4 ms·

This argument boils down to “I wish everything was more like 4chan”. If you’ve actually visited places with little to zero moderation and freedom to do anythin

This argument boils down to “I wish everything was more like 4chan”. If you’ve actually visited places with little to zero moderation and freedom to do anything the results are troubling at best. You don’t see the best of things with zero restrictions, these places are awful. Somalia was stateless for years, was it closer to a paradise or hell? Go browse /b/ and tell me you wish how all social media was more like it.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
In Somalia you can't "block" a neighboring warlord and keep living your best life. 4chan isn't designed to actually be a great forum, but the nearly-unlimited content is not the problem. A lack of user-tools for sorting through it is.
barnabee 4y ago
It doesn’t boil down to that at all. Anyone can send me spam email, my spam filters pick most it up and I never see it. I’d not choose to have corporate moderation of my incoming email even if it meant less spam. The same applies to web sites. The web is full of all sorts of things you probably don’t want to see. You don’t need it to be removed by your government in order for the whole web not to degenerate to 4chan. I don’t follow people who share objectionable things on Twitter, and if they start to I unfollow them. The only reason I’d see the crap would be if Twitter choose to show it to me. It doesn’t need to be “moderated” (deleted) for Twitter not to show it to me if I’m not following the author or someone who retweets it (and if I am, and continue to do so, then presumably I want to see it, and that’s up to me). It’s simply not the case that the presence of objectionable things on the internet is the root of the problem. The problem, mostly, is perverse incentives for companies to promote it. Until we realise this we’ll keep building algorithms that are incentivised to create division and stole obsessions of all sorts to keep people online and watching ads, followed by wondering where our moderation went wrong and what extra control we can impose to finally make things better. It won’t work.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance?
  - barnabee 4y ago
    Indeed. Intolerance is one thing it’s worth being intolerant of.
  - poszlem 4y ago
    Are you aware that the paradox of tolerance is a PARADOX? Most people quoting Popper online to promote censorship forget that part. It's not a carte blanche for censorship.
  - jkeisling 4y ago
    Are you aware of the equally common objection to “I can tolerate anything except intolerance”: that if allowed to censor in the name of tolerance, our self-appointed guardians will simply call whatever they don’t like “intolerance” and censor it? (Or “stochastic terrorism”, or “micro-aggression”, or “online harms”, or “misinformation”, or “trolling”, or “sealioning”, or “toxicity”, etc). Certainly one must draw the line somewhere. But the speech debate doesn’t end at the Paradox of Tolerance, and at this point I assume anyone who brings it up in isolation is doing so in bad faith.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    >If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, 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 second part is often left out of the discussion.
variadix 4y ago
That’s a bit of a false dichotomy. 4chan’s boards are distinctly different from each other in terms of the quality of conversation and topics discussed. Moderating things for being spam or off topic is different from moderation with a clear ideological bias.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago

In Somalia you can't "block" a neighboring warlord and keep living your best life. 4chan isn't designed to actually be a great forum, but the nearly-unlimited content is not the problem. A lack of user-tools for sorting through it is.

barnabee 4y ago

It doesn’t boil down to that at all. Anyone can send me spam email, my spam filters pick most it up and I never see it. I’d not choose to have corporate moderation of my incoming email even if it meant less spam. The same applies to web sites. The web is full of all sorts of things you probably don’t want to see. You don’t need it to be removed by your government in order for the whole web not to degenerate to 4chan. I don’t follow people who share objectionable things on Twitter, and if they start to I unfollow them. The only reason I’d see the crap would be if Twitter choose to show it to me. It doesn’t need to be “moderated” (deleted) for Twitter not to show it to me if I’m not following the author or someone who retweets it (and if I am, and continue to do so, then presumably I want to see it, and that’s up to me). It’s simply not the case that the presence of objectionable things on the internet is the root of the problem. The problem, mostly, is perverse incentives for companies to promote it. Until we realise this we’ll keep building algorithms that are incentivised to create division and stole obsessions of all sorts to keep people online and watching ads, followed by wondering where our moderation went wrong and what extra control we can impose to finally make things better. It won’t work.

waboremo 4y ago
Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance?
- barnabee 4y ago
  Indeed. Intolerance is one thing it’s worth being intolerant of.
- poszlem 4y ago
  Are you aware that the paradox of tolerance is a PARADOX? Most people quoting Popper online to promote censorship forget that part. It's not a carte blanche for censorship.
- jkeisling 4y ago
  Are you aware of the equally common objection to “I can tolerate anything except intolerance”: that if allowed to censor in the name of tolerance, our self-appointed guardians will simply call whatever they don’t like “intolerance” and censor it? (Or “stochastic terrorism”, or “micro-aggression”, or “online harms”, or “misinformation”, or “trolling”, or “sealioning”, or “toxicity”, etc). Certainly one must draw the line somewhere. But the speech debate doesn’t end at the Paradox of Tolerance, and at this point I assume anyone who brings it up in isolation is doing so in bad faith.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  >If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, 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 second part is often left out of the discussion.

variadix 4y ago

That’s a bit of a false dichotomy. 4chan’s boards are distinctly different from each other in terms of the quality of conversation and topics discussed. Moderating things for being spam or off topic is different from moderation with a clear ideological bias.