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What's woke about any of the points in the article? What does the word mean to you? The points in question: > Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how muc

• DeWilde 4y ago
  > Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation Who gets to say what is factual? EDIT: This isn't a gotcha, I am genuinely curious about how we would establish a source of truth.
  • Jochim 4y ago
    The people who already have absolute control over what you do and don't see in your feed. The algorithms of these platforms have been extremely effective at enabling the dissemination of lies and misinformation. When you consider that they're also designed to essentially reinforce any particular view you might have then it becomes clear why we've seen such extreme polarisation. I have absolutely zero problems with those algorithms being altered to break people out of those filter bubbles and/or limit the reach of people with a history of making wildly unsubstantiated claims.
    • FeepingCreature 4y ago
      "out of filter bubbles" == "into other filter bubbles". This isn't empowerment, it's hijacking. Even in 2022, the world wide web is still a hell of a lot more diverse than one single organization. Especially Mozilla. Should you trust any one website? No. But which websites you frequent is your choice, and it's one of the few dimensions of freedom remaining to the internet. The only job of the browser is to facilitate this freedom, and any divergence from that goal will only diminish what free choice remains.
      • Jochim 4y ago
        > "out of filter bubbles" == "into other filter bubbles". This isn't empowerment, it's hijacking. It's hardly hijacking when they placed you in those bubbles in the first place. I'm quite happy to break algorithmic filter bubbles given the rise in both extremism and lunatic conspiracy theories we've seen in recent years. > Should you trust any one website? No. But which websites you frequent is your choice, and it's one of the few dimensions of freedom remaining to the internet. The only job of the browser is to facilitate this freedom, and any divergence from that goal will only diminish what free choice remains. It's a fantastic thing that Mozilla isn't suggesting that any of these changes be made to your browser then isn't it.
        • FeepingCreature 4y ago
          > It's a fantastic thing that Mozilla isn't suggesting that any of these changes be made to your browser then isn't it. When a browser vendor advocates for "amplifying factual voices", in my mind's eye I see a browser tab filled entirely with a well-styled notification: "This site may contain misleading or harmful information. It has been blocked for your safety." But I'm sure there'll be an about:config setting to bypass it and it only gets reset every two or three updates. Mozilla should stay in their lane. -No, that's not accurate. Mozilla should get back in their lane. Maybe then they can finally find the time to finish implementing all the APIs that they removed without replacement with the Quantum rewrite.
          • Jochim 4y ago
            > When a browser vendor advocates for "amplifying factual voices", in my mind's eye I see a browser tab filled entirely with a well-styled notification: "This site may contain misleading or harmful information. It has been blocked for your safety." The browser vendor is explicitly suggesting that platforms like Facebook "amplify factual voices.". That quote is literally a link discussing Facebook's work in that area. There's no suggestion whatsoever in the article that they're planning having the browser do this What you're picturing in your minds eye could be concerning if it was at all close to the point of the article or being suggested as a solution. There's been no indication that there is even a plan to do so.
    • denton-scratch 4y ago
      The question you were answering: > how we would establish a source of truth Your reply: > limit the reach of people with a history of making wildly unsubstantiated claims. That's circular; to determine whether a claim is unsubstantiated, you need a source of truth.
      • Jochim 4y ago
        When I replied the question was: > Who gets to say what is factual? To which my response was: "The people who already have absolute control over what you do and don't see in your feed." The question was not "how we would establish a source of truth".
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    We need a better general understanding of what good sources of truth look like, for one. We seem to collectively have this notion that some youtube rando can do enough research in two hours to destroy the credibility of someone who has been researching something for years. That is insane. We need to start holding every participant in a debate to the same standard. And randos on the Internet start at the bottom of the scale.
    • dan_mctree 4y ago
      What do you think such an understanding would look like? A youtube rando may well have been researching something for a decade too yet be completely wrong (see: many conspiracy theorists), research time is often not particularly relevant. Stepping to authority over youtube randos on the other hand seems like a flawed idea too, 'authority' is often a biased group of the old guard. And in the most controversial topics, you'll have widely varying opinions on who the authorities are. Evidence then? Evidence can be cool, but is often really easy to spin whichever way the talking head wants. And that is if isn't outright doctored. The scientific process, including peer review? Maybe, but this doesn't work particularly well on some of the most important things we want to discover truth in such as politics an recent events Even in some kind of ideal world, where we can theoretically try to find the most truthful answer, we'd struggle hard. Let alone in our chaotic society where what's loudest and most catchy is surely going to outcompete whatever is the most truthlike
  • titzer 4y ago
    This is a reasonable question, but at the present moment people pretend that the manufactured doubts, e.g. about climate change, are tantamount to real doubts, when they aren't. We live in an atmosphere where doubt, disinformation, and confusion is an active strategy. It isn't even so much about claiming "alternative facts" as it is keeping people triggered. I would recommend watching "Hypernormalisation" by Adam Curtis to understand what is going on.
  • yccs27 4y ago
    This question seems to get an outrage-filled HN thread every week or so, which is probably why people think it's a gotcha. Latest post I can remember is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33202549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33202549
  • thomastjeffery 4y ago
    It may not be your intention, but it is a gotcha, by virtue of the surrounding context. The implication is that any person would be too biased to be able to do the job, but the reality is more interesting than that. And, of course, you aren't getting an answer to your question, because a random HN commenter doesn't know exactly who. In fact, the article itself doesn't know either, because it's making a recommendation of what should be done, not a declaration of what they are doing. But when it comes down to it, the "who" isn't nearly as important as it sounds. Most of the human pitfalls we are concerned about when we ask "who" are adequately answered with "how". In the end, it's the implementation that really matters. Disinformation on public forums is not a new pattern. Traditional forums (including HN) manage it with moderation. In this case, we have an answer to "who": the moderators. And "how" gets clearly outlined in the rules of the forum. But social media - like Facebook and Twitter - doesn't have moderators. Recently, there has been effort to do moderation with algorithms, but that tends to fail in a lot of edge cases. There have also been grass-roots efforts to fight disinformation, but in this case we can clearly see the "how" failing to protect us from the "who". There will always be groups that use the same patterns to promote disinformation, because the goals of a grass-roots information campaign don't react to criticism.
  • betwixthewires 4y ago
    I do, after reading the information and reasoning about it for myself. Other people deciding what information I have access to are trying to disempower me from doing that whether I like it or not, and something stinks about such an approach and I'd like nothing to do with it.
    • Jochim 4y ago
      Other people are already deciding what information you have access to each time you visit one of these sites. While they might allow you to alter the probability of certain types of content showing up, the platform is already the arbiter of what content appears in your feed and is recommended to you. An example of this would be engagement. Platforms have generally made the decision that they'll promote content other people have seen and interacted with. You typically won't be shown content that has low engagement unless you've gone out of your way to find it. This already has huge effects on the type of content that reaches or is created by people. I understand that point in particular might be disagreeable to you but it'd be nice to know how do you feel about the other three. So much of the current discourse focuses around what isn't or can't be agreed rather than calling for action on points that are relatively settled.
      • betwixthewires 4y ago
        That's why I don't go to these sites.
• theandrewbailey 4y ago
  I don't want my browser, its vendor, or even my search engine to decide what is or isn't "disinformation", or "white supremacy", or whatever today's distasteful views are. I'm an adult human, and I'll do that for myself. If someone wants to make a Fisher Price browser that only shows approved things, go for it, but I'll start looking elsewhere.
  • Jochim 4y ago
    The article doesn't suggest at all that Firefox or Mozilla are looking to limit what you're shown by your browser. 3 of the 4 points involve making the reasons you're being shown something more transparent. The remaining point suggests that other platforms make changes to their algorithmic content feeds. These platforms are already deciding what you see in those feeds and what's "approved".
  • creata 4y ago
    > I don't want my browser, its vendor, or even my search engine to decide what is or isn't "disinformation", or "white supremacy" Good! Mozilla isn't saying that browsers should do that at all. I don't know how you got that from the article. > I'm an adult human, and I'll do that for myself. The entire problem is that you will never be able to do that, in the context of social media. Simply by using YouTube, or Facebook, or whatever other social media feed, you've already trusted that website to decide what you see. The alternative is you having to sift through hundreds of thousands of social media posts yourself, and again, humans can't really do that. So (unless you have a better solution) the billions of people who use Facebook are at the mercy of its ranking system. Shouldn't we thus demand that Facebook consider the societal consequences when they decide how to rank things? Or should Facebook do whatever they want when they decide what billions of people get to see? That seems to be thrust of the "disinformation" line you're referencing: > Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
• azangru 4y ago
  > What's woke about any of the points in the article? Assuming this is a sincere question - take the sentence "the rampant use of the internet to foment violence and hate, and reinforce white supremacy is about more than any one personality", for example. It includes several key words and phrases that appear almost exlusively in a very particular kind of discourse - specifically, the words "hate" (in this vaguely identifiable meaning), and "white supremacy". These are strongly suggestive that the whole communication belongs to the kind of discourse that many have come to identify with the word "woke".
  • titzer 4y ago
    > belongs to the kind of discourse that many have learnt to identify with the word "woke". Rejects flippant labeling of "discourse" using terms "hate" and "white supremacy" and immediately amplifies labeling of discourse as "woke".
  • Jochim 4y ago
    It was certainly intended to be a sincere question, thank you for your perspective! I do have a few follow questions if you're happy to answer: Why does it matter if it's woke? The majority of the points seem to be purely beneficial. Isn't it better to support the ones that would provide a benefit and challenge the ones that are disagreeable? Do you not think that there's a case to be made that white supremacy has found a voice in certain parts of the internet? If you do agree, how would someone go about discussing how to tackle it without being dismissed as woke? Personally I feel like discourse has grown more toxic. At the risk of "both sides"ing things, people generally seem much less willing to understand each other's positions and I believe that these algorithmic bubbles play a big part in that.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • throw10920 4y ago
      > Why does it matter if it's woke? The majority of the points seem to be purely beneficial. This is a very good point. Let me provide an argument: The woke ideology/movement does attempt to address some real social issues (e.g. racism, classism, and areas where the disabled aren't served as well as they could be). However, on many of those issues, they either (1) attribute a specific cause to the issue that isn't universally shared (2) attempt to manipulate the language around the issue and/or (3) use unethical means to attempt to fix the issue. This wouldn't be a problem by itself, but is made into one by the woke movement's totalitarian facets - the redefinition of common words in order to push an agenda, the suppression of dissenting thought (either through censorship or through extra-judicial persecution), and the weaponization of emotion to win arguments. This means that while basically everyone (aside from white supremacists) can agree that white supremacy is bad, as soon as the woke movement gets involved, you lose the ability to tell what is white supremacy, because participants in the movement actively twist speech around the issue and emotionally attack those calling for reasonable discussion. For instance, in my work organization, a recent internal discussion thread had multiple employees claiming that "white supremacy" was the reason that Black people happened to be underrepresented in specific branches of that organization - and then attacked those who disagreed using emotional language instead of reasoned arguments. This is why Scott Alexander doesn't like "SJWs" and tries to keep them out of his discussion forums - not because he finds their views bad, but because a core part of the movement is tribalism, censorship, manipulation of language, manipulation of emotion, and other anti-intellectual things that are definitionally unsuitable for the rationalist community (and, topically, Hacker News), and probably unsuitable for liberal democracies like the United States, as well. > Personally I feel like discourse has grown more toxic. It has - as a direct, causal result of the woke movement's aggressive propagation of the idea that "everything is political", which necessitates conflict and politics spreading into every area of life where there formerly was none. That's why you have to be careful to separate the woke movement from the individual issues that they claim to represent - because the movement isn't just about (the very real issue of) racism, it also includes redefining the definition of "racist" to advance a hidden agenda.