4 ms·

- Who decides what constitutes "harmful"? Some things will be able to be agreed upon by man, but some won't. - So every platform needs serious moderation teams

by jjice 3y ago

- Who decides what constitutes "harmful"? Some things will be able to be agreed upon by man, but some won't. - So every platform needs serious moderation teams? I absolutely believe that major platforms should, but what if I have a blog and someone doxxes someone in the comments? Am I responsible now? So we're going to crush independent sites because they can't afford moderation from serious spam? I don't know, this is a tricky subject but I can't see this working well.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> Who decides what constitutes "harmful"? Government. The same people who set speed limits, tell pilots they cannot drink while flying and decide which drugs are too dangerous to sell in vending machines. Don't like it? Vote in someone different. In Canada, that will mean a committee which will take public and industry input, talk to victims and consult with law enforcement. They will set some rules, along with a complaints and appeals process probably headed by an ombudsman of sorts. If Canadians don't like it, they will either tell their government to change things or elect a new one that will. It is almost like someone had designed a system so that a few people could represent the will of the population without everyone having to break out the pitchforks.
- johngladtj 3y ago
  So you agree with the widespread censorship in China, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, etc...?
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    Despite what Fox News says, Canada is not the Soviet Union. it is a functional liberal democracy full of checks and balances with a government subject to regular elections.
    - whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - morkalork 3y ago
        >unsafe and ineffective for profit therapy You're talking about the covid vaccine?
        sandworm101 3y ago
        Yup. The anti-vaccination movement in Canada was in many ways worse than in the US. The fact that health care is a national service in Canada caused disparate groups with their own national issues (gun control, taxation) to coalesce around the anti-vaccine movement. Canada then faced nationally-organized anti-vax protests that, in the US, were largely targeted at local or state entities.
        whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        Interesting take but not accurate. Many people, like Kamala Harris, didn’t trust the therapy - at least before they were calling the shots. You may find it useful to group up all the boogymen from your “side” together but it doesn’t make it reality. I, for instance, voted for Obama twice and Hillary and yet still refused to take the shot. Are you still getting boosters or do you just like to make everything political?
        morkalork 3y ago
        So. The people waving Trump flags at the convoy. Not political?
        whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - squigz 3y ago
        Source, please
    - canadiantim 3y ago
      Actually Canada doesn't have that many checks and balances. Yes we have regular elections (not fixed dates tho). Currently we have a minority government acting like a majority government and in the Canadian system a majority government is as close to a dictatorship as a democracy allows for, in that the government is relied on to investigate itself, which of course yields nothing. There are no checks and balances except an election a few times a decade.
      - neom 3y ago
        ...What about the Senate?? It regularly rejects bills and sends them back.
        canadiantim 3y ago
        My impression is the Senate doesn't actually regularly reject bills. They have, but its few and far between. The Senate also isn't really independent as they're appointed by party in power and vote in groups whipped by their leaders. Even recent development under Trudeau who "released" all liberal senators from being Liberal Senators such that now they sit as "independent" senators, but they all still vote in a one big block that votes exactly the same way as the liberal senator group, they just changed names. There are, however, a couple more splinter groups with specialized interests in the senate because of the shuffle, which is good to see, but by and large the Senate is very ineffective at being a check and balance. Mostly it's a rubber stamp process unless it's particularly egregious then it's a wrist slap asking for minor changes. Hence decades of debate on reforming or even abolishing the senate, which has been a mainstream debate for a long time and still ongoing.
        neom 3y ago
        https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/legislation/senateBillsNotPassed https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/legislation... Here's the data. Seems like they're doing a fine job to me.
        3y ago
    - VancouverMan 3y ago
      > functional liberal democracy full of checks and balances with a government subject to regular elections It's more nuanced than that. The current system can easily result in surprisingly disproportionate representation in the House of Commons. Look at the results of the most recent federal election, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election A party that received 32.62% of the popular vote got 160 seats in the House of Commons, while another party that received 33.74% of the vote got only 119 seats. A party that received only 7.64% of the votes got 32 seats, while another party that received 17.82% of the vote got only 25 seats. A party that received 2.33% of the votes got 2 seats, while another party that received 4.94% of the vote got no seats. With a votes-to-seats situation like that, there are a lot of Canadians who don't have proper representation in the House of Commons, or in some cases, effectively none at all. It's no surprise that the voter turnout wasn't even 63%; many Canadians are completely disillusioned with how the current system works, and don't feel that any of the parties can offer them meaningful representation. Canada's political system does exhibit some democratic traits, but there are still some pretty serious and fundamental flaws with the current approach that can't be ignored, either.
    - splitstud 3y ago
      [dead]
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    Well to be fair; China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany all had governments that were not as restrictive(or restrictive in different ways) before those factions came into power. Perhaps the current government of Canada feels that it is impossible for a more repressive party to come into power. I think that I heard the same thing about Trump before he was elected(as in no way could the USA elect someone that crazy).... I hope that when Canada does get an extremist, they are not the type to kill people in the streets.
    - morkalork 3y ago
      Canada has already had some insanely regressive governments in the past and there was little in the way to stop the at the time. Religious, Christian, authoritarians were usually behind the oppression too. One not often talk about example is unmarried pregnant women were forced to give up their babies for "morality" reasons. "Some 600,000 Canadian babies were labelled “illegitimate” between 1945 and 1971, and it is estimated that between 300,000 and 450,000 babies were given up for forced adoption during this period."* Heck, if you were the wrong kind of Christian, you could be persecuted. Jehovah's Witnesses were banned during WW2 and afterwards, in Québec, distributing their literature was an offence because it attacked the Catholic Church. * https://globalnews.ca/news/4342569/forced-adoption-unmarried-women-canada-report/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4342569/forced-adoption-unmarried...
- vimota 3y ago
  The difference are that all of those are pre-determined, so you know what violates the rule. Holding platforms accountable for "harmful" content is much more subjective and case-by-case than a speed limit, drinking and driving and ingredient rules.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    As opposed to all the other content rules out there? The limits on harmful pornography? Hate speech? Violence? Animal cruelty? Western governments already regulate/censor lots of content subject to interpretation. Balling those together under the banner of "harmful" for the purposes of regulating online platforms doesn't seem much of a stretch.
    - Aerroon 3y ago
      The implementation of those other regulations is a reason to be against this. Platforms are usually very heavy-handed with moderation of those. Look at how people are on their tiptoes on YouTube and TikTok. Content creators straight up refuse to use common words because it might trigger an algorithm. And that isn't even due to government regulation.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
      Hate speech, violence, and animal cruelty related internet content isn’t highly restricted though. CP is basically the only exception I think applies here. For the most part, viewing and putting heinous things online is perfectly legal.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  What you are suggesting is only plausible under a system where every official, institution, and policy can be voted on, and with said entities having no significant sway over each other. That's not how Canada or America works, and perhaps no government in existence. > It is almost like someone had designed a system so that a few people could represent the will of the population without everyone having to break out the pitchforks. That hardly works in practice. Why would it? Government officials are not afraid of minuscule uprisings. The ability to actually rebel is not present in the average western human being today.
  - pksebben 3y ago
    We absolutely have the tech to implement direct democracy in an efficient and effective manner. The fact that we haven't is pure evidence that Democracy (tm) doesn't actually do what it says on the label.
    - threesevenths 3y ago
      Democracy will ensure that democracy remains as the governing method. Also, try building a bridge between two cities across from each other with direct democracy.
      - pksebben 3y ago
        So I kind of know what you're getting at - and it's true that "everyone votes on everything" isn't feasible if that's all that you do. Here's one way it could work: - everyone gets one vote on all the things - all the things are complicated, so in order to streamline things, you can grant voting power to someone else. Let's call this a representative in this context. (I know this sounds a lot like what we have right now, but bear with me) - anyone is able to choose their representative at any time. Representation is immediately revocable and unconstrained by parties, primaries, timing, or other concerns. You need only be a citizen and consent to being a rep to be a rep. - representatives are paid based on the number of people they represent, let's say a dollar a head. This could scale by some factor in relation to how local a rep we're talking about. - you can keep up with the voting of your chosen rep on the Democracy App (tm). - If a vote is on something you particularly care about / have deep knowledge of, you can take the vote back and use it directly just for that vote, keeping your rep for all the other boring stuff - When your rep casts a vote, there is a grace period (let's say a week for chuckles) wherein you can choose to revoke that vote and recast it, and additionally choose a new rep if the vote cast is particularly egregious to you. This is a trivial system to set up from a technical standpoint, and it accomplishes the most important thing our current system does not - it forces representatives to care about the concerns of the people they nominally represent. It gets past superdelegates, party politics, special interest groups, and campaign finance breezily and ensures a government that's actually by and for the people.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  In Canada a political appointee of the left will take the position. It will be used to whitewash opinions in favour of government positions and try to extract money from US companies. Canadians won't like it but the media will push it so far as no one will be allowed to be elected without supporting it. More laws further limiting criticizing will be passed where the punishment is longer than murder. The pitchforks are coming.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
  In America we tend to say open access to information is preferable to any meaningful government interference to avoid censorship. Your argument that “government does things” isn’t particularly interesting, since you aren’t making an argument they should do this particular thing.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  There are differences in rules for speed and speech limits, even if it is just a few characters. To equate this here seem disingenuous and stupid. There is also no need to explain government organization as if that would justify any government action or just bad legislation.
canadiantim 3y ago
The current government in Canada is the lowest in the polls they've been since they were almost relegated to 3rd-party status in the 2015 election. This move is nothing more than a cynical attempt to prevent criticism (they're notoriously image-conscious and thin-skinned) and control the narrative.
busymom0 3y ago
It's also interesting how they have moved on from "hateful" to now "harmful". That's as broad and vague as they come.

by jjice 3y ago

sandworm101 3y ago

>> Who decides what constitutes "harmful"? Government. The same people who set speed limits, tell pilots they cannot drink while flying and decide which drugs are too dangerous to sell in vending machines. Don't like it? Vote in someone different. In Canada, that will mean a committee which will take public and industry input, talk to victims and consult with law enforcement. They will set some rules, along with a complaints and appeals process probably headed by an ombudsman of sorts. If Canadians don't like it, they will either tell their government to change things or elect a new one that will. It is almost like someone had designed a system so that a few people could represent the will of the population without everyone having to break out the pitchforks.

johngladtj 3y ago
So you agree with the widespread censorship in China, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, etc...?
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Despite what Fox News says, Canada is not the Soviet Union. it is a functional liberal democracy full of checks and balances with a government subject to regular elections.
  - whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - morkalork 3y ago
      >unsafe and ineffective for profit therapy You're talking about the covid vaccine?
      - sandworm101 3y ago
        Yup. The anti-vaccination movement in Canada was in many ways worse than in the US. The fact that health care is a national service in Canada caused disparate groups with their own national issues (gun control, taxation) to coalesce around the anti-vaccine movement. Canada then faced nationally-organized anti-vax protests that, in the US, were largely targeted at local or state entities.
        whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        Interesting take but not accurate. Many people, like Kamala Harris, didn’t trust the therapy - at least before they were calling the shots. You may find it useful to group up all the boogymen from your “side” together but it doesn’t make it reality. I, for instance, voted for Obama twice and Hillary and yet still refused to take the shot. Are you still getting boosters or do you just like to make everything political?
        morkalork 3y ago
        So. The people waving Trump flags at the convoy. Not political?
        whatwhaaaaat 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - squigz 3y ago
      Source, please
  - canadiantim 3y ago
    Actually Canada doesn't have that many checks and balances. Yes we have regular elections (not fixed dates tho). Currently we have a minority government acting like a majority government and in the Canadian system a majority government is as close to a dictatorship as a democracy allows for, in that the government is relied on to investigate itself, which of course yields nothing. There are no checks and balances except an election a few times a decade.
    - neom 3y ago
      ...What about the Senate?? It regularly rejects bills and sends them back.
      - canadiantim 3y ago
        My impression is the Senate doesn't actually regularly reject bills. They have, but its few and far between. The Senate also isn't really independent as they're appointed by party in power and vote in groups whipped by their leaders. Even recent development under Trudeau who "released" all liberal senators from being Liberal Senators such that now they sit as "independent" senators, but they all still vote in a one big block that votes exactly the same way as the liberal senator group, they just changed names. There are, however, a couple more splinter groups with specialized interests in the senate because of the shuffle, which is good to see, but by and large the Senate is very ineffective at being a check and balance. Mostly it's a rubber stamp process unless it's particularly egregious then it's a wrist slap asking for minor changes. Hence decades of debate on reforming or even abolishing the senate, which has been a mainstream debate for a long time and still ongoing.
        neom 3y ago
        https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/legislation/senateBillsNotPassed https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/legislation... Here's the data. Seems like they're doing a fine job to me.
        3y ago
  - VancouverMan 3y ago
    > functional liberal democracy full of checks and balances with a government subject to regular elections It's more nuanced than that. The current system can easily result in surprisingly disproportionate representation in the House of Commons. Look at the results of the most recent federal election, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election A party that received 32.62% of the popular vote got 160 seats in the House of Commons, while another party that received 33.74% of the vote got only 119 seats. A party that received only 7.64% of the votes got 32 seats, while another party that received 17.82% of the vote got only 25 seats. A party that received 2.33% of the votes got 2 seats, while another party that received 4.94% of the vote got no seats. With a votes-to-seats situation like that, there are a lot of Canadians who don't have proper representation in the House of Commons, or in some cases, effectively none at all. It's no surprise that the voter turnout wasn't even 63%; many Canadians are completely disillusioned with how the current system works, and don't feel that any of the parties can offer them meaningful representation. Canada's political system does exhibit some democratic traits, but there are still some pretty serious and fundamental flaws with the current approach that can't be ignored, either.
  - splitstud 3y ago
    [dead]
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  Well to be fair; China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany all had governments that were not as restrictive(or restrictive in different ways) before those factions came into power. Perhaps the current government of Canada feels that it is impossible for a more repressive party to come into power. I think that I heard the same thing about Trump before he was elected(as in no way could the USA elect someone that crazy).... I hope that when Canada does get an extremist, they are not the type to kill people in the streets.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    Canada has already had some insanely regressive governments in the past and there was little in the way to stop the at the time. Religious, Christian, authoritarians were usually behind the oppression too. One not often talk about example is unmarried pregnant women were forced to give up their babies for "morality" reasons. "Some 600,000 Canadian babies were labelled “illegitimate” between 1945 and 1971, and it is estimated that between 300,000 and 450,000 babies were given up for forced adoption during this period."* Heck, if you were the wrong kind of Christian, you could be persecuted. Jehovah's Witnesses were banned during WW2 and afterwards, in Québec, distributing their literature was an offence because it attacked the Catholic Church. * https://globalnews.ca/news/4342569/forced-adoption-unmarried-women-canada-report/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4342569/forced-adoption-unmarried...
vimota 3y ago
The difference are that all of those are pre-determined, so you know what violates the rule. Holding platforms accountable for "harmful" content is much more subjective and case-by-case than a speed limit, drinking and driving and ingredient rules.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  As opposed to all the other content rules out there? The limits on harmful pornography? Hate speech? Violence? Animal cruelty? Western governments already regulate/censor lots of content subject to interpretation. Balling those together under the banner of "harmful" for the purposes of regulating online platforms doesn't seem much of a stretch.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    The implementation of those other regulations is a reason to be against this. Platforms are usually very heavy-handed with moderation of those. Look at how people are on their tiptoes on YouTube and TikTok. Content creators straight up refuse to use common words because it might trigger an algorithm. And that isn't even due to government regulation.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
    Hate speech, violence, and animal cruelty related internet content isn’t highly restricted though. CP is basically the only exception I think applies here. For the most part, viewing and putting heinous things online is perfectly legal.
ravenstine 3y ago
What you are suggesting is only plausible under a system where every official, institution, and policy can be voted on, and with said entities having no significant sway over each other. That's not how Canada or America works, and perhaps no government in existence. > It is almost like someone had designed a system so that a few people could represent the will of the population without everyone having to break out the pitchforks. That hardly works in practice. Why would it? Government officials are not afraid of minuscule uprisings. The ability to actually rebel is not present in the average western human being today.
- pksebben 3y ago
  We absolutely have the tech to implement direct democracy in an efficient and effective manner. The fact that we haven't is pure evidence that Democracy (tm) doesn't actually do what it says on the label.
  - threesevenths 3y ago
    Democracy will ensure that democracy remains as the governing method. Also, try building a bridge between two cities across from each other with direct democracy.
    - pksebben 3y ago
      So I kind of know what you're getting at - and it's true that "everyone votes on everything" isn't feasible if that's all that you do. Here's one way it could work: - everyone gets one vote on all the things - all the things are complicated, so in order to streamline things, you can grant voting power to someone else. Let's call this a representative in this context. (I know this sounds a lot like what we have right now, but bear with me) - anyone is able to choose their representative at any time. Representation is immediately revocable and unconstrained by parties, primaries, timing, or other concerns. You need only be a citizen and consent to being a rep to be a rep. - representatives are paid based on the number of people they represent, let's say a dollar a head. This could scale by some factor in relation to how local a rep we're talking about. - you can keep up with the voting of your chosen rep on the Democracy App (tm). - If a vote is on something you particularly care about / have deep knowledge of, you can take the vote back and use it directly just for that vote, keeping your rep for all the other boring stuff - When your rep casts a vote, there is a grace period (let's say a week for chuckles) wherein you can choose to revoke that vote and recast it, and additionally choose a new rep if the vote cast is particularly egregious to you. This is a trivial system to set up from a technical standpoint, and it accomplishes the most important thing our current system does not - it forces representatives to care about the concerns of the people they nominally represent. It gets past superdelegates, party politics, special interest groups, and campaign finance breezily and ensures a government that's actually by and for the people.
ipaddr 3y ago
In Canada a political appointee of the left will take the position. It will be used to whitewash opinions in favour of government positions and try to extract money from US companies. Canadians won't like it but the media will push it so far as no one will be allowed to be elected without supporting it. More laws further limiting criticizing will be passed where the punishment is longer than murder. The pitchforks are coming.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
In America we tend to say open access to information is preferable to any meaningful government interference to avoid censorship. Your argument that “government does things” isn’t particularly interesting, since you aren’t making an argument they should do this particular thing.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
There are differences in rules for speed and speech limits, even if it is just a few characters. To equate this here seem disingenuous and stupid. There is also no need to explain government organization as if that would justify any government action or just bad legislation.

canadiantim 3y ago

The current government in Canada is the lowest in the polls they've been since they were almost relegated to 3rd-party status in the 2015 election. This move is nothing more than a cynical attempt to prevent criticism (they're notoriously image-conscious and thin-skinned) and control the narrative.

busymom0 3y ago

It's also interesting how they have moved on from "hateful" to now "harmful". That's as broad and vague as they come.