3 ms·

And the self-appointed arbiters of what constitutes accurate information and what to categorize as mis/mal/disinformation and what if any action to take are oft

And the self-appointed arbiters of what constitutes accurate information and what to categorize as mis/mal/disinformation and what if any action to take are often demonstrably incorrect and the alleged mis/mal/disinfo turns out to have been correct. Sometimes it's obvious to at least some in the moment and in other cases it becomes clear in retrospect. Policing public conversations and fostering or enforcing selected narratives and views of the world, when the entities carrying out the censorship claim to be impartial and accurate but (inevitably) are neither, leads to precisely the same sort of real-world harms employed as the pretext for imposing Chinese-style communications controls and censorship.

rini17 4y ago
You will always end up with some self-appointed arbiters. Unless you devote all your time to researching everything deeply.
- briandon 4y ago
  You're right, but even researching deeply is not a true solution because of the forces that would have structured, unbeknownst to me, the archival materials available for my research efforts. Someone decided how large of a library to build and the librarians since chose which books and periodicals and reference materials to add to the library and which to remove and sell or destroy to make room or for other reasons. And the librarians purchased the things that they put into the library from distributors or publishers within which were other persons making editorial choices. And the authors of the works which were made available by the publishers, wherever and whenever they put pen to paper, were affected by the mores and views of their times and places and the availability of whatever kinds of information they wanted and needed to carry out their own work. It's turtles all the way down. What has been going on recently on social media is a very different, very aggressive, hyper-invasive active version of this process. We've been subjecting one another to the digital equivalent of having someone pluck a book out of your hands while you're reading it and pop it into an incinerator. Or doing the same to some of the magazines on the magazine rack you were walking towards. Or tapping you and another person on the shoulder on the sidewalk and telling you not to talk about what you were talking about anymore and placing a ball gag into the other person's mouth because he'd been warned to stay off that topic already and the thought policeperson knew or suspected that "garbage can lid" was a code word for "flat Earth". Everyone has their own personal level of meddling and interference in their daily lives and interactions that they're willing to tolerate. Constant monitoring and modulation (even if it were truly well-intentioned) across most modern unencrypted forms of public and semi-public communications, whether it's centralized or whether it's been farmed out to certain departments in individual companies (which do coordinate with each other, outside organizations, and governments) is unacceptable and I will work around it or work to undermine it (legally) whenever possible and practical.
  - rini17 4y ago
    Sorry I don't get what exactly happened that caused you such grief? There are (largely) unmodulated forums like 4chan. Do you want everything to be like that?
    - briandon 4y ago
      Was the user experience and character of the content available on Twitter, Facebook, and other social services before they ramped up their moderation activities similar to what you believe 4chan is like now? Are reflexive claims that reverting to their original (mostly-unhindered, thought-police-free mode that acted against credible threats / clearly illegal activities) ways will inevitably result in them being equivalent to 4chan made in good faith?
      - rini17 4y ago
        The experience before they ramped up their moderation was toxic. They did not act at all against clearly illegal activities. At least not in my european country because they did not employ any moderators in local language until forced to, despite (FB) having ~million users here and plenty of ad income. Did not saw much difference in the english part. Dunno where you are seeing bad faith here?
    - kbelder 4y ago
      Personally, I don't want everything to become 4chan, but I do want there to be places like 4chan in every field. It's an invaluable stopgap, release valve, and censorship circumvention tool. We are far better off in a world where 4chan exists, rather than being banned.
      - rini17 4y ago
        We all want the place like that to exist, in theory. Until one fateful day when an insurrection organized there is successful.

rini17 4y ago

You will always end up with some self-appointed arbiters. Unless you devote all your time to researching everything deeply.

briandon 4y ago
You're right, but even researching deeply is not a true solution because of the forces that would have structured, unbeknownst to me, the archival materials available for my research efforts. Someone decided how large of a library to build and the librarians since chose which books and periodicals and reference materials to add to the library and which to remove and sell or destroy to make room or for other reasons. And the librarians purchased the things that they put into the library from distributors or publishers within which were other persons making editorial choices. And the authors of the works which were made available by the publishers, wherever and whenever they put pen to paper, were affected by the mores and views of their times and places and the availability of whatever kinds of information they wanted and needed to carry out their own work. It's turtles all the way down. What has been going on recently on social media is a very different, very aggressive, hyper-invasive active version of this process. We've been subjecting one another to the digital equivalent of having someone pluck a book out of your hands while you're reading it and pop it into an incinerator. Or doing the same to some of the magazines on the magazine rack you were walking towards. Or tapping you and another person on the shoulder on the sidewalk and telling you not to talk about what you were talking about anymore and placing a ball gag into the other person's mouth because he'd been warned to stay off that topic already and the thought policeperson knew or suspected that "garbage can lid" was a code word for "flat Earth". Everyone has their own personal level of meddling and interference in their daily lives and interactions that they're willing to tolerate. Constant monitoring and modulation (even if it were truly well-intentioned) across most modern unencrypted forms of public and semi-public communications, whether it's centralized or whether it's been farmed out to certain departments in individual companies (which do coordinate with each other, outside organizations, and governments) is unacceptable and I will work around it or work to undermine it (legally) whenever possible and practical.
- rini17 4y ago
  Sorry I don't get what exactly happened that caused you such grief? There are (largely) unmodulated forums like 4chan. Do you want everything to be like that?
  - briandon 4y ago
    Was the user experience and character of the content available on Twitter, Facebook, and other social services before they ramped up their moderation activities similar to what you believe 4chan is like now? Are reflexive claims that reverting to their original (mostly-unhindered, thought-police-free mode that acted against credible threats / clearly illegal activities) ways will inevitably result in them being equivalent to 4chan made in good faith?
    - rini17 4y ago
      The experience before they ramped up their moderation was toxic. They did not act at all against clearly illegal activities. At least not in my european country because they did not employ any moderators in local language until forced to, despite (FB) having ~million users here and plenty of ad income. Did not saw much difference in the english part. Dunno where you are seeing bad faith here?
  - kbelder 4y ago
    Personally, I don't want everything to become 4chan, but I do want there to be places like 4chan in every field. It's an invaluable stopgap, release valve, and censorship circumvention tool. We are far better off in a world where 4chan exists, rather than being banned.
    - rini17 4y ago
      We all want the place like that to exist, in theory. Until one fateful day when an insurrection organized there is successful.