7 ms·

Greg Lukianoff also suggested drawing the content moderation line at legal speech [1]. > Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general,

by rhaksw 4y ago

Greg Lukianoff also suggested drawing the content moderation line at legal speech [1]. > Why does this matter? Because free speech, free expression in general, is a means to express values and beliefs. Saying this does not convince people who are concerned about hate speech. Such individuals imagine that the government or the platform will, or can be coerced, to simply remove whatever they do not like. These folks, who consider themselves among the majority, never imagine that they will one day be a minority, or that such power will then be used against them. The truth is that all of us are being moderated all the time on social media, but that's hard to demonstrate in all cases at all times, which is why the secrecy of such moderation tends to be effective for a period. Drawing the line at legal speech is important is because words are not violent, and moving it anywhere else leads to more disagreement. Other people's words, which you may find offensive and which may cause real psychological harm, are still discretionary. Some may find them harmful, others will not. Laws aren't supposed to be subjectively interpreted. The exception for when speech can be punished by law is defined by Nadine Strossen as words that "in context, directly causes specific imminent serious harm" [2]. > No one values spam, so no one writes hand-wringing essays about whether it is ok to kick spam and spammers off social media. That's not really what happens though. Spam is a useful mechanism to get platforms to build more tools that secretly remove content. I mention it in my talk at 28:00 [3]. These new censorship tools are mostly used to suppress speech from individuals, not spammers. > Most people recognize that porn, even if they like it, is not something that should be in everyone’s faces all the time, so there is little existential concern for free speech as a whole when porn is excluded or hidden from some contexts. That's not true, "obscenity" has always been under attack. Look up Anthony Comstock [4] [5], a largely successful crusader against all things he found obscene. He didn't stop at pornography, he went after literature describing contraceptives, abortion, and even people who just criticized him. It was just like how today's radical trans movement seeks to remove voices of detransitioners from social media [6]. It doesn't fit their world view, they find it offensive and they don't want you to see it. That said, there is broader agreement about keeping pornography away from children. The vast amounts of censorship today, most often secretly done, cuts out the middle and enables both extremes to isolate themselves in their own bubbles. Instead of trying to baby-proof our world, we should be world-proofing ourselves [7] > You cannot expect to make sense of free speech if you try to ignore other values. Nobody's saying we should ignore other values. If you hold this view then you've misinterpreted the constitution, whose 9th amendment [8] states that rights are not to be held in conflict with each other. What should be said here is, you cannot make sense of free speech if you do not examine its history and how it's been relentlessly defended, not just in the US, but everywhere possible for arguably the whole of human history, with varying degrees of success. [1] https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/open-letter-elon-musk-greg-lukianoff-preserving-free-expression https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/op... [2] https://books.google.com/books?&hl=en&id=whBQDwAAQBAJ&q=in+context%2C+it+directly+causes+specific+imminent+serious+harm https://books.google.com/books?&hl=en&id=whBQDwAAQBAJ&q=in+c... [3] https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/ https://cantsayanything.win/2022-10-transparent-moderation/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Comstock [5] https://play.google.com/store/books/details/The_Mind_of_the_Censor_and_the_Eye_of_the_Beholder?id=PCJJEAAAQBAJ&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/books/details/The_Mind_of_the_... [6] https://archive.ph/1NeiV#selection-1513.7-1513.57 https://archive.ph/1NeiV#selection-1513.7-1513.57 [7] https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/76283/world-proof-your-kids-dont-childproof-their-world-lenore-skenazy/ https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/76283/world-proof... [8] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-9/?__cf_chl_tk=SaC6UsvnEK0uEVJ6lhGlEpdywNBe8eQnuZl6YBWSyII-1669961138-0-gaNycGzNCeU https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-9/?...

judge2020 4y ago
And yet people only have so much time, and so much of it continues to be dominated by work and transportation to/from work (if you’re not lucky enough to have the option of remote work). When you’ve been busy and focused for the better part of 10 hours, bettering oneself for immaterial gains is going to be unappealing when you could doom scroll TikTok, watch the latest hit TV series, or even better yourself in areas with easily-realized gains, like physical workouts or educating for a career change. That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content. The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated. Even if you do try to engage with vitriolic commentary, your comment may be removed without your knowledge, and the forum will still show you your comment as if it's not removed. It works like this on Reddit for all comments [1], but again as I said, all forums now engage in shadow moderation. And at the end of the day it is also an us problem, not just a them problem, because we're often the ones reporting the content that gets taken down. When people are made aware that this is happening, they do call for change, for example [2], > ...what is the supposed rationale for making you think a removed post is still live and visible? > ...So the mods delete comments, but have them still visible to the writer. How sinister. > ...what’s stunning is you get no notification and to you the comment still looks up. Which means mods can set whatever narrative they want without answering to anyone. Here's another way to think about whether or not to use shadow moderation. If you think it's a good idea to use it, then you think it's an effective tool for changing minds. Your ideological opponent, whose comments you want to secretly hide (lest they give you more trouble), is, by your definition, immoral. The extreme left and right both think this of each other. And since they are immoral, they will make more immoral use of this tool than you do, thereby effecting more influence than you, which is precisely the opposite of what you set out to achieve. Therefore the only winning move is not to play [3]. You cannot support the use of a tool in the world without your opponent eventually getting their hands on it. So it's really a game of: who can make the first truly free speech forum that encourages rather than secretly shuts down debate? [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/ynfu22/write_any_comment_here_20221106/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/ynfu22/wri... [2] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#react https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#react [3] https://youtu.be/MpmGXeAtWUw?t=74 https://youtu.be/MpmGXeAtWUw?t=74

by rhaksw 4y ago

judge2020 4y ago

And yet people only have so much time, and so much of it continues to be dominated by work and transportation to/from work (if you’re not lucky enough to have the option of remote work). When you’ve been busy and focused for the better part of 10 hours, bettering oneself for immaterial gains is going to be unappealing when you could doom scroll TikTok, watch the latest hit TV series, or even better yourself in areas with easily-realized gains, like physical workouts or educating for a career change. That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content.

rhaksw 4y ago
> That’s why people opt for moderated communities, actually learning to handle content and ignore repugnant or vile content takes diligence and building that up is time-consuming, so they’ll happily pay money (via ads or directly) to offload filtering out that content. The catch here is that people are not aware that their content is frequently shadow moderated. Even if you do try to engage with vitriolic commentary, your comment may be removed without your knowledge, and the forum will still show you your comment as if it's not removed. It works like this on Reddit for all comments [1], but again as I said, all forums now engage in shadow moderation. And at the end of the day it is also an us problem, not just a them problem, because we're often the ones reporting the content that gets taken down. When people are made aware that this is happening, they do call for change, for example [2], > ...what is the supposed rationale for making you think a removed post is still live and visible? > ...So the mods delete comments, but have them still visible to the writer. How sinister. > ...what’s stunning is you get no notification and to you the comment still looks up. Which means mods can set whatever narrative they want without answering to anyone. Here's another way to think about whether or not to use shadow moderation. If you think it's a good idea to use it, then you think it's an effective tool for changing minds. Your ideological opponent, whose comments you want to secretly hide (lest they give you more trouble), is, by your definition, immoral. The extreme left and right both think this of each other. And since they are immoral, they will make more immoral use of this tool than you do, thereby effecting more influence than you, which is precisely the opposite of what you set out to achieve. Therefore the only winning move is not to play [3]. You cannot support the use of a tool in the world without your opponent eventually getting their hands on it. So it's really a game of: who can make the first truly free speech forum that encourages rather than secretly shuts down debate? [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/ynfu22/write_any_comment_here_20221106/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/comments/ynfu22/wri... [2] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#react https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/#react [3] https://youtu.be/MpmGXeAtWUw?t=74 https://youtu.be/MpmGXeAtWUw?t=74