known in certain circles.
      - 0dayz 5y ago
        I don't entirely agree with this premise. I do agree on the furry + anime vices stuff that mixing that in with the legendary byuu was silly and wouldn't surprise me if it was unfortunately due to their autism (they they have it in the twitter thread). However I don't think LGBT + incredible hacker is a huge blunder IF and only IF, you can be assertive about it, which is much easier said than done when: A: Most people just want to live their lives without none-sense B: LGBT people are far more likely to be brought up either through parents or environment to feel the need to be introverted about themselves to protect themselves from harm. But say someone like say Rupaul, even if they get hate, they simply would never take it.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    The problem is that now people dedicate time and effort to "doxing" people so there's no real way to ensure that you're safely anonymous for any extended set of interaction as a persona. Unless you're for some 4chan like system where everyone is anonymous for every message, people will invest in their online personas and will be upset or devastated if they are attacked or destroyed. The real difference now compared to the past IMO is that as a society we haven't really internalized that will large, possibly global reach and the benefits it may bring come an associated set of dangers. The larger the audience, the larger the possible benefits of your interactions. Linus Torvalds leverages a global audience into a volunteer workforce for what is likely the greatest software engineering product of the human race to date. Another person makes a poor decision or hurtful comment or is just interpreted wrong, and is the zeitgeist of a day or two, but a day or two of almost the whole world's ire. That can have major personal and professional consequences, as we've seen. Managing a one-on-one interaction and explaining yourself to someone is generally trivial, for mature people. Doing so for a group of 10 is harder, but also possible much of the time. For 100, adequately assuaging them all is unlikely, some will retain reservations you'll likely never know are directly related. It worsens at every level. At the point where thousands or millions of people have negative impressions of you, many will never even see counterfactual evidence to what was initially presented, and your reputation may be tarnished, possibly to a sizeable fractions of the human race, and there's not much you can do about it, because the novel situation that got information about you in front of them initially is extremely unlikely to be repeated.
- gtvwill 5y ago
  Eh bullying could be culled on many platforms with a simple rule. Require photo ID for an account. Bit hard to insight violence when your able to be held accountable. Tbh should be mandatory for a FB account and Twitter given their large hold on social media. They want to allow non verifiable or accountable users. Give me the user the ability to block interaction with all non verified accounts. Problem mostly sorted.
  - beprogrammed 5y ago
    Oh I would love to see that leak

ATsch 5y ago

I wouldn't say it has failed, but succeeded. The framing of the "marketplace of ideas" has really always been about paving over power dynamics and justify continuing harm by appealing to something external. In your marketplace of ideas, the hundreds of abstract individuals that are hararassers are equally as valid as one abstract individual just trying to live their life. It's working as intended.

badRNG 5y ago
It might be more accurate to say that the marketplace of ideas isn't all it's cracked up to be. It has failed to be the utopian dream some hoped it would.
- ta2163 5y ago
  But it's still better than the alternatives.
- ATsch 5y ago
  That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. Saying the market place of ideas was an utopian dream that failed is like saying the divine right of kings was an utopian idea that failed. At best, it is something people were conned into agreeing with. These ideas weren't invented out of thin air, but to defend things that are hard to defend on their own merits. And just as the devinity of kings mysteriously only brought rights and no responsibilities, it is equally telling that the only time the "marketplace of ideas" is ever brought is in the context of why we shouldn't be doing anything about all of the hate speech.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    > These ideas weren't invented out of thin air, but to defend things that are hard to defend on their own merits. No, they were invented to provide air for all things to be considered on their merits, and to defeat dogma and traditionalism. That it also allows bad ideas to get some air is not the purpose, but a necessary feature to allow the good but discriminated against ideas surface. > And just as the devinity of kings mysteriously only brought rights and no responsibilities Making nonsensical allusions between dissimilar things doesn't mean they are similar. A marketplace of ideas is exactly the kind of thing that allows the divinity of kings to be questioned and reconsidered in the first place, so equating them is particularly odd. > it is equally telling that the only time the "marketplace of ideas" is ever brought is in the context of why we shouldn't be doing anything about all of the hate speech. That the things that are considered but wrong generate a lot of noise continuously as they keep being wrong is not unexpected. The correct and or good things that eventually supplant the prior things stop making noise by nature of be accepted. Equality of races and sexes is something you get out of the marketplace of ideas, as well as race and gender superiority. Once upon a time, race and gender superiority was the accepted norm, and calls for equality were the loud complaints that people had to hear and decide whether to agree with. Eventually equality supplanted the prior norm, and we hear some noisy ideas about superiority. I doubt that will supplant the norm in the majority though, it's an obviously inferior situation for the majority than equality, because everyone is a minority depending on how you slice it.