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One problem is that if they start policing spam, they might have to answer to Congress' opinions about content that is "as bad as spam" or worse like so-called

One problem is that if they start policing spam, they might have to answer to Congress' opinions about content that is "as bad as spam" or worse like so-called misinformation. That is one reason (constitutional protection of freedom of speech) that the USPS ships so much junk mail around even when they could from an operational perspective (but again, not a constitutional perspective) decline it. I am not saying that the constitution protects phishing emails, but I am saying that claims of the technology not being developed yet for policing online content are one major reason the recent age verification push in Australia did not go into effect. It is not an unmitigated good for control at that level of granularity to be possible.

manfre 3y ago
The USPS is paid to deliver the bulk rate mail spam. That is one of their strongest reasons to not block it.
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
Two counter points: 1) The Freedom of Speech and of the press by extension at the time it was created was working under the assumptions of the printing press and carriage mail. I think it's long past time for a re-evaluation on this in the modern age, not only when bulk mailing can done at a scale that would make a press-printer's head spin today with modern machinery, but also and especially with regard to email, which is basically free minus the trivial cost of electricity to send a truly mind bending amount of spam messages. 2) I think it's beyond ridiculous that so many people will bring up that "well having any standard of information (to prevent misinformation) can be used by bad actors, so it's better to not have the mechanism at all to review the content of things." On subjective matters of opinion, it is certainly much, much harder to determine bad-faith or say with certainty that something is misinformation. But tons and I do mean actual tons of spam can be easily flagged as misinformation: be they advertising products that are flagrantly fraudulent in nature, be they advertising 419 scams that are... scams, be they fake amazon alerts about missed shipments, etc. etc. I would go so far as to say a majority in fact of spam email can be objectively determined to be misinformation of one kind or another, even if you totally discount political things from that system which I can see the logic of even if I don't necessarily agree with it. And if you agree with that assessment, then why in the world are we permitting this communication to occur? Why have we just thrown up our hands and said "nothing to do about it" as spammers have basically ruined an entire medium of communication?
- whatshisface 3y ago
  My best answer to both is that humanity has not advanced to the stage where the government or (worse) un-appointed mail carriers, electronic or otherwise, who were not selected by the market for their moderation skills or evenhandedness, can be given that kind of power. Instead, we make smaller forums and voluntarily submit ourselves to small scale powers like dang directly on the basis of their fairness and effectiveness. Could AT&T pull a dang out of their inner workings? Probably not... and definitely not the several thousand that would be necessary to limit spam.

manfre 3y ago

The USPS is paid to deliver the bulk rate mail spam. That is one of their strongest reasons to not block it.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

Two counter points: 1) The Freedom of Speech and of the press by extension at the time it was created was working under the assumptions of the printing press and carriage mail. I think it's long past time for a re-evaluation on this in the modern age, not only when bulk mailing can done at a scale that would make a press-printer's head spin today with modern machinery, but also and especially with regard to email, which is basically free minus the trivial cost of electricity to send a truly mind bending amount of spam messages. 2) I think it's beyond ridiculous that so many people will bring up that "well having any standard of information (to prevent misinformation) can be used by bad actors, so it's better to not have the mechanism at all to review the content of things." On subjective matters of opinion, it is certainly much, much harder to determine bad-faith or say with certainty that something is misinformation. But tons and I do mean actual tons of spam can be easily flagged as misinformation: be they advertising products that are flagrantly fraudulent in nature, be they advertising 419 scams that are... scams, be they fake amazon alerts about missed shipments, etc. etc. I would go so far as to say a majority in fact of spam email can be objectively determined to be misinformation of one kind or another, even if you totally discount political things from that system which I can see the logic of even if I don't necessarily agree with it. And if you agree with that assessment, then why in the world are we permitting this communication to occur? Why have we just thrown up our hands and said "nothing to do about it" as spammers have basically ruined an entire medium of communication?

whatshisface 3y ago
My best answer to both is that humanity has not advanced to the stage where the government or (worse) un-appointed mail carriers, electronic or otherwise, who were not selected by the market for their moderation skills or evenhandedness, can be given that kind of power. Instead, we make smaller forums and voluntarily submit ourselves to small scale powers like dang directly on the basis of their fairness and effectiveness. Could AT&T pull a dang out of their inner workings? Probably not... and definitely not the several thousand that would be necessary to limit spam.