5 ms·

Disinformation will continue to evolve. Overreaction (deleting things the moderators don't agree with but are otherwise legitimate opinions of non-hostile acto

Disinformation will continue to evolve. Overreaction (deleting things the moderators don't agree with but are otherwise legitimate opinions of non-hostile actors) will increase as well. Sadly this is a potential path to tyranny (if not the government-enforced kind, then the kind that comes from those who control the flow of information).

Bluestein 5y ago
> Sadly this is a potential path to tyranny ... indeed, giving the point to those who seek to do away with any kind of moderation / solution ...
matsemann 5y ago
Moderation isn't an overreaction or path to tyranny, it's the opposite. Called the Paradox of tolerance [0]. If stuff isn't moderated, only the extremely intolerant views will remain. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- generalizations 5y ago
  ...and if stuff is moderated, only the stuff they moderators are ok with will remain.
  - fortuna86 5y ago
    Which isn't perfect but a far better outcome than the above.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Except if the moderators are in agreement with the tyranny. Then you have no views to oppose the tyrants.
      - fortuna86 5y ago
        Right any force of rule/law enforcement can be corrupted. That's not an argument against having rules or attempting to enforce them, even if imperfect.
  - falandafa123 5y ago
    "Don't worry everyone I'll be a great arbiter of information" - Adolf Hitler when he took over the press probably
  - babyblueblanket 5y ago
    Which means that other communities ran by other moderators can be created. (This breaks down probably if the moderator is like, an ISP, AWS, etc.)
    - falandafa123 5y ago
      Do you think telling people in Communist China to "make your own government" if you don't agree with their censorship is a valid argument?
      - dang 5y ago
        Could you please stop creating accounts to post flamewar comments to HN? That's not what this site is for. I suppose I should add: No, we don't care about your views on China. We're just trying to have an internet forum that doesn't burn itself to a screaming crisp, and also (if we're allowed a stretch target) that doesn't suck. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20scorched%20earth&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        falandafa123 5y ago
        What are you talking about? Flamewar? Other accounts? You sound like a conspiracy theorist my friend. That isn't me I'm making a rhetorical point... I don't know what you think that site you linked shows. I never once mentioned scorched earth... My views on China don't matter I suggest you reread the thread and really think about what my comment is actually saying here.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Another interesting way this breaks down in practice is when communities interact. You can observe this today on the Fediverse. A common pattern is a small group pressuring moderators of some community to ban select people, under threat of the whole community being banned by many other communities. They make good on this threat by playing all the other communities against each other, threatening each one with being banned, unless they ban the original target community.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  > If stuff isn't moderated, only the extremely intolerant views will remain. That's actually the claim here and it's not one you support. Mein Kampf, an extremist work, has existed for 80 some years now and can be bought in most bookstores, yet we don't seem to all be goose-stepping or have any less non-extremist content for it. Reddit right now is having an interesting problem where by simply subscribing or commenting in a subreddit, others will ban you. That doesn't seem to be "moderation" but instead we're attacking peoples freedom of expression. The Paradox of Tolerance is against intolerant behavior - one of which is suppressing expression.
  - enkid 5y ago
    It's really ironic that you used Main Kampf to justify your position. Mein Kampf hasn't taken over our society (though there are still plenty of people who read it), but it was an important part of the way that the Nazi's took over Germany in the 1930s.
    - titzer 5y ago
      And continues to inspire and radicalize people. It's only that the world has come through the other end of that insanity and the body count is high enough, that Mein Kampf stands, to most people, as a tombstone monument to complete insanity. Do we need to let every kind of complete insanity run its course and generate a body count?
    - tomjen3 5y ago
      As I remember the book didn't start to sell very well until the Nazis took over in 1933, at which point it was a little too late to stop them. The book did (as I recall) describe Hitlers plans in some detail, so had more people read it, maybe they would have done something.
      - enkid 5y ago
        I'm going to reply the exact same way I did to another comment: Mein Kampf sold 240,000 copies before he became chancellor, so it seems like it was already an important part of the conversation. I'm not advocating for censorship, but obviously the argument that Mein Kampf is available therefore we should stop trying to limit violent speech is not a good one.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Unless moderators themselves are extremely intolerant already. Moderation isn't black or white - the "what", "how" and "why" of moderating matters. People seem to forget that Paradox of tolerance is recursive - being overeager with it makes you the enemy you're supposed to fight.
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  This is a distortion of the paradox of tolerance, it doesn't endorse censorship. The existence of extremely intolerant views doesn't magically make it impossible to voice normal views. For example, Reddit pre-Pao had plenty of extreme subreddits that existed on the page, and never resulted in a exodus of non-extreme views. The paradox of tolerance only comes into play when views start getting translated into actions. Let the Nazis march down Skokie. Action should only be taken against them if they start acting on their views. Removal only happens in the interest of self-preservation. The paradox of tolerance is not an endorsement of censorship.
- penultimatebro 5y ago
  Let’s call moderation what it actually is: censorship. And censorship is very much the path to tyranny, especially when done in collusion with governments.
  - titzer 5y ago
    This generation has not experienced anything remotely like censorship. Telling nutters to go elsewhere is absolutely nothing like the draconian measures of last century. For all their belly-aching, there is literally no insane idea that you can't put out there with essentially zero repercussions.
    - penultimatebro 5y ago
      This response is simply goal post shifting. Censorship is censorship. Using a recent example: YouTube removes a video of medical Doctors promoting studies of a COVID treatment, one that could save lives. There’s science to back it up, however it’s not science promoted by the medical majority. Thus, it is censored. As a result, people don’t have access to a potentially life saving treatment and will die - this is censorship. Are there worse examples of this concept happening over the past century? Yes, of course. But censorship leading to the deaths of millions is certainly bad.
      - titzer 5y ago
        > This response is simply goal post shifting. Censorship is censorship. No. Deplatforming is not the same as censorship. Don't equate them. If Stanford University throws you off campus for holding up a "Stanford sucks" sign, this is deplatforming. Put it on your own lawn. Nobody has the obligation to host your content. And no, it's not "effectively censorship" either. Censorship is actively seeking out and removing information from all platforms, everywhere, burning books, etc. > But censorship leading to the deaths of millions is certainly bad. What the actual F, no one is being censored leading to millions of deaths. If anything, deplatforming has saved millions of dying of COVID due to actual disinformation about fake cures (Hydroxychloroquine, injecting bleach) and pseudo-scientific FUD about vaccines. Have a miracle cure for COVID? By all means, share. You'll be both wealthy and a hero. But nope, it's goddamn charlatans all day long with this shit.
eplanit 5y ago
"if not the government-enforced kind, then the kind that comes from those who control the flow of information" When they work together cooperatively, there is no distinction. https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/white-house-flagging-posts-for-facebook-to-censor-due-to-covid-19-misinformation/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/white-house-flagging-posts-for...
uses 5y ago
Well I think we can agree that the type of targeted, sophisticated, funded misinformation campaigns that we're seeing, are always bad. Meanwhile I think we can also agree that moderation is a necessary feature of any community. But it sounds like you're trying to put moderation and misinformation campaigns in the same category?
- idrios 5y ago
  > But it sounds like you're trying to put moderation and misinformation campaigns in the same category? Moderation is necessary and great for a healthy online community. Abuse of moderation is a tool used by misinformation campaigns. The parent comment clarified the difference with abuse being when moderators take down legitimate, non-hostile comments because they disagree with the point being made. I think right now we're seeing more cases of moderation abuse on various forums because the consequences are so unpredictable. YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook posts get flagged at really inconsistent rates.. there was an excellent post highlighting this a few months ago in regards to Twitter[1]. This is a mark of tyranny, where you have vague rules that are selectively enforced so your populus doesn't know the limits of what's ok and they censor themselves. In this case it's Twitter/Facebook/YouTube being the tyrants, but they're acting this way because they themselves are afraid of what laws might hit them from our unpredictable government. [1] https://inteoryx.com/htmls/TwitterOffensive.html https://inteoryx.com/htmls/TwitterOffensive.html
cjohnson318 5y ago
Creating an alternate reality of lies is a more direct path to tyranny. Particularly when that alternate reality causes people to distrust election outcomes and public health guidelines. If a webmaster of a free website takes down an opinion they don't agree with, or don't want associated with their site, I'm fine with that. People have a right to free speech, but that doesn't mean others have to archive that speech in a database and serve it, out of pocket, in perpetuity.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  > Creating an alternate reality of lies is a more direct path to tyranny. Who has had greater success at this than the media? The two great narratives that undermined faith in the Democratic process in the past four years are A) Democrats claiming that there was evidence that Trump had colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 election[0], and was therefor not a legitimate president[1][2], and B) Trump claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by Democrats, and therefor Biden was not a legitimate president. Trump's lie was immediately panned as utter bullshit. Since, media have trumpeted the claim as evidence of insidious, anti-Democratic sentiment among all Republicans--in other words, the Anti-democratic claims made by Republicans were used a bludgeon against Republicans. But the former claim (which was no less damaging to the legitimacy of our institutions) was, in the absence of any corroborating evidence whatsoever, was treated as a serious concern. At the time of the release of the Mueller report, half of the country believed the Russia-collusion conspiracy theory[4]. When the Mueller report revealed no evidence of collusion[3], the story was used as a bludgeon against Democrats, right? Of course not. It was memory-holed. The fact that the media was able to weaponize both of these anti-democratic lies into a narrative that one party is somehow a danger to our institutions is emblematic of why they, the media are, in fact, the greatest threat to our society and our institutions. [0]https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-russia-trump-collusion-236386 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-russia-trump-c... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum... [2]https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/john-lewis-donald-trump-legitimate/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/john-lewis-donald-tr... [3]https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... [4]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/despite-report-findings-almost-half-of-americans-think-trump-colluded-with-russia-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKCN1R72S0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/des...

Bluestein 5y ago

> Sadly this is a potential path to tyranny ... indeed, giving the point to those who seek to do away with any kind of moderation / solution ...

matsemann 5y ago

Moderation isn't an overreaction or path to tyranny, it's the opposite. Called the Paradox of tolerance [0]. If stuff isn't moderated, only the extremely intolerant views will remain. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

generalizations 5y ago
...and if stuff is moderated, only the stuff they moderators are ok with will remain.
- fortuna86 5y ago
  Which isn't perfect but a far better outcome than the above.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Except if the moderators are in agreement with the tyranny. Then you have no views to oppose the tyrants.
    - fortuna86 5y ago
      Right any force of rule/law enforcement can be corrupted. That's not an argument against having rules or attempting to enforce them, even if imperfect.
- falandafa123 5y ago
  "Don't worry everyone I'll be a great arbiter of information" - Adolf Hitler when he took over the press probably
- babyblueblanket 5y ago
  Which means that other communities ran by other moderators can be created. (This breaks down probably if the moderator is like, an ISP, AWS, etc.)
  - falandafa123 5y ago
    Do you think telling people in Communist China to "make your own government" if you don't agree with their censorship is a valid argument?
    - dang 5y ago
      Could you please stop creating accounts to post flamewar comments to HN? That's not what this site is for. I suppose I should add: No, we don't care about your views on China. We're just trying to have an internet forum that doesn't burn itself to a screaming crisp, and also (if we're allowed a stretch target) that doesn't suck. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20scorched%20earth&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - falandafa123 5y ago
        What are you talking about? Flamewar? Other accounts? You sound like a conspiracy theorist my friend. That isn't me I'm making a rhetorical point... I don't know what you think that site you linked shows. I never once mentioned scorched earth... My views on China don't matter I suggest you reread the thread and really think about what my comment is actually saying here.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Another interesting way this breaks down in practice is when communities interact. You can observe this today on the Fediverse. A common pattern is a small group pressuring moderators of some community to ban select people, under threat of the whole community being banned by many other communities. They make good on this threat by playing all the other communities against each other, threatening each one with being banned, unless they ban the original target community.
vorpalhex 5y ago
> If stuff isn't moderated, only the extremely intolerant views will remain. That's actually the claim here and it's not one you support. Mein Kampf, an extremist work, has existed for 80 some years now and can be bought in most bookstores, yet we don't seem to all be goose-stepping or have any less non-extremist content for it. Reddit right now is having an interesting problem where by simply subscribing or commenting in a subreddit, others will ban you. That doesn't seem to be "moderation" but instead we're attacking peoples freedom of expression. The Paradox of Tolerance is against intolerant behavior - one of which is suppressing expression.
- enkid 5y ago
  It's really ironic that you used Main Kampf to justify your position. Mein Kampf hasn't taken over our society (though there are still plenty of people who read it), but it was an important part of the way that the Nazi's took over Germany in the 1930s.
  - titzer 5y ago
    And continues to inspire and radicalize people. It's only that the world has come through the other end of that insanity and the body count is high enough, that Mein Kampf stands, to most people, as a tombstone monument to complete insanity. Do we need to let every kind of complete insanity run its course and generate a body count?
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    As I remember the book didn't start to sell very well until the Nazis took over in 1933, at which point it was a little too late to stop them. The book did (as I recall) describe Hitlers plans in some detail, so had more people read it, maybe they would have done something.
    - enkid 5y ago
      I'm going to reply the exact same way I did to another comment: Mein Kampf sold 240,000 copies before he became chancellor, so it seems like it was already an important part of the conversation. I'm not advocating for censorship, but obviously the argument that Mein Kampf is available therefore we should stop trying to limit violent speech is not a good one.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
Unless moderators themselves are extremely intolerant already. Moderation isn't black or white - the "what", "how" and "why" of moderating matters. People seem to forget that Paradox of tolerance is recursive - being overeager with it makes you the enemy you're supposed to fight.
Manuel_D 5y ago
This is a distortion of the paradox of tolerance, it doesn't endorse censorship. The existence of extremely intolerant views doesn't magically make it impossible to voice normal views. For example, Reddit pre-Pao had plenty of extreme subreddits that existed on the page, and never resulted in a exodus of non-extreme views. The paradox of tolerance only comes into play when views start getting translated into actions. Let the Nazis march down Skokie. Action should only be taken against them if they start acting on their views. Removal only happens in the interest of self-preservation. The paradox of tolerance is not an endorsement of censorship.
penultimatebro 5y ago
Let’s call moderation what it actually is: censorship. And censorship is very much the path to tyranny, especially when done in collusion with governments.
- titzer 5y ago
  This generation has not experienced anything remotely like censorship. Telling nutters to go elsewhere is absolutely nothing like the draconian measures of last century. For all their belly-aching, there is literally no insane idea that you can't put out there with essentially zero repercussions.
  - penultimatebro 5y ago
    This response is simply goal post shifting. Censorship is censorship. Using a recent example: YouTube removes a video of medical Doctors promoting studies of a COVID treatment, one that could save lives. There’s science to back it up, however it’s not science promoted by the medical majority. Thus, it is censored. As a result, people don’t have access to a potentially life saving treatment and will die - this is censorship. Are there worse examples of this concept happening over the past century? Yes, of course. But censorship leading to the deaths of millions is certainly bad.
    - titzer 5y ago
      > This response is simply goal post shifting. Censorship is censorship. No. Deplatforming is not the same as censorship. Don't equate them. If Stanford University throws you off campus for holding up a "Stanford sucks" sign, this is deplatforming. Put it on your own lawn. Nobody has the obligation to host your content. And no, it's not "effectively censorship" either. Censorship is actively seeking out and removing information from all platforms, everywhere, burning books, etc. > But censorship leading to the deaths of millions is certainly bad. What the actual F, no one is being censored leading to millions of deaths. If anything, deplatforming has saved millions of dying of COVID due to actual disinformation about fake cures (Hydroxychloroquine, injecting bleach) and pseudo-scientific FUD about vaccines. Have a miracle cure for COVID? By all means, share. You'll be both wealthy and a hero. But nope, it's goddamn charlatans all day long with this shit.

eplanit 5y ago

"if not the government-enforced kind, then the kind that comes from those who control the flow of information" When they work together cooperatively, there is no distinction. https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/white-house-flagging-posts-for-facebook-to-censor-due-to-covid-19-misinformation/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/white-house-flagging-posts-for...

uses 5y ago

Well I think we can agree that the type of targeted, sophisticated, funded misinformation campaigns that we're seeing, are always bad. Meanwhile I think we can also agree that moderation is a necessary feature of any community. But it sounds like you're trying to put moderation and misinformation campaigns in the same category?

idrios 5y ago
> But it sounds like you're trying to put moderation and misinformation campaigns in the same category? Moderation is necessary and great for a healthy online community. Abuse of moderation is a tool used by misinformation campaigns. The parent comment clarified the difference with abuse being when moderators take down legitimate, non-hostile comments because they disagree with the point being made. I think right now we're seeing more cases of moderation abuse on various forums because the consequences are so unpredictable. YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook posts get flagged at really inconsistent rates.. there was an excellent post highlighting this a few months ago in regards to Twitter[1]. This is a mark of tyranny, where you have vague rules that are selectively enforced so your populus doesn't know the limits of what's ok and they censor themselves. In this case it's Twitter/Facebook/YouTube being the tyrants, but they're acting this way because they themselves are afraid of what laws might hit them from our unpredictable government. [1] https://inteoryx.com/htmls/TwitterOffensive.html https://inteoryx.com/htmls/TwitterOffensive.html

cjohnson318 5y ago

Creating an alternate reality of lies is a more direct path to tyranny. Particularly when that alternate reality causes people to distrust election outcomes and public health guidelines. If a webmaster of a free website takes down an opinion they don't agree with, or don't want associated with their site, I'm fine with that. People have a right to free speech, but that doesn't mean others have to archive that speech in a database and serve it, out of pocket, in perpetuity.

marcusverus 5y ago
> Creating an alternate reality of lies is a more direct path to tyranny. Who has had greater success at this than the media? The two great narratives that undermined faith in the Democratic process in the past four years are A) Democrats claiming that there was evidence that Trump had colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 election[0], and was therefor not a legitimate president[1][2], and B) Trump claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by Democrats, and therefor Biden was not a legitimate president. Trump's lie was immediately panned as utter bullshit. Since, media have trumpeted the claim as evidence of insidious, anti-Democratic sentiment among all Republicans--in other words, the Anti-democratic claims made by Republicans were used a bludgeon against Republicans. But the former claim (which was no less damaging to the legitimacy of our institutions) was, in the absence of any corroborating evidence whatsoever, was treated as a serious concern. At the time of the release of the Mueller report, half of the country believed the Russia-collusion conspiracy theory[4]. When the Mueller report revealed no evidence of collusion[3], the story was used as a bludgeon against Democrats, right? Of course not. It was memory-holed. The fact that the media was able to weaponize both of these anti-democratic lies into a narrative that one party is somehow a danger to our institutions is emblematic of why they, the media are, in fact, the greatest threat to our society and our institutions. [0]https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-russia-trump-collusion-236386 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-russia-trump-c... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum... [2]https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/john-lewis-donald-trump-legitimate/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/politics/john-lewis-donald-tr... [3]https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2... [4]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/despite-report-findings-almost-half-of-americans-think-trump-colluded-with-russia-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKCN1R72S0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-poll/des...