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These things do help. Most members of these communities get radicalized by virtue of other content they’re already browsing. If you remove the communities and f

by icyfox 5y ago

These things do help. Most members of these communities get radicalized by virtue of other content they’re already browsing. If you remove the communities and force individuals to leap from Facebook to some no-name forum, they’re far less likely to engage. This phenomenon is mirrored elsewhere as well where small interventions can lead to big impacts: see suicide rates in Britain after removing carbon monoxide in their house gas. Initial friction (or means reduction in that research) can drive change.

idiotsecant 5y ago
I'm not convinced we should think it's acceptable for you or I to decide who does and does not get exposed to information that will 'radicalize' them because you and I may have wildly different opinions of what constitutes a radical opinion. Humans sometimes develop stupid opinions, and that is OK. They're allowed to do that. They aren't allowed to act on those opinions in a way that constitutes a crime, which is why we go through the trouble of defining crimes in the first place. 'Precrime' thought policing seems like a pretty dangerous road to go down and one that is full of unintended consequences.
- icyfox 5y ago
  I define a radical group to be some collection that seems to be consistently peddling false material for their own ends, with an overly provoking tilt that makes it easy to go viral. Some specifics out of the past year would be vaccine misinformation, prejudice that incites racial violence in Myanmar, organizing an occupation to the capital in the US. Shouldn't we put a stop to these communities if they sway people to start peddling this information themselves? At least in the US, free speech is most free within public forums. But even then we already define some speech that is too dangerous if it's known to lead to poor outcomes. You can't yell fire in a crowded room, not because yelling fire is inherently a crime, but because it's going to incite people to a detrimental ends. Plus social networks don't have a constitutional obligation to be town squares where free speech can spread unfettered. You have to draw a line somewhere. And as the people who write the algorithms that can amplify or bury content on these networks, I think it _is_ our obligation to at least set parameters on what constitutes good/healthy content interactions on these social platforms and what doesn't. The ML algorithms have to optimize over some loss function.
  - throwaway946513 5y ago
    Not that I disagree with you - but "can't yell fire in a crowded room" is slightly misconstrued. As those aren't the original words from the U.S. Supreme Court case. [0] Additionally, the idea of 'clear and present danger' has been modified within the past 100 years since the said court case. The Supreme court since then has stated: "The government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is 'directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action'". Said definition has changed and depends upon situations, where some action is imminent or "at some ambiguous future date".[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

by icyfox 5y ago

idiotsecant 5y ago

I'm not convinced we should think it's acceptable for you or I to decide who does and does not get exposed to information that will 'radicalize' them because you and I may have wildly different opinions of what constitutes a radical opinion. Humans sometimes develop stupid opinions, and that is OK. They're allowed to do that. They aren't allowed to act on those opinions in a way that constitutes a crime, which is why we go through the trouble of defining crimes in the first place. 'Precrime' thought policing seems like a pretty dangerous road to go down and one that is full of unintended consequences.

icyfox 5y ago
I define a radical group to be some collection that seems to be consistently peddling false material for their own ends, with an overly provoking tilt that makes it easy to go viral. Some specifics out of the past year would be vaccine misinformation, prejudice that incites racial violence in Myanmar, organizing an occupation to the capital in the US. Shouldn't we put a stop to these communities if they sway people to start peddling this information themselves? At least in the US, free speech is most free within public forums. But even then we already define some speech that is too dangerous if it's known to lead to poor outcomes. You can't yell fire in a crowded room, not because yelling fire is inherently a crime, but because it's going to incite people to a detrimental ends. Plus social networks don't have a constitutional obligation to be town squares where free speech can spread unfettered. You have to draw a line somewhere. And as the people who write the algorithms that can amplify or bury content on these networks, I think it _is_ our obligation to at least set parameters on what constitutes good/healthy content interactions on these social platforms and what doesn't. The ML algorithms have to optimize over some loss function.
- throwaway946513 5y ago
  Not that I disagree with you - but "can't yell fire in a crowded room" is slightly misconstrued. As those aren't the original words from the U.S. Supreme Court case. [0] Additionally, the idea of 'clear and present danger' has been modified within the past 100 years since the said court case. The Supreme court since then has stated: "The government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is 'directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action'". Said definition has changed and depends upon situations, where some action is imminent or "at some ambiguous future date".[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]