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> What seems inevitable is the US government starts hosting public forums to talk; but being bound by free speech. Virtually anything goes unless it's an actual

> What seems inevitable is the US government starts hosting public forums to talk; but being bound by free speech. Virtually anything goes unless it's an actual crime. What happens after this? Everyone gets tired of 19 out of every 20 posts being about why they need Viagra, and goes back to MySpace.

josephcsible 4y ago
How so? You just wouldn't follow the accounts that posted that kind of thing.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  So when exactly did you go into the coma you just awoke from, 1993? No sort of forum can operate solely on content users explicitly follow. That's just unfederated blogs. On an online forum there's always going to be some public stream that pulls content from all user posts. Without moderation it almost instantly devolves to bigots and spammers. We've seen this routinely for the past 30 years of online forums. So "just don't follow" is not only meaningless advice but it's painfully naive.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Don't a lot of people use Twitter's chronological timeline view and completely ignore features like Discover? Isn't that basically what I'm describing?
    - pc86 4y ago
      I think this is how most people use Twitter, especially if they go so far as to install any extensions which block ads, clear CSS, etc. - I use Minimal Twitter which has been pretty good. The only time I see posts from people I'm not following is when someone I do follow is responding, quote-tweeting, or retweeting. If you use Twitter as is, there are a lot of things promoted for you but it's not any sort of public feed, it's (theoretically) based on who people you follow follow, who they like tweets from consistently, that sort of thing. No Viagra ads are going to be showing up in that.
  - pc86 4y ago
    > Be kind. Don't be snarky. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. > Please don't post shallow dismissals Perhaps you should give these a read and edit your comment accordingly: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - pilgrimfff 4y ago
    It’s too bad there’s no way to use hybrid approaches or use some kind of learning, but for machines! No heuristics to rank and prioritize content. We better tell every big tech company that what they’ve been doing forever is impossible to do if they don’t also de platform those deplorables.
- trifurcate 4y ago
incomingpain 4y ago
>Everyone gets tired of 19 out of every 20 posts being about why they need Viagra, and goes back to MySpace. So lets say advertising is considered free speech and you may freely do it. In essence it would be a tragedy of the commons. The out of control advertising would eliminate the usefulness of the forum.

josephcsible 4y ago

How so? You just wouldn't follow the accounts that posted that kind of thing.

giantrobot 4y ago
So when exactly did you go into the coma you just awoke from, 1993? No sort of forum can operate solely on content users explicitly follow. That's just unfederated blogs. On an online forum there's always going to be some public stream that pulls content from all user posts. Without moderation it almost instantly devolves to bigots and spammers. We've seen this routinely for the past 30 years of online forums. So "just don't follow" is not only meaningless advice but it's painfully naive.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Don't a lot of people use Twitter's chronological timeline view and completely ignore features like Discover? Isn't that basically what I'm describing?
  - pc86 4y ago
    I think this is how most people use Twitter, especially if they go so far as to install any extensions which block ads, clear CSS, etc. - I use Minimal Twitter which has been pretty good. The only time I see posts from people I'm not following is when someone I do follow is responding, quote-tweeting, or retweeting. If you use Twitter as is, there are a lot of things promoted for you but it's not any sort of public feed, it's (theoretically) based on who people you follow follow, who they like tweets from consistently, that sort of thing. No Viagra ads are going to be showing up in that.
- pc86 4y ago
  > Be kind. Don't be snarky. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. > Please don't post shallow dismissals Perhaps you should give these a read and edit your comment accordingly: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pilgrimfff 4y ago
  It’s too bad there’s no way to use hybrid approaches or use some kind of learning, but for machines! No heuristics to rank and prioritize content. We better tell every big tech company that what they’ve been doing forever is impossible to do if they don’t also de platform those deplorables.
trifurcate 4y ago

incomingpain 4y ago

>Everyone gets tired of 19 out of every 20 posts being about why they need Viagra, and goes back to MySpace. So lets say advertising is considered free speech and you may freely do it. In essence it would be a tragedy of the commons. The out of control advertising would eliminate the usefulness of the forum.