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Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline? Did I miss a news story earlier this week? It seems very brash to assume that activity you simply don

Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline? Did I miss a news story earlier this week? It seems very brash to assume that activity you simply don't approve of is instantaneously harmful. I'm also suspicious of any study that uses YouGov, and in particular, derives it's data from a volunteer panel. This smacks of looking for a conclusion and then building a study to find it.

OrangeMonkey 5y ago
If your idea can win in the marketplace of ideas, then free speech is the answer. If your idea loses in the marketplace of ideas, you ban the speech you dislike until your idea wins in the *marketplace of ideas. If any group is busy saying - out loud - that they need to ban what you can see and hear, maybe we should start asking some critical questions.
- kurthr 5y ago
  If by win, you mean paid SEO of propaganda with brigading by fake accounts. But wait, you used the word free? How is paid propaganda free? The way astroturf is grass? Are corporations canceling me by not sufficiently promoting my political agenda on their ad supported site, because my content makes people not want to buy anything associated with it? Just asking questions.
- chowells 5y ago
  A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. Given that applies to about 0% of beliefs for most people, I'd say the idea has some flaws. If you immediately reject that, you're not very open to external ideas, are you? If you don't immediately reject it, you see how a market can be subverted to serve purposes that it was never intended to or constructed to resist. Either way, the idea of a marketplace of ideas is paradoxical in the extremes. And once you acknowledge the idea needs to be softened to avoid self-contradiction, you end up back at the question of what constitutes abuse. That's the exact same question people are wrestling with now. And because it's inherently an expression of a power struggle, you need to be aware of whose power you're supporting. I recommend siding against authoritarians and fascists, but that's just my idea.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    I think your premise is flawed: > A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. What is required is exposure to alternatives. It's not a perfect nor an instantaneous process, but it absolutely works. I've changed my position many times based on rational argumentation. If they are never exposed to the alternatives, the majority of people will just continue believing in what they already believe, of which the bulk comes from upbringing.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      The marketplace of ideas can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      What is required is people arguing in good faith and telling the truth. Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying about basic facts can easily overwhelm people’s reasoning, empathy, and capacity for independent fact checking.
      - hiptobecubic 5y ago
        It blows my mind that we're still trying to explain this to people after watching the last few years unfold.
      - freedomben 5y ago
        The problem is, when somebody is disagreeing with you it's extremely tempting to declare them "in bad faith" or "flat out lying." For example the "Lab Leak Theory" was banned as disinformation and people mentioning it were roundly mocked and disparaged (I was somewhat guilty of mocking those people also because it seemed too conspiratorial to me and many of the "usual" conspiracy nuts were all too eager to jump on Lab Leak). But then we found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed. However the accounts of people honestly trying to make the case had long been banned already, and there was nowhere to go to get their reputations back. So I fully agree that "Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying" is poison to the mind, but I think it's also reached for way too quickly and can and has been abused to silence opinions we don't like.
- pixl97 5y ago
  Paradox of intolerance alarms are going off in my head for some reason.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  First off, ideas are not a marketplace. Every useful idea has some call to action as part of it. That call to action may be a call to raise or lower taxes, a call to install bike lanes, a call to write more books about race car driving. These actions are frequently incompatible, and so they must be communally chosen. This is in contrast to a free market, where each individual can choose between available options. Second, even if ideas are treated as a market, movements can have disproportionate power compared to their "market share". The level of group support required to implement a policy depends on the specific policy. If 5% of people support defecating in the local lake, and 95% of people support the idea of swimming in the lake and using indoor plumbing, the result is not a swimmable lake. In the same way, a violent movement with very low popular support is unlikely to win any elections, but can still make it entirely unsafe for that movement's targets. Third, personal anecdote time. A few years ago after watching the "Alt-Right Playbook" [0], a YouTube series about recruitment and radicalization tactics used by the alt-right, YouTube recommended that I watch Nazi propaganda. I do not say that in any exaggeration. The video title had the phrase "The Jewish Question", and I was expecting a history on how that phrase had been used in racist fearmongering. It was instead exactly that same racist fearmongering. Even if I were to hold that all speech is permissible without repercussion, there is still a world of difference between allowing Nazi propaganda to exist, and active promotion of propaganda of that same propaganda. TL;DR: Ideas are not a marketplace, and lack of promotion is not the same as silencing. [0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbAN...
- atoav 5y ago
  Who decides the architectonic layout of that marketplace and could it not have some sort of influence on the success or failure of said idea? Or lets ask differently: how could there ever be a neutral layout to said market place, which is without influence of the powers at play in any given situation?
kurthr 5y ago
I just got served this "patriotic" wonder on YouTube kids. https://youtu.be/NUklrt_4Mio https://youtu.be/NUklrt_4Mio Check out the translation, if you're into that.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Z-Nazi nuns and nurses. More or less, just not fixated on jews. My empathy for Russians declines daily, it seems - they had decades to work things out but seem to have decided that klepocratic autarchy was good enough, or was someone else's problem. Want to be more like North Korea? Do as Russians do. Megalomaniacs shouldn't be involved in potential nuclear war. The US has proposed structured human-in-the-loop treaties to require that nuclear weapons not be automated, but China and Russia have both refused. A few bad cosmic bit flips and unintended nuclear war is possible. Putin's swan dive into Ukraine should underline the need for change. Humanity is toast if we're going to play stupid nuclear brinksmanship games every couple decades.
  - kurthr 5y ago
    What's disturbing is that the poster requested it be on _YouTube_Kids_, they obliged, and due to that any state-sponsored "warning" notation is removed.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      Elsa-gate and other nastiness shuttle have been a big wake-up call for YouTube to get their shit together on the kids area of the platform. Nice, wholesome, patriotic Russian propaganda like that shouldn't be possible to post. Mandatory human review with a checklist and log should be one of many hurdles needed to post content for the kids-only content area. It should be the best guarded, most highly curated segment, but all sorts of inappropriate garbage gets through, and sticks around for weeks or months even after being reported.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Terry_Roll 5y ago
>Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline? Yes, its what Eli Pariser described as a Filter Bubble, first identified in Google Search results. I wonder if there has been some code sharing going on between Google and Youtube, or if team members have jumped ship? https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/08/eli-pariser-activist-whose-filter-bubble-warnings-presaged-trump-and-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/08/eli-pariser-ac... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Some youtube holes can be good but considering the untapped potential of Youtube for DJ mixes as background music for coders, I find the youtube hole incredibly frustrating. I mean I've only just found this DJ and its pretty decent mix and her previous work is quite good as well, but considering she is Ukrainian, I wonder if this is Youtube's pro Ukrainian political policy in effect? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC8KkNIkZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC8KkNIkZk I found this decent mix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHRUsP20dQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHRUsP20dQ) only after listening to a couple of 145bpm German Underground techno mixes. I mean what were the algorithms thinking? The only link I can see is its from the Boiler Room in Berlin and Berlin is where you can find some decent German underground techno, plus the time of day is a factor, ie trying to slow down someone's Dopamine stimulation at 4am in the morning? But if you listen to some of the more established DJ's like Boris Brecha, Carl Cox, David Guetta, Adam Beyer or brands like Creamfields, Global Underground, Tomorrowland, Resistance, Transmission, Hooj Tunes, Essential Mix, you'll get stuck in youtube holes left right and centre and the quality tends to get worse the longer you listen. I mean their algorithms dont know how to curate DJ mixes, just like most people cant take people on a journey of aural delights when DJ'ing. One other thing I have noticed with Youtube is bank holidays in the UK, they tend to promote borderline illegal car activities, things like cruises where people lose it leaving the cruise or speeding videos, more so on August bank holiday and the last May bank holiday. I'm left with the impression Youtube is trying to incite illegal car activities, so maybe the NY Times and the Guardian do have a point!?!

OrangeMonkey 5y ago

If your idea can win in the marketplace of ideas, then free speech is the answer. If your idea loses in the marketplace of ideas, you ban the speech you dislike until your idea wins in the *marketplace of ideas. If any group is busy saying - out loud - that they need to ban what you can see and hear, maybe we should start asking some critical questions.

kurthr 5y ago
If by win, you mean paid SEO of propaganda with brigading by fake accounts. But wait, you used the word free? How is paid propaganda free? The way astroturf is grass? Are corporations canceling me by not sufficiently promoting my political agenda on their ad supported site, because my content makes people not want to buy anything associated with it? Just asking questions.
chowells 5y ago
A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. Given that applies to about 0% of beliefs for most people, I'd say the idea has some flaws. If you immediately reject that, you're not very open to external ideas, are you? If you don't immediately reject it, you see how a market can be subverted to serve purposes that it was never intended to or constructed to resist. Either way, the idea of a marketplace of ideas is paradoxical in the extremes. And once you acknowledge the idea needs to be softened to avoid self-contradiction, you end up back at the question of what constitutes abuse. That's the exact same question people are wrestling with now. And because it's inherently an expression of a power struggle, you need to be aware of whose power you're supporting. I recommend siding against authoritarians and fascists, but that's just my idea.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I think your premise is flawed: > A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. What is required is exposure to alternatives. It's not a perfect nor an instantaneous process, but it absolutely works. I've changed my position many times based on rational argumentation. If they are never exposed to the alternatives, the majority of people will just continue believing in what they already believe, of which the bulk comes from upbringing.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    The marketplace of ideas can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    What is required is people arguing in good faith and telling the truth. Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying about basic facts can easily overwhelm people’s reasoning, empathy, and capacity for independent fact checking.
    - hiptobecubic 5y ago
      It blows my mind that we're still trying to explain this to people after watching the last few years unfold.
    - freedomben 5y ago
      The problem is, when somebody is disagreeing with you it's extremely tempting to declare them "in bad faith" or "flat out lying." For example the "Lab Leak Theory" was banned as disinformation and people mentioning it were roundly mocked and disparaged (I was somewhat guilty of mocking those people also because it seemed too conspiratorial to me and many of the "usual" conspiracy nuts were all too eager to jump on Lab Leak). But then we found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed. However the accounts of people honestly trying to make the case had long been banned already, and there was nowhere to go to get their reputations back. So I fully agree that "Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying" is poison to the mind, but I think it's also reached for way too quickly and can and has been abused to silence opinions we don't like.
pixl97 5y ago
Paradox of intolerance alarms are going off in my head for some reason.
MereInterest 5y ago
First off, ideas are not a marketplace. Every useful idea has some call to action as part of it. That call to action may be a call to raise or lower taxes, a call to install bike lanes, a call to write more books about race car driving. These actions are frequently incompatible, and so they must be communally chosen. This is in contrast to a free market, where each individual can choose between available options. Second, even if ideas are treated as a market, movements can have disproportionate power compared to their "market share". The level of group support required to implement a policy depends on the specific policy. If 5% of people support defecating in the local lake, and 95% of people support the idea of swimming in the lake and using indoor plumbing, the result is not a swimmable lake. In the same way, a violent movement with very low popular support is unlikely to win any elections, but can still make it entirely unsafe for that movement's targets. Third, personal anecdote time. A few years ago after watching the "Alt-Right Playbook" [0], a YouTube series about recruitment and radicalization tactics used by the alt-right, YouTube recommended that I watch Nazi propaganda. I do not say that in any exaggeration. The video title had the phrase "The Jewish Question", and I was expecting a history on how that phrase had been used in racist fearmongering. It was instead exactly that same racist fearmongering. Even if I were to hold that all speech is permissible without repercussion, there is still a world of difference between allowing Nazi propaganda to exist, and active promotion of propaganda of that same propaganda. TL;DR: Ideas are not a marketplace, and lack of promotion is not the same as silencing. [0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbAN...
atoav 5y ago
Who decides the architectonic layout of that marketplace and could it not have some sort of influence on the success or failure of said idea? Or lets ask differently: how could there ever be a neutral layout to said market place, which is without influence of the powers at play in any given situation?

kurthr 5y ago

I just got served this "patriotic" wonder on YouTube kids. https://youtu.be/NUklrt_4Mio https://youtu.be/NUklrt_4Mio Check out the translation, if you're into that.

robbedpeter 5y ago
Z-Nazi nuns and nurses. More or less, just not fixated on jews. My empathy for Russians declines daily, it seems - they had decades to work things out but seem to have decided that klepocratic autarchy was good enough, or was someone else's problem. Want to be more like North Korea? Do as Russians do. Megalomaniacs shouldn't be involved in potential nuclear war. The US has proposed structured human-in-the-loop treaties to require that nuclear weapons not be automated, but China and Russia have both refused. A few bad cosmic bit flips and unintended nuclear war is possible. Putin's swan dive into Ukraine should underline the need for change. Humanity is toast if we're going to play stupid nuclear brinksmanship games every couple decades.
- kurthr 5y ago
  What's disturbing is that the poster requested it be on _YouTube_Kids_, they obliged, and due to that any state-sponsored "warning" notation is removed.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Elsa-gate and other nastiness shuttle have been a big wake-up call for YouTube to get their shit together on the kids area of the platform. Nice, wholesome, patriotic Russian propaganda like that shouldn't be possible to post. Mandatory human review with a checklist and log should be one of many hurdles needed to post content for the kids-only content area. It should be the best guarded, most highly curated segment, but all sorts of inappropriate garbage gets through, and sticks around for weeks or months even after being reported.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Terry_Roll 5y ago

>Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline? Yes, its what Eli Pariser described as a Filter Bubble, first identified in Google Search results. I wonder if there has been some code sharing going on between Google and Youtube, or if team members have jumped ship? https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/08/eli-pariser-activist-whose-filter-bubble-warnings-presaged-trump-and-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/08/eli-pariser-ac... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Some youtube holes can be good but considering the untapped potential of Youtube for DJ mixes as background music for coders, I find the youtube hole incredibly frustrating. I mean I've only just found this DJ and its pretty decent mix and her previous work is quite good as well, but considering she is Ukrainian, I wonder if this is Youtube's pro Ukrainian political policy in effect? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC8KkNIkZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC8KkNIkZk I found this decent mix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHRUsP20dQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHRUsP20dQ) only after listening to a couple of 145bpm German Underground techno mixes. I mean what were the algorithms thinking? The only link I can see is its from the Boiler Room in Berlin and Berlin is where you can find some decent German underground techno, plus the time of day is a factor, ie trying to slow down someone's Dopamine stimulation at 4am in the morning? But if you listen to some of the more established DJ's like Boris Brecha, Carl Cox, David Guetta, Adam Beyer or brands like Creamfields, Global Underground, Tomorrowland, Resistance, Transmission, Hooj Tunes, Essential Mix, you'll get stuck in youtube holes left right and centre and the quality tends to get worse the longer you listen. I mean their algorithms dont know how to curate DJ mixes, just like most people cant take people on a journey of aural delights when DJ'ing. One other thing I have noticed with Youtube is bank holidays in the UK, they tend to promote borderline illegal car activities, things like cruises where people lose it leaving the cruise or speeding videos, more so on August bank holiday and the last May bank holiday. I'm left with the impression Youtube is trying to incite illegal car activities, so maybe the NY Times and the Guardian do have a point!?!