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If you create a platform with absolutely zero censorship, you become a repository for child porn. I participated in Freenet many years ago because I liked its

If you create a platform with absolutely zero censorship, you become a repository for child porn. I participated in Freenet many years ago because I liked its ideas (And thought it would have been a nice way to pirate games without my ISP being able to know), but it got a reputation for being used for CP, and I promptly deleted it, because I want no part in that. If you merely censor illegal content, you will become a home for disinformation and ultra right-wing conspiracies. See Parler. In either case, and especially the first, you're likely to get kicked off your hosting platform and get a lot of attention from the government. I don't think it's possible create a "we don't censor" platform without hosting it in some foreign country that doesn't care about US laws and also hiding that you're the one that runs it.

throwawaysea 5y ago
> If you merely censor illegal content, you will become a home for disinformation and ultra right-wing conspiracies. See Parler. What do you count as disinformation and why is it a problem? If you disagree with something you can ignore it and move on, or engage with it and respond with your own counter-argument. It doesn't seem like a problem that reduces the viability of the entire platform. It is also strange to me that you seem to think a lack of censorship only favors "ultra right-wing" conspiracies. I saw a lot of disinformation about policing being spread throughout 2020 without much evidence. Those who pushed those narratives did not face any moderation for their misinformation. I recall as well when Twitter, Medium, and others banned discussions of the lab leak theory. The pro-moderation crowd unwittingly aided in the CCP's avoidance of accountability and smeared some very rational speculation as disinformation. I don't think I want anyone - whether the government, powerful private companies, or biased moderators - to become the arbiters of permitted opinions. > In either case, and especially the first, you're likely to get kicked off your hosting platform and get a lot of attention from the government. It's also curious to me that you mention Parler, because January 6th was organized more on other platforms than on Parler. Silicon Valley acted in unison against Parler because they share the same political biases among their leaders and employees, and because they share that degree of monopolistic power (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho...). The darker part of this saga is that sitting members of the US government pressured private companies (Apple, Google, Amazon) to censor the speech of their political adversaries by banning Parler (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure-on-tech https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure...), in what can only be called an abuse of power and authority. When tech companies are facing anti-trust scrutiny and regulatory pressure on other issues, why wouldn't they seek favor by doing the incoming government's bidding and deplatforming Parler? I feel like the actions observed in the Parler saga are less about moderation and more about bias and power.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  It is a problem because you'll get thrown out by your hosting and other service providers if you don't moderate your content; so if you want to keep running your service, not moderating is simply not a practical option. That is why Parler is mentioned, they are a demonstration that it's not practical to keep operating without accepting a duty to moderate (as Parler did eventually) even if you try really, really hard. And while there are a lot of conspiracies, all of which will be on your site if you don't moderate, most of them will be tolerated by others but it's the ultra right-wing conspiracies / nazis / holocaust deniers that will cause your service threats of disconnection; so you'll either start moderating or get your service killed in order to protect them. I understand you don't want anyone - whether the government, powerful private companies, or biased moderators - to become the arbiters of permitted opinions; however, you don't really get to choose (and neither do I); currently there are de facto arbiters in this world.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  > What do you count as disinformation I won't get into the argument of "Well then who is the arbiter of truth?" because honestly, I don't have an answer. It can't be the government for obvious reasons, but it also can't be private corporations, and certainly can't be the general public. That leaves...nobody. Maybe a non-profit organization, but even those could easily be corrupted. > and why is it a problem? Nearly 700,000 US deaths from COVID so far, a number that continues to rise due to anti-vax disinformation convincing people to not vaccinate. Disinformation is literally killing people by contributing to the continued spread of a pandemic. It's absolutely insane to me that you would genuinely ask why disinformation is a problem. Just because I don't have a solution to a problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. > If you disagree with something you can ignore it and move on, or engage with it and respond with your own counter-argument. If this was an effective approach, Tucker Carlson would have been off the air ages ago, QAnon would have been dismissed as a crackpot by everybody, and disinformation wouldn't be a problem.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    If you don't mind answering another question, why the hate for Tucker Carlson? I don't follow him but people have complained about him so much that I've now seen a few videos to see what the fuss is about. I didn't see anything wrong within those few clips I saw (maybe an hour's worth) - it didn't seem any different from any other mainstream news in that one side of the argument was being presented, with a lot of conviction. But I did not see misinformation. I am sure there's some non-zero amount of misinformation that can be found from scouring his clips, but that's true for anyone and any source, and I certainly don't think he should be "off air" for it. I can't help but think that a lot of the character attacks against him are simply made because he's a prominent and successful voice on the "other side", and his effectiveness is a risk to political adversaries. As someone who wants to see Tucker Carlson off the air, do you see your position on the matter differently? Are there conservative voices you support being platformed, and what makes them different for you?
fragmede 5y ago
> See Parler. Gab may be a more useful point of reference, but what's hilarious about right-wing platform is that their censorship is fine, it's the other people's censorship that's the problem. (Similar to how immigrants having fake papers is wrong but having a fake vaccination card is sticking it to the man). Go post some pro-vaccine or pro-mask mandate things, and see how long you last before being deplatformed.
- avs733 5y ago
  Agnotology and bad faith arguments[0] [0] https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-arguments-7-terrible-arguments-in-your-mentions-ee4f194afbc9 https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-argume...
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    NB, that post seems to have migrated here: https://www.aaronhuertas.com/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-arguments-7-terrible-arguments-in-your-mentions/ https://www.aaronhuertas.com/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-argu... Can you tell me about my epistemology?
    - avs733 5y ago
      I saw the author had moved to either a self hosted domain/ghost but didn't want to risk hugging them to death...however unlikely it is that anyone would click on my random link. Reading your comment history I would hypothesize you generally follow a coherentist/constructivist school of thought. I'm drawing this from repeated efforts to ensure alignment and clarity of actual meaning, especially in cases where vagueness in the language used by others might induce misunderstanding by someone who only gave a cursory read to a concept. You value whole concepts rather than individual facts and seem to approach things with the idea that your understanding grows over time through ongoing experience - i.e., understanding is constructed. I would highlight this quote: "I instantly started learning very useful features reading the GNU docs. (I still need to fully internalise those). Yes, the full manual is very much better than the manpage." No one has ever actually taken me up on this before...
hnbad 5y ago
I think the more general rule is that if your platform is advertising itself as an alternative to an existing dominant platform but that doesn't censor "X", the kind of people who'll flock to you will mostly be those who value X over any other interaction on the dominant platform. Most moderates don't feel restricted enough in their speech to use Twitter even if they may have some racist ideas they don't feel safe stating there, but literal white supremacists who want to talk about the superiority of the white race all day long will love your alternative that doesn't censor them. But if those white supremacists now all flock to your platform you likely now have a platform mostly consisting of white supremacists. This will naturally limit who else wants to join your platform because if they don't like being around tons of white supremacists they don't stick around long enough to build a counterbalance. This can also happen after you think you've already established a more nuanced community as with your example of Freenet. It turns out that while some people may seek opportunities to talk about X, others will not want to share space with discussions about X, often because of what it means to their own safety but also sometimes just from fear of association. If you have a fun social network and it has a prospering community of nazis in it, you're now the nazi network, no matter how much of your community is about other things than being a nazi.

throwawaysea 5y ago

> If you merely censor illegal content, you will become a home for disinformation and ultra right-wing conspiracies. See Parler. What do you count as disinformation and why is it a problem? If you disagree with something you can ignore it and move on, or engage with it and respond with your own counter-argument. It doesn't seem like a problem that reduces the viability of the entire platform. It is also strange to me that you seem to think a lack of censorship only favors "ultra right-wing" conspiracies. I saw a lot of disinformation about policing being spread throughout 2020 without much evidence. Those who pushed those narratives did not face any moderation for their misinformation. I recall as well when Twitter, Medium, and others banned discussions of the lab leak theory. The pro-moderation crowd unwittingly aided in the CCP's avoidance of accountability and smeared some very rational speculation as disinformation. I don't think I want anyone - whether the government, powerful private companies, or biased moderators - to become the arbiters of permitted opinions. > In either case, and especially the first, you're likely to get kicked off your hosting platform and get a lot of attention from the government. It's also curious to me that you mention Parler, because January 6th was organized more on other platforms than on Parler. Silicon Valley acted in unison against Parler because they share the same political biases among their leaders and employees, and because they share that degree of monopolistic power (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho...). The darker part of this saga is that sitting members of the US government pressured private companies (Apple, Google, Amazon) to censor the speech of their political adversaries by banning Parler (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure-on-tech https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure...), in what can only be called an abuse of power and authority. When tech companies are facing anti-trust scrutiny and regulatory pressure on other issues, why wouldn't they seek favor by doing the incoming government's bidding and deplatforming Parler? I feel like the actions observed in the Parler saga are less about moderation and more about bias and power.

PeterisP 5y ago
It is a problem because you'll get thrown out by your hosting and other service providers if you don't moderate your content; so if you want to keep running your service, not moderating is simply not a practical option. That is why Parler is mentioned, they are a demonstration that it's not practical to keep operating without accepting a duty to moderate (as Parler did eventually) even if you try really, really hard. And while there are a lot of conspiracies, all of which will be on your site if you don't moderate, most of them will be tolerated by others but it's the ultra right-wing conspiracies / nazis / holocaust deniers that will cause your service threats of disconnection; so you'll either start moderating or get your service killed in order to protect them. I understand you don't want anyone - whether the government, powerful private companies, or biased moderators - to become the arbiters of permitted opinions; however, you don't really get to choose (and neither do I); currently there are de facto arbiters in this world.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
> What do you count as disinformation I won't get into the argument of "Well then who is the arbiter of truth?" because honestly, I don't have an answer. It can't be the government for obvious reasons, but it also can't be private corporations, and certainly can't be the general public. That leaves...nobody. Maybe a non-profit organization, but even those could easily be corrupted. > and why is it a problem? Nearly 700,000 US deaths from COVID so far, a number that continues to rise due to anti-vax disinformation convincing people to not vaccinate. Disinformation is literally killing people by contributing to the continued spread of a pandemic. It's absolutely insane to me that you would genuinely ask why disinformation is a problem. Just because I don't have a solution to a problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. > If you disagree with something you can ignore it and move on, or engage with it and respond with your own counter-argument. If this was an effective approach, Tucker Carlson would have been off the air ages ago, QAnon would have been dismissed as a crackpot by everybody, and disinformation wouldn't be a problem.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  If you don't mind answering another question, why the hate for Tucker Carlson? I don't follow him but people have complained about him so much that I've now seen a few videos to see what the fuss is about. I didn't see anything wrong within those few clips I saw (maybe an hour's worth) - it didn't seem any different from any other mainstream news in that one side of the argument was being presented, with a lot of conviction. But I did not see misinformation. I am sure there's some non-zero amount of misinformation that can be found from scouring his clips, but that's true for anyone and any source, and I certainly don't think he should be "off air" for it. I can't help but think that a lot of the character attacks against him are simply made because he's a prominent and successful voice on the "other side", and his effectiveness is a risk to political adversaries. As someone who wants to see Tucker Carlson off the air, do you see your position on the matter differently? Are there conservative voices you support being platformed, and what makes them different for you?

fragmede 5y ago

> See Parler. Gab may be a more useful point of reference, but what's hilarious about right-wing platform is that their censorship is fine, it's the other people's censorship that's the problem. (Similar to how immigrants having fake papers is wrong but having a fake vaccination card is sticking it to the man). Go post some pro-vaccine or pro-mask mandate things, and see how long you last before being deplatformed.

avs733 5y ago
Agnotology and bad faith arguments[0] [0] https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-arguments-7-terrible-arguments-in-your-mentions-ee4f194afbc9 https://medium.com/s/story/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-argume...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  NB, that post seems to have migrated here: https://www.aaronhuertas.com/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-arguments-7-terrible-arguments-in-your-mentions/ https://www.aaronhuertas.com/a-field-guide-to-bad-faith-argu... Can you tell me about my epistemology?
  - avs733 5y ago
    I saw the author had moved to either a self hosted domain/ghost but didn't want to risk hugging them to death...however unlikely it is that anyone would click on my random link. Reading your comment history I would hypothesize you generally follow a coherentist/constructivist school of thought. I'm drawing this from repeated efforts to ensure alignment and clarity of actual meaning, especially in cases where vagueness in the language used by others might induce misunderstanding by someone who only gave a cursory read to a concept. You value whole concepts rather than individual facts and seem to approach things with the idea that your understanding grows over time through ongoing experience - i.e., understanding is constructed. I would highlight this quote: "I instantly started learning very useful features reading the GNU docs. (I still need to fully internalise those). Yes, the full manual is very much better than the manpage." No one has ever actually taken me up on this before...

hnbad 5y ago

I think the more general rule is that if your platform is advertising itself as an alternative to an existing dominant platform but that doesn't censor "X", the kind of people who'll flock to you will mostly be those who value X over any other interaction on the dominant platform. Most moderates don't feel restricted enough in their speech to use Twitter even if they may have some racist ideas they don't feel safe stating there, but literal white supremacists who want to talk about the superiority of the white race all day long will love your alternative that doesn't censor them. But if those white supremacists now all flock to your platform you likely now have a platform mostly consisting of white supremacists. This will naturally limit who else wants to join your platform because if they don't like being around tons of white supremacists they don't stick around long enough to build a counterbalance. This can also happen after you think you've already established a more nuanced community as with your example of Freenet. It turns out that while some people may seek opportunities to talk about X, others will not want to share space with discussions about X, often because of what it means to their own safety but also sometimes just from fear of association. If you have a fun social network and it has a prospering community of nazis in it, you're now the nazi network, no matter how much of your community is about other things than being a nazi.