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> Most people does not want cars to crash into Christmas fairs either. But the solution is not to ban cars. Mist people does not want kids to be bullied at scho

> Most people does not want cars to crash into Christmas fairs either. But the solution is not to ban cars. Mist people does not want kids to be bullied at school. But the solution is not to ban schools. Right! And the solution also isn’t “fuck it. Too complicated to do perfectly. No discipline in schools / no traffic laws”.

skinkestek 3y ago
No, but the solution is hopefully much closer to traditional western style punishment of switchboard operators who listen in or interfere and far far away from Stasi style mandatory snitching?
segfaltnh 3y ago
Exactly right. I don't understand why people miss this detail. Maybe Google does have too much power over how content is served, but this isn't a fix, at all.
rglullis 3y ago
Decentralization does not mean anarchy. The discipline and the laws come from the bottom up. Also, they are usually better than the ones imposed by a central planner because they can be developed faster and within the context of the social norms and culture of the people who are subject to it.
- the_gastropod 3y ago
  Decentralization doesn't mean much of anything on its own. There are "decentralized" setups that do moderation fairly well (e.g., Mastodon or most oldschool web forums, where there's ultimately someone accountable). This (Nostr), specifically [1], makes fun of such setups. To moderate any system, there must be affordances for moderation and someone(s) accountable to the users of the system. As far as I can tell, like most blockchain projects, the Nostr project has effectively stripped (nearly) all affordances for doing moderation. Given that the Nostr audience seems to overlap considerably with crypto enthusiasts, I think their stance is basically the same: no moderation, no "censorship", etc. Given that there's literally child porn stored on the Bitcoin blockchain right now, I don't think your argument holds that "decentralization" can just Jeff Goldblum it and "find a way" without explicit affordances / accountability. [1] https://nostr.com/comparisons/mastodon https://nostr.com/comparisons/mastodon
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Nostr makes fun of the idea that you can have centralized moderation and moves it explicitly to the relays. It is up to the relay owner to determine what is allowed or not.
    - the_gastropod 3y ago
      Which practically means unanimous agreement is needed among all relays in order to moderate anything. I also don't see what incentive / accountability relays face to remove content. So... I don't see that strategy being particularly effective. But hey! If more than a couple dozen people wind up actually using the thing, guess we'll find out!
      - rglullis 3y ago
        > Which practically means unanimous agreement is needed among all relays in order to moderate anything. No, it means that the people will tend to congregate around the relays that work according to what they expect/want to see. You are thinking from the assumption that things are only acceptable if total compliance is enforced. Even on the highly-controlled and regulated Internet there is still abhorrent content out there, why would you expect that from the alternative? The interesting question is: do you think that the majority of people don't see this side of the internet because of how effective the centralized control and policing is, or just because the majority of people are not interested in seeing this content in the first place?
        the_gastropod 3y ago
        > The interesting question is: do you think that the majority of people don't see this side of the internet because of how effective the centralized control and policing is, or just because the majority of people are not interested in seeing this content in the first place? Both! Most people don't want to see beheading videos and would be very upset if one came across their Youtube recommendations. Fortunately, YouTube's "CENSORSHIP" is pretty good at not showing such videos (even though they're completely legal content!) However, there is a significant long tail pool of people who are totally into watching such abhorrent content (e.g., 8channers), and could easily cause a deeply offensive content to find itself in the unmoderated "Democratically trending" video feed, as it's demonstrated in the Flare example walkthrough. Maybe that's your point? Platforms like these will necessarily be used pretty much exclusively by people who like or will tolerate seeing extremely offensive content because everyone else will be put off by the occasional display of horribleness. Libertarian "DON'T CENSOR ME, BRO" havens like 8chan, kiwifarms, daily stormer, etc. already exist. They're not particularly popular, when compared to the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. But they're certainly popular enough to draw millions of users. And every one of them would be delighted if they could post their inflammatory nonsense on Facebook or YouTube to reach a wider audience. And Facebook and YouTube have wider audiences because they moderate content. In a previous life I worked building popular social media apps that included user-generated content. And I saw first-hand how horrific content moderation is. The shit people post to social media sites is as vile as it is vast. I'm certain most "anti-censorship" people's opinions would be changed if they'd watched an actual content moderator do their job for 30 minutes.

skinkestek 3y ago

No, but the solution is hopefully much closer to traditional western style punishment of switchboard operators who listen in or interfere and far far away from Stasi style mandatory snitching?

segfaltnh 3y ago

Exactly right. I don't understand why people miss this detail. Maybe Google does have too much power over how content is served, but this isn't a fix, at all.

rglullis 3y ago

Decentralization does not mean anarchy. The discipline and the laws come from the bottom up. Also, they are usually better than the ones imposed by a central planner because they can be developed faster and within the context of the social norms and culture of the people who are subject to it.

the_gastropod 3y ago
Decentralization doesn't mean much of anything on its own. There are "decentralized" setups that do moderation fairly well (e.g., Mastodon or most oldschool web forums, where there's ultimately someone accountable). This (Nostr), specifically [1], makes fun of such setups. To moderate any system, there must be affordances for moderation and someone(s) accountable to the users of the system. As far as I can tell, like most blockchain projects, the Nostr project has effectively stripped (nearly) all affordances for doing moderation. Given that the Nostr audience seems to overlap considerably with crypto enthusiasts, I think their stance is basically the same: no moderation, no "censorship", etc. Given that there's literally child porn stored on the Bitcoin blockchain right now, I don't think your argument holds that "decentralization" can just Jeff Goldblum it and "find a way" without explicit affordances / accountability. [1] https://nostr.com/comparisons/mastodon https://nostr.com/comparisons/mastodon
- rglullis 3y ago
  Nostr makes fun of the idea that you can have centralized moderation and moves it explicitly to the relays. It is up to the relay owner to determine what is allowed or not.
  - the_gastropod 3y ago
    Which practically means unanimous agreement is needed among all relays in order to moderate anything. I also don't see what incentive / accountability relays face to remove content. So... I don't see that strategy being particularly effective. But hey! If more than a couple dozen people wind up actually using the thing, guess we'll find out!
    - rglullis 3y ago
      > Which practically means unanimous agreement is needed among all relays in order to moderate anything. No, it means that the people will tend to congregate around the relays that work according to what they expect/want to see. You are thinking from the assumption that things are only acceptable if total compliance is enforced. Even on the highly-controlled and regulated Internet there is still abhorrent content out there, why would you expect that from the alternative? The interesting question is: do you think that the majority of people don't see this side of the internet because of how effective the centralized control and policing is, or just because the majority of people are not interested in seeing this content in the first place?
      - the_gastropod 3y ago
        > The interesting question is: do you think that the majority of people don't see this side of the internet because of how effective the centralized control and policing is, or just because the majority of people are not interested in seeing this content in the first place? Both! Most people don't want to see beheading videos and would be very upset if one came across their Youtube recommendations. Fortunately, YouTube's "CENSORSHIP" is pretty good at not showing such videos (even though they're completely legal content!) However, there is a significant long tail pool of people who are totally into watching such abhorrent content (e.g., 8channers), and could easily cause a deeply offensive content to find itself in the unmoderated "Democratically trending" video feed, as it's demonstrated in the Flare example walkthrough. Maybe that's your point? Platforms like these will necessarily be used pretty much exclusively by people who like or will tolerate seeing extremely offensive content because everyone else will be put off by the occasional display of horribleness. Libertarian "DON'T CENSOR ME, BRO" havens like 8chan, kiwifarms, daily stormer, etc. already exist. They're not particularly popular, when compared to the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. But they're certainly popular enough to draw millions of users. And every one of them would be delighted if they could post their inflammatory nonsense on Facebook or YouTube to reach a wider audience. And Facebook and YouTube have wider audiences because they moderate content. In a previous life I worked building popular social media apps that included user-generated content. And I saw first-hand how horrific content moderation is. The shit people post to social media sites is as vile as it is vast. I'm certain most "anti-censorship" people's opinions would be changed if they'd watched an actual content moderator do their job for 30 minutes.