4 ms·

I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social med

I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social media platforms to censor speech and they stop happily complying then perhaps I might have room to criticize other nations. [Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform. Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references. Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.

bryan0 4y ago
There’s plenty of room to criticize both
- serverholic 4y ago
  What I’ve realized is that people in general are largely incapable of nuance. - Things are either bad or good. - Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong. - Multiple things can’t be true at the same time. - etc.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    If there is one thing that can reliably eliminate nuance from any discussion, it is politics. Alleged censorship in social media is a hot topic in the last few years amongst partisans.
  - acdha 4y ago
    I think it's also worth remembering that this isn't just some random quirk but something actively cultivated by many social groups. Many religious encourage that us-versus-them divide because it's a very effective mechanism for keeping people from leaving (my experience with this was fundamentalist Christianity where shunning was practiced so anyone breaking with official doctrine was going to have to give up most of their friends/family and possibly even a marriage), and the Republican Party relies on the “help, we're being oppressed!” mythology to keep people riled up and donating/voting no matter who the candidate is. In both cases, tolerating nuance would make it harder to control the message since disagreement could lead to power shifting away from the current top of the hierarchy. Unsurprisingly the people who benefit from that are strongly opposed to sharing.
    - serverholic 4y ago
      I don’t think it’s limited to religious people or republicans. I see it on both sides. I do agree that it’s partially due to programming. If you look at movies for example you’ll see this black and white thinking. There’s a good guy and a bad guy and it’s all very simple.
      - acdha 4y ago
        It’s not exclusive to those groups but it’s quite noticeably stronger there. I think that’s because those groups push positions which are unpopular with a majority of the population, so you have to link that to things they do want or think they must do and push it as a package deal. “We’re under attack constantly by deceptive forces” is an effective way to prevent the culture of questioning any part of the package — e.g. someone who notices that Jesus didn’t actually say they have to shun their gay kid is is almost certainly going to wonder what other doctrine is like that.
        serverholic 4y ago
        I think it's just as strong on both sides, the difference is intention and outcomes. The right uses this to reinforce their own power. The left uses it to try and correct injustices but ends up creating problems because of it. Take a look at feminism for example. It started as "hey women should have equal rights", which is good. But now we see far too many people treating men as a monolith and demonizing them. So now we have a narrative that women = good, and men = bad. I see this all the time on social media from the left and it has to stop. Male suicide rates are far too high right now, and I partly blame this narrative and the lack of nuance that caused it.
cocacola1 4y ago
This seems to be a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- Spivak 4y ago
  And also equivocating “pressuring companies to deal with their hate speech problem which makes online communities best case unwelcome, worst case unsafe for the people and groups being targeted” and “censoring religious blasphemy to try and maintain existing theocratic power structures.” Like when the US actually starts trying to censor ideas rather than their hateful expressions I’ll start to be worried. Because lord knows it is your god given right to be an absolute piece of shit writing think pieces about all your bigoted opinions but content like /r/c__ntown is just hate with no substance at all.
ceejayoz 4y ago
"Someone reported this to the FBI, it's not actionable on a criminal level, but it breaks your TOS, heads-up" versus "we have deleted the encyclopedia for religious reasons". Yep, definitely comparable scenarios. Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  Yep, definitely comparable scenarios. I think it is. Pakastan can create whatever laws fit its culture. I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them. They should create their own Wiki alternative and make it popular within their nation. [Edit] Or if their people see fit change their laws, overthrow their government or whatever they deem appropriate for their culture. But that is entirely on them. Now if they want to ask how to bypass censorship, I would be happy to provide a myriad of methods just as I did for the Iranians that posted here in the recent past.
  - ddevault 4y ago
    The death penalty is abhorrent and indefensible, and religious freedom and the right to free expression are both included in the universal declaration of human rights, to which Pakistan is a signatory.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      >The death penalty is abhorrent and indefensible Believe it or not, but some places don't have the resources to hold people in jail for decades. If there was a murderer and the place had no way to actually keep the murderer away from the general population, what would you recommend? Just ask the murderer to not murder again?
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        What countries don't have the prison capacity for murderers? Even the bankrupt Taliban manages to keep 14k people in their prisons. https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/6935188.html https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/693518... Burundi's the last on the list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and manages prisons, as well. They're not opting for executions for the cost savings.
signatoremo 4y ago
There are plenty of articles critical of content censoring on HN already. I’d wager that the majority of censor criticism on HN are about the US. Very rarely about any other country. What are you waiting for?
syntheticnature 4y ago
"Tu quoque" is a logical fallacy.
whizzter 4y ago
US Laws are why people aren't posting classic European art because one nipple and you're gone.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  What laws, exactly? US Wikipedia has many images far more graphic than a nipple. We have television with full frontal nudity (both genders). Maybe you're thinking of broadcast television, which does have relatively strong restrictions before 10pm (IIRC, could be off on the exact time of day).
  - anthk 4y ago
    In Spain nudity on classical art woudln't be censored on TV. It looks plainly aseptic, not even erotic.
- duxup 4y ago
  What law does that?
- weberer 4y ago
  There are no laws against that.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  You can literally post nudity on YouTube if it's educational or art, and can convince the dumb ML black box of that. You can just host a website with drawings of naked people if you want. Hell, you could host a website with naked Muhammad and there's nothing the US can do to you. For reference, I was using one of "those" sites during the 2016 election, and an actual ad next to my chosen video was one of Donald Trump doing Hillary from behind with great gusto. It's not a crime. It was also hilarious.
Hizonner 4y ago
> Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. "Congress shall make no law"...
computerfriend 4y ago
> I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country Your own country and its cleanliness is totally irrelevant to Pakistan censoring Wikipedia.

bryan0 4y ago

There’s plenty of room to criticize both

serverholic 4y ago
What I’ve realized is that people in general are largely incapable of nuance. - Things are either bad or good. - Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong. - Multiple things can’t be true at the same time. - etc.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  If there is one thing that can reliably eliminate nuance from any discussion, it is politics. Alleged censorship in social media is a hot topic in the last few years amongst partisans.
- acdha 4y ago
  I think it's also worth remembering that this isn't just some random quirk but something actively cultivated by many social groups. Many religious encourage that us-versus-them divide because it's a very effective mechanism for keeping people from leaving (my experience with this was fundamentalist Christianity where shunning was practiced so anyone breaking with official doctrine was going to have to give up most of their friends/family and possibly even a marriage), and the Republican Party relies on the “help, we're being oppressed!” mythology to keep people riled up and donating/voting no matter who the candidate is. In both cases, tolerating nuance would make it harder to control the message since disagreement could lead to power shifting away from the current top of the hierarchy. Unsurprisingly the people who benefit from that are strongly opposed to sharing.
  - serverholic 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s limited to religious people or republicans. I see it on both sides. I do agree that it’s partially due to programming. If you look at movies for example you’ll see this black and white thinking. There’s a good guy and a bad guy and it’s all very simple.
    - acdha 4y ago
      It’s not exclusive to those groups but it’s quite noticeably stronger there. I think that’s because those groups push positions which are unpopular with a majority of the population, so you have to link that to things they do want or think they must do and push it as a package deal. “We’re under attack constantly by deceptive forces” is an effective way to prevent the culture of questioning any part of the package — e.g. someone who notices that Jesus didn’t actually say they have to shun their gay kid is is almost certainly going to wonder what other doctrine is like that.
      - serverholic 4y ago
        I think it's just as strong on both sides, the difference is intention and outcomes. The right uses this to reinforce their own power. The left uses it to try and correct injustices but ends up creating problems because of it. Take a look at feminism for example. It started as "hey women should have equal rights", which is good. But now we see far too many people treating men as a monolith and demonizing them. So now we have a narrative that women = good, and men = bad. I see this all the time on social media from the left and it has to stop. Male suicide rates are far too high right now, and I partly blame this narrative and the lack of nuance that caused it.

cocacola1 4y ago

This seems to be a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Spivak 4y ago
And also equivocating “pressuring companies to deal with their hate speech problem which makes online communities best case unwelcome, worst case unsafe for the people and groups being targeted” and “censoring religious blasphemy to try and maintain existing theocratic power structures.” Like when the US actually starts trying to censor ideas rather than their hateful expressions I’ll start to be worried. Because lord knows it is your god given right to be an absolute piece of shit writing think pieces about all your bigoted opinions but content like /r/c__ntown is just hate with no substance at all.

ceejayoz 4y ago

"Someone reported this to the FBI, it's not actionable on a criminal level, but it breaks your TOS, heads-up" versus "we have deleted the encyclopedia for religious reasons". Yep, definitely comparable scenarios. Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan

LinuxBender 4y ago
Yep, definitely comparable scenarios. I think it is. Pakastan can create whatever laws fit its culture. I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them. They should create their own Wiki alternative and make it popular within their nation. [Edit] Or if their people see fit change their laws, overthrow their government or whatever they deem appropriate for their culture. But that is entirely on them. Now if they want to ask how to bypass censorship, I would be happy to provide a myriad of methods just as I did for the Iranians that posted here in the recent past.
- ddevault 4y ago
  The death penalty is abhorrent and indefensible, and religious freedom and the right to free expression are both included in the universal declaration of human rights, to which Pakistan is a signatory.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    >The death penalty is abhorrent and indefensible Believe it or not, but some places don't have the resources to hold people in jail for decades. If there was a murderer and the place had no way to actually keep the murderer away from the general population, what would you recommend? Just ask the murderer to not murder again?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      What countries don't have the prison capacity for murderers? Even the bankrupt Taliban manages to keep 14k people in their prisons. https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/6935188.html https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/693518... Burundi's the last on the list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and manages prisons, as well. They're not opting for executions for the cost savings.

signatoremo 4y ago

There are plenty of articles critical of content censoring on HN already. I’d wager that the majority of censor criticism on HN are about the US. Very rarely about any other country. What are you waiting for?

syntheticnature 4y ago

"Tu quoque" is a logical fallacy.

whizzter 4y ago

US Laws are why people aren't posting classic European art because one nipple and you're gone.

rootusrootus 4y ago
What laws, exactly? US Wikipedia has many images far more graphic than a nipple. We have television with full frontal nudity (both genders). Maybe you're thinking of broadcast television, which does have relatively strong restrictions before 10pm (IIRC, could be off on the exact time of day).
- anthk 4y ago
  In Spain nudity on classical art woudln't be censored on TV. It looks plainly aseptic, not even erotic.
duxup 4y ago
What law does that?
weberer 4y ago
There are no laws against that.
mrguyorama 4y ago
You can literally post nudity on YouTube if it's educational or art, and can convince the dumb ML black box of that. You can just host a website with drawings of naked people if you want. Hell, you could host a website with naked Muhammad and there's nothing the US can do to you. For reference, I was using one of "those" sites during the 2016 election, and an actual ad next to my chosen video was one of Donald Trump doing Hillary from behind with great gusto. It's not a crime. It was also hilarious.

Hizonner 4y ago

> Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. "Congress shall make no law"...

computerfriend 4y ago

> I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country Your own country and its cleanliness is totally irrelevant to Pakistan censoring Wikipedia.