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The corollary to not empowering anyone to push content is disempowering some from pushing content. That is incredibly bad because gives some the power to limit

by babesh 5y ago

The corollary to not empowering anyone to push content is disempowering some from pushing content. That is incredibly bad because gives some the power to limit the voices of others. History shows that this power is abused and that the abuse of this power is worse than disinformation. If you look at what is happening today, this call for censorship in the name of combating disinformation has actually had no effect on disinformation. Instead, its real intended effect is to consolidate greater and greater powers of censorship in those who seek that power.

dragontamer 5y ago
> If you look at what is happening today, this call for censorship in the name of combating disinformation has actually had no effect on disinformation. You say that, but ISIS propaganda has been soundly defeated outside of fringe sites like GETTR. And sure, GETTR remains a hotbed of terrible disinformation (such as this ISIS propaganda), but without a mainstream audience, its much less of an issue compared to giving it out to everyone on Twitter. You can't post an ISIS sponsored beheading video on a mainstream site (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) without the moderators noticing and censoring it in short order.
- babesh 5y ago
  The harm caused by censorship is so much greater. Look at censorship in the old Soviet Union, present day China, 50s McCarthy era US, North Korea, present day Brazil, India, solidarity era Poland, etc… It isn’t a tool for combating disinformation. It is a tool for suppressing dissent. Also your logic and example are faulty. A beheading video is not disinformation. It is terror. It is a threat to those that oppose ISIS that that would befall them. Also, if you haven’t noticed, ISIS is about to retake Afghanistan. Getting rid of that video did nothing. https://news.yahoo.com/mapping-advance-taliban-afghanistan-230108412.html https://news.yahoo.com/mapping-advance-taliban-afghanistan-2...
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    The Taliban is about to retake Afghanistan, which is a different group than ISIS / ISIL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict_... In fact, Taliban and ISIL are at war with each other for Afghanistan right now. In any case, we've been incredibly successful at censoring both of them from our mainstream platforms. They wish for recruitment, to spread their propaganda / disinformation, and to grow their cause. Its an information war, the same as any other.
    - babesh 5y ago
      Censorship is a tool, not a goal. The goal was control of Afghanistan. Go look at the map of control. The Taliban have made great gains and the US and allies basically are giving up because they have bigger fish to fry. As noted, the censorship wasn’t about disinformation, it was and is just about power.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Censorship is a tool. The goal was to prevent Daesh / ISIS from recruiting Americans into dying for their cause in Syria / Iraq. The number of US citizens flying out to die in a forsaken war on ISIS's side are miniscule to none. Believe it or not, American citizens were doing this back when the surge was happening. We successfully disrupted their information campaign and their recruitment. And ISIS / ISIL / Daesh is now fighting for relevance (albeit unsuccessfully, mainly on GETTR).
        spfzero 5y ago
        They never needed American recruits. This is a sideshow. There are many millions of non-Americans in the world to recruit from, and many non-internet ways to do it.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        ISIL didn't exist a few years ago. They only came into existence thanks to foreign recruits. Americans included of course. But there are recruits from all around the world. Disrupting that recruitment process is one of the shining examples of effective cyber warfare vs ISIL / daesh. Non-Americans use Facebook, YouTube, and other websites in large numbers. ------- ISIL is still trying to recruit from the US websites. We just censor the crap out of them so they make no progress. It's in fact, proof that censorship works in practice.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- cabalamat 5y ago
  > You say that, but ISIS propaganda has been soundly defeated outside of fringe sites like GETTR. Really? It took me approximately 15 seconds to find and red ISIS's magazine Dabiq (and not on GETTR, which I had previously not heard of).
  - p1necone 5y ago
    Yes but you had to: . Know about ISIS . Know they had a magazine . Actually want to read it This is different from ISIS propaganda being algorithmically suggested to you from a seemingly normal website like YouTube without you even seeking it out in the first place because some faceless algorithm values "engagement" over everything else.
cyanwave 5y ago
Well said.
namlem 5y ago
Centralized censorship is dangerous and should be avoided. However, a distributed system of gatekeepers (e.g. newspaper editors prior to the creation of the internet) has its benefits. Competition limits the power of censorship, but the censors still have enough power to keep certain ideas out of the mainstream. This has its downsides too, no doubt. Some of the ideas being suppressed were good ones, but there were benefits as well. As with all things, there are trade offs.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Newspapers today don't have the integrity to do that. They all suck the nipples of Facebook for ad money, many of their writers are preoccupied with pre-fed ideas. This is overall a terrible idea.

by babesh 5y ago

dragontamer 5y ago

> If you look at what is happening today, this call for censorship in the name of combating disinformation has actually had no effect on disinformation. You say that, but ISIS propaganda has been soundly defeated outside of fringe sites like GETTR. And sure, GETTR remains a hotbed of terrible disinformation (such as this ISIS propaganda), but without a mainstream audience, its much less of an issue compared to giving it out to everyone on Twitter. You can't post an ISIS sponsored beheading video on a mainstream site (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) without the moderators noticing and censoring it in short order.

babesh 5y ago
The harm caused by censorship is so much greater. Look at censorship in the old Soviet Union, present day China, 50s McCarthy era US, North Korea, present day Brazil, India, solidarity era Poland, etc… It isn’t a tool for combating disinformation. It is a tool for suppressing dissent. Also your logic and example are faulty. A beheading video is not disinformation. It is terror. It is a threat to those that oppose ISIS that that would befall them. Also, if you haven’t noticed, ISIS is about to retake Afghanistan. Getting rid of that video did nothing. https://news.yahoo.com/mapping-advance-taliban-afghanistan-230108412.html https://news.yahoo.com/mapping-advance-taliban-afghanistan-2...
- dragontamer 5y ago
  The Taliban is about to retake Afghanistan, which is a different group than ISIS / ISIL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict_... In fact, Taliban and ISIL are at war with each other for Afghanistan right now. In any case, we've been incredibly successful at censoring both of them from our mainstream platforms. They wish for recruitment, to spread their propaganda / disinformation, and to grow their cause. Its an information war, the same as any other.
  - babesh 5y ago
    Censorship is a tool, not a goal. The goal was control of Afghanistan. Go look at the map of control. The Taliban have made great gains and the US and allies basically are giving up because they have bigger fish to fry. As noted, the censorship wasn’t about disinformation, it was and is just about power.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Censorship is a tool. The goal was to prevent Daesh / ISIS from recruiting Americans into dying for their cause in Syria / Iraq. The number of US citizens flying out to die in a forsaken war on ISIS's side are miniscule to none. Believe it or not, American citizens were doing this back when the surge was happening. We successfully disrupted their information campaign and their recruitment. And ISIS / ISIL / Daesh is now fighting for relevance (albeit unsuccessfully, mainly on GETTR).
      - spfzero 5y ago
        They never needed American recruits. This is a sideshow. There are many millions of non-Americans in the world to recruit from, and many non-internet ways to do it.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        ISIL didn't exist a few years ago. They only came into existence thanks to foreign recruits. Americans included of course. But there are recruits from all around the world. Disrupting that recruitment process is one of the shining examples of effective cyber warfare vs ISIL / daesh. Non-Americans use Facebook, YouTube, and other websites in large numbers. ------- ISIL is still trying to recruit from the US websites. We just censor the crap out of them so they make no progress. It's in fact, proof that censorship works in practice.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cabalamat 5y ago
> You say that, but ISIS propaganda has been soundly defeated outside of fringe sites like GETTR. Really? It took me approximately 15 seconds to find and red ISIS's magazine Dabiq (and not on GETTR, which I had previously not heard of).
- p1necone 5y ago
  Yes but you had to: . Know about ISIS . Know they had a magazine . Actually want to read it This is different from ISIS propaganda being algorithmically suggested to you from a seemingly normal website like YouTube without you even seeking it out in the first place because some faceless algorithm values "engagement" over everything else.

cyanwave 5y ago

Well said.

namlem 5y ago

Centralized censorship is dangerous and should be avoided. However, a distributed system of gatekeepers (e.g. newspaper editors prior to the creation of the internet) has its benefits. Competition limits the power of censorship, but the censors still have enough power to keep certain ideas out of the mainstream. This has its downsides too, no doubt. Some of the ideas being suppressed were good ones, but there were benefits as well. As with all things, there are trade offs.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Newspapers today don't have the integrity to do that. They all suck the nipples of Facebook for ad money, many of their writers are preoccupied with pre-fed ideas. This is overall a terrible idea.