5 ms·

The problem is defining harmful content. For some it's china lab theory, for others CRT/anti-racist propoganda or stolen election. What ever FB censures, half t

The problem is defining harmful content. For some it's china lab theory, for others CRT/anti-racist propoganda or stolen election. What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad at it. FB can't win here. Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely dangerous when applied to social networks. If 5 years ago it was unquestionable that USA has more press and thought freedom than India, Russia or China, the situation now is much more nuanced and really depends on the topic discussed. What it mean for democracy in US long term is a big question.

tablespoon 5y ago
> Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely dangerous when applied to social networks. It's a kludge. The real problem is broadcast technology becoming too easy to access (in the form of social media). It's reduced transmission friction too much, which has seriously undermined the ability of the "marketplace of ideas" to filter the good from the bad. There's a sweet spot between monopolization and total democratization of broadcast technology, and I don't think we're there anymore. > If 5 years ago it was unquestionable that USA has more press and thought freedom than India, Russia or China, the situation now is much more nuanced and really depends on the topic discussed. Come on. You could only say such a thing if you're almost totally ignorant of "press and thought freedom" situation in China. About the only thing you can say China is more permissive of than the US is outright racism, and that's only at the social level (you can still legally be a flaming racist in the US, it's just that many people won't want to associate with you and many will remind you you're full of shit). I'm less familiar with Russia and India, but I highly doubt the situations there will salvage your statement.
- hammock 5y ago
  This is actually a really insightful way to look at it. I gather you are saying Facebook should not be the one to do the "filtering," but also that it's not ideal for each individual to have to do it themselves. What's the solution?
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > What's the solution? The easiest and least problematic is to add friction, which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be monopolized by one group or another, but they should also not be in the hands of untrained first graders on playgrounds. A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the ability to share widely on social media sites: no public posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience, get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites.
    - hammock 5y ago
      >The easiest and least problematic is to add friction, which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be monopolized by one group or another, but they should also not be in the hands of untrained first graders on playgrounds. Friction, or training? In the example of guns, there are SCREENING (not exactly the same as friction) and education/training that many seem to agree are a good solution. Could the same be applied to social media? >A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the ability to share widely on social media sites: no public posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience, get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. This is again just letting Facebook dictate the solution - not that much different than the unilateral censorship they do. >Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites. Seems like this is happening today, and might be a good approach.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
wwweston 5y ago
What a lot of people mean by "Harmful content" isn't opinions and discourse on whether something is good or bad. Harmful content is disinformation about what something is. It's a concept that can be abused for certain, and I suppose that makes it dangerous. Unfortunately, there's also dangers in not intervening. Every space in which valuable discourse takes place has to take some form of order including restraint seriously, otherwise the bad drives out the good. And if you look at the places we take discourse most seriously -- institutions of learning, courtrooms, legislative bodies -- because valued outcomes rely on how robust the discourse is, more order and restraint requirements seem to become the rule. And yet there's also lots of thought put into how to allow as much input as possible, even outright adversarial input. It's possible that at a certain scale, social media systems have to move from a laissez faire approach to some sort of similar balance. It'd probably be best if each took responsibility to decide what that is. Twitter's approach doesn't have to be the same as FBs, but everybody has some responsibility to try and make discourse as good as they can (at least, if the reason they value freedom of speech is because of the value of discourse, rather than as a personal indulgence). > What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad at it. FB can't win here. People across the political spectrum are already mad at FB, and some have decided on a posture that lets them push the drama that FB is biased against them no matter what FB's actual policy is. FB has nothing to lose by making its best faith effort. And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's general political sensibilities are they can find a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required of them.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  > And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's general political sensibilities are they can find a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required of them. The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the same facts anymore. For example, some think there was election fraud, and some don't. Some believe there is actual evidence of election fraud, and some don't. And neither side is without some evidence. For example, there have been election audits and those seem to show there was no fraud, so that's evidence. But at the same time, there are other auditors that show very convincing evidence that there was at least some additional voter fraud beyond what was detected in the audits. If I recall correctly, there were some science experiments in the past that sort of "wiggled around" the truth for a period of decades as they got closer to the truth. With current events, it seems like it's a lot more like that than to just look outside the window and say it's raining or not. For example, look at how certain views were banned on YouTube... until the CDC/FDA/etc. itself reversed its position and now those are the mainstream or at least acceptable views. Isn't it usually the case that a difference in opinion ultimately is the result of a difference of belief about facts? And if that's the case, if a biased moderator of any platform can decide what the facts are, that is effectively the same as deciding what opinions are valid. And although there are some clear cases of ridiculous beliefs that we can think about (flat earth, etc.), very quickly we get into murky territory. I mean, just imagine if Facebook was established in the deep south, and suppressed all non-Christian opinions as counter-factual? "The evidence is clear" they would say, "here in the Holy Bible".

tablespoon 5y ago

> Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely dangerous when applied to social networks. It's a kludge. The real problem is broadcast technology becoming too easy to access (in the form of social media). It's reduced transmission friction too much, which has seriously undermined the ability of the "marketplace of ideas" to filter the good from the bad. There's a sweet spot between monopolization and total democratization of broadcast technology, and I don't think we're there anymore. > If 5 years ago it was unquestionable that USA has more press and thought freedom than India, Russia or China, the situation now is much more nuanced and really depends on the topic discussed. Come on. You could only say such a thing if you're almost totally ignorant of "press and thought freedom" situation in China. About the only thing you can say China is more permissive of than the US is outright racism, and that's only at the social level (you can still legally be a flaming racist in the US, it's just that many people won't want to associate with you and many will remind you you're full of shit). I'm less familiar with Russia and India, but I highly doubt the situations there will salvage your statement.

hammock 5y ago
This is actually a really insightful way to look at it. I gather you are saying Facebook should not be the one to do the "filtering," but also that it's not ideal for each individual to have to do it themselves. What's the solution?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > What's the solution? The easiest and least problematic is to add friction, which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be monopolized by one group or another, but they should also not be in the hands of untrained first graders on playgrounds. A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the ability to share widely on social media sites: no public posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience, get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites.
  - hammock 5y ago
    >The easiest and least problematic is to add friction, which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be monopolized by one group or another, but they should also not be in the hands of untrained first graders on playgrounds. Friction, or training? In the example of guns, there are SCREENING (not exactly the same as friction) and education/training that many seem to agree are a good solution. Could the same be applied to social media? >A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the ability to share widely on social media sites: no public posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience, get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. This is again just letting Facebook dictate the solution - not that much different than the unilateral censorship they do. >Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites. Seems like this is happening today, and might be a good approach.
    - tablespoon 5y ago

wwweston 5y ago

What a lot of people mean by "Harmful content" isn't opinions and discourse on whether something is good or bad. Harmful content is disinformation about what something is. It's a concept that can be abused for certain, and I suppose that makes it dangerous. Unfortunately, there's also dangers in not intervening. Every space in which valuable discourse takes place has to take some form of order including restraint seriously, otherwise the bad drives out the good. And if you look at the places we take discourse most seriously -- institutions of learning, courtrooms, legislative bodies -- because valued outcomes rely on how robust the discourse is, more order and restraint requirements seem to become the rule. And yet there's also lots of thought put into how to allow as much input as possible, even outright adversarial input. It's possible that at a certain scale, social media systems have to move from a laissez faire approach to some sort of similar balance. It'd probably be best if each took responsibility to decide what that is. Twitter's approach doesn't have to be the same as FBs, but everybody has some responsibility to try and make discourse as good as they can (at least, if the reason they value freedom of speech is because of the value of discourse, rather than as a personal indulgence). > What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad at it. FB can't win here. People across the political spectrum are already mad at FB, and some have decided on a posture that lets them push the drama that FB is biased against them no matter what FB's actual policy is. FB has nothing to lose by making its best faith effort. And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's general political sensibilities are they can find a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required of them.

epicureanideal 5y ago
> And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's general political sensibilities are they can find a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required of them. The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the same facts anymore. For example, some think there was election fraud, and some don't. Some believe there is actual evidence of election fraud, and some don't. And neither side is without some evidence. For example, there have been election audits and those seem to show there was no fraud, so that's evidence. But at the same time, there are other auditors that show very convincing evidence that there was at least some additional voter fraud beyond what was detected in the audits. If I recall correctly, there were some science experiments in the past that sort of "wiggled around" the truth for a period of decades as they got closer to the truth. With current events, it seems like it's a lot more like that than to just look outside the window and say it's raining or not. For example, look at how certain views were banned on YouTube... until the CDC/FDA/etc. itself reversed its position and now those are the mainstream or at least acceptable views. Isn't it usually the case that a difference in opinion ultimately is the result of a difference of belief about facts? And if that's the case, if a biased moderator of any platform can decide what the facts are, that is effectively the same as deciding what opinions are valid. And although there are some clear cases of ridiculous beliefs that we can think about (flat earth, etc.), very quickly we get into murky territory. I mean, just imagine if Facebook was established in the deep south, and suppressed all non-Christian opinions as counter-factual? "The evidence is clear" they would say, "here in the Holy Bible".