4 ms·

90% of the problems come from laws not people. Except the CSAM laws (which are justified as they relate to real physical harm), I think all other laws shouldn't

90% of the problems come from laws not people. Except the CSAM laws (which are justified as they relate to real physical harm), I think all other laws shouldn't have existed. DMCA, hate speech, mocking presidents, it's all the same. If you're dealing with law might as well just pay good lawyers and stick to your principles instead of gently bending over.

martythemaniak 4y ago
I've always wondered, what are people like you doing on HN anyway, a forum that is really far away from any notion of free speech.
- briantakita 4y ago
  It's always fun to introduce glitches into the matrix of groupthink to demonstrate the futility of dogma veiling simple social power dynamics (aka "soft power")...otoh, HN has some great content. Like any platform with great content, people have to learn how to interact with each other in a pro-social way. People are just going to disagree at times on some subjects. And that's ok...These disagreements often lead to motivate one to create solutions which leads to innovation. The "we don't like your kind round here" meme is backwards thinking & leads to the cloistered groupthink that is the subject of comedy. The game of "soft power" is a net-negative game so there are winners & losers. The losers don't just go away, so they need to advocate for their God given rights to survive. There is no option not to play the game because the game is ever expanding until the particular systems collapse.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  What's the point in getting someone who already agrees to listen? You want to find those willing to listen that don't agree. I don't want to reinforce my ego that I have people agreeing with me, I could get plenty of that if I wanted, I want those disagreeing and willing to listen to see the other side. I want to see what's actually a convincing argument that's changing opinion. But hey, everyone's so used to the likes and points system, they forget that speaking is to covey a message, not to get internet points for your ego. If that's all free speech means to you, no wonder you give it away easily. I happily paid those -5 internet points. If that surprised any of the downvoters, maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing. It's funny how none of them responded with actual speech, maybe because they think talking is about getting those downvotes and not about interacting with people.
  - striking 4y ago
    > maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing Downvotes are meaningful speech too. Usually people use them when they think your comment isn't worth a reply or doesn't belong here. They exist to prevent people from feeling like they have to reply to something that otherwise wouldn't be worth replying to, as a way of communicating to the poster that their post is extremely uninteresting. One thing they actually do is move your comment down the page. That being said, since you hold this opinion so strongly, maybe it's reasonable for me to point out: although the article mostly covers real and hypothetical laws that could make Twitter harder to moderate, there's also the question of how Twitter is supposed to make enough money to stay afloat, and how it can continue to do that if advertisers would rather not advertise on a platform that might show their ad next to messaging they'd prefer not to be associated with. There's no silver bullet here even if they did ignore EU laws or whatever it is you find unreasonable.
  - allears 4y ago
    Have you read Karl Popper's "The Paradox of Tolerance?" Here's a link: https://twitter.com/iamlejo/status/1331963359529414662/photo/1 https://twitter.com/iamlejo/status/1331963359529414662/photo...
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      Have you? Comic books don't count. "if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." The measure of intolerance is basically whoever tries censorship and violence first. Ironically they often justify it with one or two sentences cherry-picked from Popper.
- throwawayacc4 4y ago
  Relative to other large social media sites (reddit, Tumblr, Twitter pre-Elon, etc.) HN is a bastion of free speech. Reddit being possibly the least free of them all.
  - someNameIG 4y ago
    Reddit is petty free speech from the site admin perspective. The vast majority of moderation on Reddit is done by the community (i.e. subreddit mods), no one is stopping you from creating your own free speech absolutists subs.
  - musk_micropenis 4y ago
    HN is much more heavily moderated than those websites. Which is a good thing, it's why conversations here tend to be of a higher quality. I don't think the HN style of moderation would scale to places like Reddit even if they wanted it.
    - throwawayacc4 4y ago
      >HN is much more heavily moderated than those websites. This couldn't be further from the truth. Reddit is orders of magnitude more heavily moderated than HN. Your average run of the mill subreddit has more moderators than the entirety of HN. >Which is a good thing, it's why conversations here tend to be of a higher quality. I think the conversations here are higher because of the userbase, not dang's moderation. The site doesn't lend itself to the toxic userbase that reddit and tumblr has. >I don't think the HN style of moderation would scale to places like Reddit even if they wanted it. There are subreddits with more scale than HN, with more moderation. Scale is definitely not an issue.
      - abruzzi 4y ago
        Don’t forget that HN is also self moderated through upvotes/downvotes (I’ve never used Reddit, does it have similar?). This does two things IMO—first, low quality posts become less and less readable which reduces incentive to make inflammatory posts, but second it also imposes self moderation (except for users that resort to throwaway accounts) since losing too many karma points removes some of your ability to participate on the site.
tryauuum 4y ago
I wish some small country would promise not to interfere with content moderation. I'd host all my stuff there and maybe even move there When I worked in a russian hosting provider a decade ago, I saw a glimpse of censorship, very small compared to current level. We received a message that some page on a small news website is illegal, because it "provides information on how to commit suicide", which was considered inappropriate information for kids. The page in question was a news report about a conscript who killed himself with an AK due to bulling.
- musk_micropenis 4y ago
  Most laws that restrict content on social media sites are agnostic about where the site is hosted.
jcranmer 4y ago
> hate speech is constitutionally-protected free speech. > mocking presidents ditto. The only things that are actively illegal in the US on the list in the article are CSAM and copyright infringement. There are examples that are illegal in other countries, but in the US, vanishingly little speech can be illegal.
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  I don't think HN is the DMCA fans crowd, so what exactly triggered everyone? The hate speech?
  - mmcdermott 4y ago
    I think "freedom of speech" is used in two senses, generally without qualification. The post above references freedom of speech with regards to what is illegal by the government and is, so far as I know, correct. There is almost no speech that is illegal by force of law in the United States. The other usage of the term is more of a principle. That citizens of the United States expect its various institutions to uphold the spirit of the First Amendment even though it isn't a legal requirement. That, in an ideal place, your Twitters and Facebooks would adopt a stance similar to the federal government. There are factors that complect it. Social media platforms are basically entertainment sites and so need to attract advertisers which is at odds with that thinking. Users of the site often want others deplatformed. Standards of legality vary. Then you have cases where the government attempts to influence the moderation standards of a platform, blurring the lines farther. From my point of view, individual users wanting the opinion of others banned and government influence are the ones that are the most worrying, not least because of what they potentially signify for the future. No right will be maintained if the populace doesn't value its protection.
- musk_micropenis 4y ago
  Twitter extends beyond USA.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
mikkergp 4y ago
How are CSAM laws only somewhat justified?
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too? There are politicians constantly testing their legislation boundaries all over CSAM. It's getting abused to make proof of concepts that companies are willing to implement something, and then they extend it to other shit every time. You can't just slap the "for CSAM" label on increasingly ridiculous things. It needs to actually make sense.
  - qayxc 4y ago
    > They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too? Interesting view. There was a time, not too long ago, when photos were developed in labs by actual people. I remember vividly when some photos just came back blank, until I learned that the people at the photo labs used to "censor" content they deemed problematic and that could get you in trouble. Back then, one option was to simply develop the photos yourself (major PITA, never did it myself, but I knew a few people who actually went down that route). Today, it's the data storage providers who do the censoring and with much more dire consequences (e.g. police showing up at your residence and charges being pressed). The option you have nowadays is to simply not use these online services and use an offline storage solution (even if it's just a thumb drive on your desk) while taking photos the old-fashioned way (e.g. not with a smartphone). The problem isn't so much legislation itself, it's that modern technology is a massive enabler for this kind of crime on a scale that simply hasn't been possible before and cannot be managed by any methods that may have worked in the past. > It needs to actually make sense. I agree, but the problem is immense pressure from all sides while being a truly Herculean task that unfortunately has no simple and effective solutions. So what do legislators tell people then? Just let it go and accept that thousands of children have to suffer? Or rather live with the looming threat of your life being ruined by an innocent holiday picture your phone mislabelled? I honestly don't have an answer to that I don't know there is a good one either.

martythemaniak 4y ago

I've always wondered, what are people like you doing on HN anyway, a forum that is really far away from any notion of free speech.

briantakita 4y ago
It's always fun to introduce glitches into the matrix of groupthink to demonstrate the futility of dogma veiling simple social power dynamics (aka "soft power")...otoh, HN has some great content. Like any platform with great content, people have to learn how to interact with each other in a pro-social way. People are just going to disagree at times on some subjects. And that's ok...These disagreements often lead to motivate one to create solutions which leads to innovation. The "we don't like your kind round here" meme is backwards thinking & leads to the cloistered groupthink that is the subject of comedy. The game of "soft power" is a net-negative game so there are winners & losers. The losers don't just go away, so they need to advocate for their God given rights to survive. There is no option not to play the game because the game is ever expanding until the particular systems collapse.
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
What's the point in getting someone who already agrees to listen? You want to find those willing to listen that don't agree. I don't want to reinforce my ego that I have people agreeing with me, I could get plenty of that if I wanted, I want those disagreeing and willing to listen to see the other side. I want to see what's actually a convincing argument that's changing opinion. But hey, everyone's so used to the likes and points system, they forget that speaking is to covey a message, not to get internet points for your ego. If that's all free speech means to you, no wonder you give it away easily. I happily paid those -5 internet points. If that surprised any of the downvoters, maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing. It's funny how none of them responded with actual speech, maybe because they think talking is about getting those downvotes and not about interacting with people.
- striking 4y ago
  > maybe they will think again what's the point of speech that does nothing Downvotes are meaningful speech too. Usually people use them when they think your comment isn't worth a reply or doesn't belong here. They exist to prevent people from feeling like they have to reply to something that otherwise wouldn't be worth replying to, as a way of communicating to the poster that their post is extremely uninteresting. One thing they actually do is move your comment down the page. That being said, since you hold this opinion so strongly, maybe it's reasonable for me to point out: although the article mostly covers real and hypothetical laws that could make Twitter harder to moderate, there's also the question of how Twitter is supposed to make enough money to stay afloat, and how it can continue to do that if advertisers would rather not advertise on a platform that might show their ad next to messaging they'd prefer not to be associated with. There's no silver bullet here even if they did ignore EU laws or whatever it is you find unreasonable.
- allears 4y ago
  Have you read Karl Popper's "The Paradox of Tolerance?" Here's a link: https://twitter.com/iamlejo/status/1331963359529414662/photo/1 https://twitter.com/iamlejo/status/1331963359529414662/photo...
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    Have you? Comic books don't count. "if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." The measure of intolerance is basically whoever tries censorship and violence first. Ironically they often justify it with one or two sentences cherry-picked from Popper.
throwawayacc4 4y ago
Relative to other large social media sites (reddit, Tumblr, Twitter pre-Elon, etc.) HN is a bastion of free speech. Reddit being possibly the least free of them all.
- someNameIG 4y ago
  Reddit is petty free speech from the site admin perspective. The vast majority of moderation on Reddit is done by the community (i.e. subreddit mods), no one is stopping you from creating your own free speech absolutists subs.
- musk_micropenis 4y ago
  HN is much more heavily moderated than those websites. Which is a good thing, it's why conversations here tend to be of a higher quality. I don't think the HN style of moderation would scale to places like Reddit even if they wanted it.
  - throwawayacc4 4y ago
    >HN is much more heavily moderated than those websites. This couldn't be further from the truth. Reddit is orders of magnitude more heavily moderated than HN. Your average run of the mill subreddit has more moderators than the entirety of HN. >Which is a good thing, it's why conversations here tend to be of a higher quality. I think the conversations here are higher because of the userbase, not dang's moderation. The site doesn't lend itself to the toxic userbase that reddit and tumblr has. >I don't think the HN style of moderation would scale to places like Reddit even if they wanted it. There are subreddits with more scale than HN, with more moderation. Scale is definitely not an issue.
    - abruzzi 4y ago
      Don’t forget that HN is also self moderated through upvotes/downvotes (I’ve never used Reddit, does it have similar?). This does two things IMO—first, low quality posts become less and less readable which reduces incentive to make inflammatory posts, but second it also imposes self moderation (except for users that resort to throwaway accounts) since losing too many karma points removes some of your ability to participate on the site.

tryauuum 4y ago

I wish some small country would promise not to interfere with content moderation. I'd host all my stuff there and maybe even move there When I worked in a russian hosting provider a decade ago, I saw a glimpse of censorship, very small compared to current level. We received a message that some page on a small news website is illegal, because it "provides information on how to commit suicide", which was considered inappropriate information for kids. The page in question was a news report about a conscript who killed himself with an AK due to bulling.

musk_micropenis 4y ago
Most laws that restrict content on social media sites are agnostic about where the site is hosted.

jcranmer 4y ago

> hate speech is constitutionally-protected free speech. > mocking presidents ditto. The only things that are actively illegal in the US on the list in the article are CSAM and copyright infringement. There are examples that are illegal in other countries, but in the US, vanishingly little speech can be illegal.

machina_ex_deus 4y ago
I don't think HN is the DMCA fans crowd, so what exactly triggered everyone? The hate speech?
- mmcdermott 4y ago
  I think "freedom of speech" is used in two senses, generally without qualification. The post above references freedom of speech with regards to what is illegal by the government and is, so far as I know, correct. There is almost no speech that is illegal by force of law in the United States. The other usage of the term is more of a principle. That citizens of the United States expect its various institutions to uphold the spirit of the First Amendment even though it isn't a legal requirement. That, in an ideal place, your Twitters and Facebooks would adopt a stance similar to the federal government. There are factors that complect it. Social media platforms are basically entertainment sites and so need to attract advertisers which is at odds with that thinking. Users of the site often want others deplatformed. Standards of legality vary. Then you have cases where the government attempts to influence the moderation standards of a platform, blurring the lines farther. From my point of view, individual users wanting the opinion of others banned and government influence are the ones that are the most worrying, not least because of what they potentially signify for the future. No right will be maintained if the populace doesn't value its protection.
musk_micropenis 4y ago
Twitter extends beyond USA.
- jcranmer 4y ago

mikkergp 4y ago

How are CSAM laws only somewhat justified?

machina_ex_deus 4y ago
They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too? There are politicians constantly testing their legislation boundaries all over CSAM. It's getting abused to make proof of concepts that companies are willing to implement something, and then they extend it to other shit every time. You can't just slap the "for CSAM" label on increasingly ridiculous things. It needs to actually make sense.
- qayxc 4y ago
  > They are justified only up to the point where Apple starts scanning your personal photos and then the EU joins in requiring everyone else to do that too? Interesting view. There was a time, not too long ago, when photos were developed in labs by actual people. I remember vividly when some photos just came back blank, until I learned that the people at the photo labs used to "censor" content they deemed problematic and that could get you in trouble. Back then, one option was to simply develop the photos yourself (major PITA, never did it myself, but I knew a few people who actually went down that route). Today, it's the data storage providers who do the censoring and with much more dire consequences (e.g. police showing up at your residence and charges being pressed). The option you have nowadays is to simply not use these online services and use an offline storage solution (even if it's just a thumb drive on your desk) while taking photos the old-fashioned way (e.g. not with a smartphone). The problem isn't so much legislation itself, it's that modern technology is a massive enabler for this kind of crime on a scale that simply hasn't been possible before and cannot be managed by any methods that may have worked in the past. > It needs to actually make sense. I agree, but the problem is immense pressure from all sides while being a truly Herculean task that unfortunately has no simple and effective solutions. So what do legislators tell people then? Just let it go and accept that thousands of children have to suffer? Or rather live with the looming threat of your life being ruined by an innocent holiday picture your phone mislabelled? I honestly don't have an answer to that I don't know there is a good one either.