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One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hat

by woah 4y ago

One big online platform that has totally skimped on reasonable moderation is the charmingly named "E-Mail". Child porn, copyright infringement, harassment, hate speech, spam, you name it. Anything goes. It's a complete free-for-all. Giant internet companies like Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars a year through their partnerships with the E-Mail platform. These big companies do make a token effort to remove objectionable content from their servers, but that doesn't matter. Anyone who wants to sidestep this reasonable moderation and spread hateful content on E-Mail can easily do so for a few dollars a month by setting up a darkweb technology known as a "Self-Hosted Mail-Server". Underground terrorist collectives such as the "postfix" organization distribute software making it possible to set up a Self-Hosted Mail-Server in a few clicks. We need to rise up and pressure these billionaire tech companies to stop connecting to any E-Mail providers that do not have a full content council and policy, and a team of content moderators.

computerex 4y ago
I'll drop this here: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...
rsynnott 4y ago
It's point to point, which does make a difference, though I would note that Big Tech companies who provide email are _extremely_ happy to "defederate" from email servers who send spam, or who merely look like they may send spam, or who share an IP range with someone who sent spam once in 2008. Like, the sort of guilt by association that would make even the most trigger-happy Mastodon service admin hesitate. There was a time when it was pretty easy to set up an SMTP server, but, if you want your emails to actually get seen, it's non-trivial today.
martindbp 4y ago
This is unfortunately exactly what will happen. What is scary to me is how censorship has become completely accepted by the new generation, including software engineers here in their 20s. No true hacker (this is Hacker News after all) would be OK with corporation or government censorship. Slippery slope is real.
- themitigating 4y ago
  In the past and in some places today profane and obscene material was/is censored and no one bats an eye. Books are being removed from libraries and that has happened apparently for decades. This type of censorship has been completely accepted by all past generations.
  - martindbp 4y ago
    We went from censoring things that everyone thinks is bad (CP, death threats), to now censoring opinions which 50% of Americans share, and probably 90% of the world in just a few years.
    - themitigating 4y ago
      So censorship is ok if everyone agrees to it? Everyone agrees racism is wrong can we censor it?
    - themitigating 4y ago
      Wait, I just read this again and don't understand. "censoring opinions which 50% of Americans share, and probably 90% of the world in just a few years." What opinion and why would the amount of people believing kt change?
- memish 4y ago
  Exactly. Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by -- and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers. Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing -- they only like `cooperation' that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. https://courses.cs.duke.edu/spring01/cps004/readings/hacker.html https://courses.cs.duke.edu/spring01/cps004/readings/hacker....
teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Email is one to one or one to many. Twitter is one to all. The burden of responsibility is different because of the scope of reach.
- footlose_3815 4y ago
  [dead]
- dmix 4y ago
  You can still choose who you follow on Twitter. It seems to be moving back towards that idea, which is good. It's pretty easy to avoid political bullshit if you are careful with following. For years Twitter used to make it impossibly hard to switch to just "latest tweets" instead of their awful recommendation feed which include likes/rts of people you don't even follow. No wonder Twitter became such a heated trainwreck when content feeds were no longer opt-in.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    Not sure if you've used Twitter. But the default behaviour is for you to see the Home feed which is populated with people you don't follow. So it is mostly just random topics and tweets from the most controversial people associated with that topic. So you do see political bullshit. A lot of it in fact because Musk is clearly trying to juice the engagement numbers and having lots of controversial political tweets is a great way to do that.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Really? Maybe my Twitter UI is different than yours because my default home page is now "Latest Tweets" by default. I never see likes/RTs by people I don't follow anymore. After years of the homepage being AI-feed only (lists were the only chronological alternative) they finally added a small button in the top right corner to change to chronological aka Latest Tweets by default. Now the default options are "Latest Tweets" and "Retweets". I don't see an option to switch back to the AI feed w/ non-following content? https://i.imgur.com/MaRjbcX.png https://i.imgur.com/MaRjbcX.png
0x4d464d48 4y ago
Let it be known. Elon Musk banned Kanye even though he didnt break the law. Elon Musk lied when he said he's a "free speech absolutist".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pessimizer 4y ago
And that's ignoring the misinformation, malinformation, and propaganda being willingly and unwillingly spread through the unregulated cesspool of the telephone system. These companies are near monopolies, and still won't take steps to crack down on the dangerous activities that they facilitate each and every day.
robofanatic 4y ago
I can't see your email and you can't see mine, but I may see your tweets even though I don't know who you are.
- chasd00 4y ago
  > but I may see your tweets even though I don't know who you are. That sounds like a bug not a feature. If Twitter collapses i'll dance in the streets.
  - robofanatic 4y ago
    Twitter is a virtual public square, so I'd say thats a feature.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    It is a feature from Twitter's perspective. Seeing tweets from people you don't follow helps grow your network and in turn increases your engagement.
RajT88 4y ago
Except I would wager you'll get the feds showing up if you start emailing around CSAM from your GMail account.
benshoemaker 4y ago
This is an exceptionally terrible take comparing a public social network to a 1:1 or 1:few messaging platform
shadowgovt 4y ago
You say that as though email is not, in fact, currently an absolute minefield of authentication, peering, trust, spam-guarding, and black-holing policies. In fact, email is more-or-less the most-used example of how a federated system deals with this: sloppily, one-at-a-time, generating a massive haves-and-have-nots Balkanization. I can set up my own self-hosted mail server, but without some very careful configuration and planning good luck getting Gmail to forward its output to Google's users.

by woah 4y ago

computerex 4y ago

I'll drop this here: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-...

rsynnott 4y ago

It's point to point, which does make a difference, though I would note that Big Tech companies who provide email are _extremely_ happy to "defederate" from email servers who send spam, or who merely look like they may send spam, or who share an IP range with someone who sent spam once in 2008. Like, the sort of guilt by association that would make even the most trigger-happy Mastodon service admin hesitate. There was a time when it was pretty easy to set up an SMTP server, but, if you want your emails to actually get seen, it's non-trivial today.

martindbp 4y ago

This is unfortunately exactly what will happen. What is scary to me is how censorship has become completely accepted by the new generation, including software engineers here in their 20s. No true hacker (this is Hacker News after all) would be OK with corporation or government censorship. Slippery slope is real.

themitigating 4y ago
In the past and in some places today profane and obscene material was/is censored and no one bats an eye. Books are being removed from libraries and that has happened apparently for decades. This type of censorship has been completely accepted by all past generations.
- martindbp 4y ago
  We went from censoring things that everyone thinks is bad (CP, death threats), to now censoring opinions which 50% of Americans share, and probably 90% of the world in just a few years.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    So censorship is ok if everyone agrees to it? Everyone agrees racism is wrong can we censor it?
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Wait, I just read this again and don't understand. "censoring opinions which 50% of Americans share, and probably 90% of the world in just a few years." What opinion and why would the amount of people believing kt change?
memish 4y ago
Exactly. Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by -- and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers. Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing -- they only like `cooperation' that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. https://courses.cs.duke.edu/spring01/cps004/readings/hacker.html https://courses.cs.duke.edu/spring01/cps004/readings/hacker....

teaearlgraycold 4y ago

Email is one to one or one to many. Twitter is one to all. The burden of responsibility is different because of the scope of reach.

footlose_3815 4y ago
[dead]
dmix 4y ago
You can still choose who you follow on Twitter. It seems to be moving back towards that idea, which is good. It's pretty easy to avoid political bullshit if you are careful with following. For years Twitter used to make it impossibly hard to switch to just "latest tweets" instead of their awful recommendation feed which include likes/rts of people you don't even follow. No wonder Twitter became such a heated trainwreck when content feeds were no longer opt-in.
- threeseed 4y ago
  Not sure if you've used Twitter. But the default behaviour is for you to see the Home feed which is populated with people you don't follow. So it is mostly just random topics and tweets from the most controversial people associated with that topic. So you do see political bullshit. A lot of it in fact because Musk is clearly trying to juice the engagement numbers and having lots of controversial political tweets is a great way to do that.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Really? Maybe my Twitter UI is different than yours because my default home page is now "Latest Tweets" by default. I never see likes/RTs by people I don't follow anymore. After years of the homepage being AI-feed only (lists were the only chronological alternative) they finally added a small button in the top right corner to change to chronological aka Latest Tweets by default. Now the default options are "Latest Tweets" and "Retweets". I don't see an option to switch back to the AI feed w/ non-following content? https://i.imgur.com/MaRjbcX.png https://i.imgur.com/MaRjbcX.png

0x4d464d48 4y ago

Let it be known. Elon Musk banned Kanye even though he didnt break the law. Elon Musk lied when he said he's a "free speech absolutist".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pessimizer 4y ago

And that's ignoring the misinformation, malinformation, and propaganda being willingly and unwillingly spread through the unregulated cesspool of the telephone system. These companies are near monopolies, and still won't take steps to crack down on the dangerous activities that they facilitate each and every day.

robofanatic 4y ago

I can't see your email and you can't see mine, but I may see your tweets even though I don't know who you are.

chasd00 4y ago
> but I may see your tweets even though I don't know who you are. That sounds like a bug not a feature. If Twitter collapses i'll dance in the streets.
- robofanatic 4y ago
  Twitter is a virtual public square, so I'd say thats a feature.
- threeseed 4y ago
  It is a feature from Twitter's perspective. Seeing tweets from people you don't follow helps grow your network and in turn increases your engagement.

RajT88 4y ago

Except I would wager you'll get the feds showing up if you start emailing around CSAM from your GMail account.

benshoemaker 4y ago

This is an exceptionally terrible take comparing a public social network to a 1:1 or 1:few messaging platform

shadowgovt 4y ago

You say that as though email is not, in fact, currently an absolute minefield of authentication, peering, trust, spam-guarding, and black-holing policies. In fact, email is more-or-less the most-used example of how a federated system deals with this: sloppily, one-at-a-time, generating a massive haves-and-have-nots Balkanization. I can set up my own self-hosted mail server, but without some very careful configuration and planning good luck getting Gmail to forward its output to Google's users.