8 ms·

> I co-founded a pioneering but ultimately unsuccessful consumer-facing video company around 2006 called Revver that had to deal with moderation issues quite ea

by creato 3y ago

> I co-founded a pioneering but ultimately unsuccessful consumer-facing video company around 2006 called Revver that had to deal with moderation issues quite early on. The idea that we would use this power in a politically biased way never occurred to us, it was obvious that it would be unacceptable, it was unconscionable. In 2006, the internet was probably dominated by western audiences. Now, the user base of any large social media site includes much more of the world, including groups like Hamas, ISIS, etc. and they would absolutely claim their content is political.

sanity 3y ago
> In 2006, the internet was probably dominated by western audiences. Now, the user base of any large social media site includes much more of the world, including groups like Hamas, ISIS, etc. and they would absolutely claim their content is political. After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious concern - but most people seemed to understand that freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't like. For example, just a year after 9/11 the New York Times published a letter by Osama bin Laden explaining his views and motivations. That's almost impossible to imagine today (when apparently the NYT will fire a writer for admitting they like Chick-fil-A).
- vkou 3y ago
  > After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious concern - but most people seemed to understand that freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't like. Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student lounge. You've forgotten how everyone else lost their mind in 2001, and rallied behind a folksy strongman, and his cabal of stooges, useful idiots, and bad Boyars. Most people at the time seemed to believe that finding and exterminating every terrorist (Alleged or otherwise) the government could get its hands on would be the only way we could remain free. They hate us for our freedom, and all that. Things like the PATRIOT act have support outside the nerd-sphere, and the NSA revelations were a nothingburger to most people, and torturing people in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, well, they are all guilty anyways. The only reason those views and motivations get any airtime is so they can be attacked (without opportunity for debate or rebuttal). Had his values and goals had been less comically antithetical to ours, or if he wasn't condemned by his own actions as an irredeemable monster (which further damns anything he has to say), you wouldn't have seen a whiff of them. We only hit those we can beat.
  - sanity 3y ago
    > Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student lounge. My example of the NYT publishing Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with comp sci student lounges, can you imagine they NYT publishing something like that today? The equivalent might be an op-ed by Vladimir Putin, it wouldn't happen. The views of the legacy media have shifted dramatically on free speech over the past two decades, particularly over the past 8 years.
  - wmidwestranger 3y ago
    There was also that Bush/Cheney thing going on and, very likely, the intelligence-media pipeline was just being brought into operation.
- philipkglass 3y ago
  By the time the United States Senate held its "Jihad 2.0" hearing in 2015 [1], social media companies were already working to prevent ISIS and other terrorist groups from spreading their messages or media. If there was any pressure from government and the general public, it was to the effect that social media companies weren't censorious enough regarding this sort of content. I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting it. But I don't think that YouTube should be legally required to keep hosting an ISIS video that is technically legal under the First Amendment, and I also understand that my preference is unpopular. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of Americans agreed with me when I say that an ISIS member should be able to publish repugnant, bigoted, propagandistic, even violent videos so long as those videos are legal under First Amendment standards. I personally want minimal filtering on this sort of content because: 1) I'm in no danger of actually being recruited to a terrorist cause. 2) Primary sources, like combat videos from the Syrian civil war (including propaganda videos that compile such clips) can provide more information about ongoing conflicts, combatants, and world events than general purpose news outlets can provide. I think that most people are against dissemination of this sort of content because point 2 is irrelevant to them (they're not news junkies closely following armed conflicts) and, stochastically speaking, a few people who see terrorist propaganda videos will be persuaded to take up terror. Or maybe it's even less calculating: the reasoning could be as simple as "ISIS has a disgusting ideology, and disgusting ideologies shouldn't get free speech considerations." The extreme breadth of speech protected under the First Amendment is more than what the median American wants protected, and spans more than what social media companies want to provide hosting for. High minded commitments to free speech like news outlets publishing a letter by Osama bin Laden in 2002 [3] are more notable for their rarity than for exemplifying a general standard of the time. [1] https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/jihad-20-social-media-in-the-next-evolution-of-terrorist-recruitment/ https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/jihad-20-social-media-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_American_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_American_People
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    > I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting it. An online video is almost by definition incapable of being incitement to imminent lawless action. The threshold for this magic phrase is roughly along the lines of leading a mob and saying "there is <member of outgroup>, lynch them." Pretty much anything short of that is constitutionally-protected free speech under the First Amendment, and it's virtually impossible for an internet video to be sufficiently imminent for the purposes of incitement to imminent lawless action.

by creato 3y ago

sanity 3y ago

> In 2006, the internet was probably dominated by western audiences. Now, the user base of any large social media site includes much more of the world, including groups like Hamas, ISIS, etc. and they would absolutely claim their content is political. After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious concern - but most people seemed to understand that freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't like. For example, just a year after 9/11 the New York Times published a letter by Osama bin Laden explaining his views and motivations. That's almost impossible to imagine today (when apparently the NYT will fire a writer for admitting they like Chick-fil-A).

vkou 3y ago
> After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious concern - but most people seemed to understand that freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't like. Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student lounge. You've forgotten how everyone else lost their mind in 2001, and rallied behind a folksy strongman, and his cabal of stooges, useful idiots, and bad Boyars. Most people at the time seemed to believe that finding and exterminating every terrorist (Alleged or otherwise) the government could get its hands on would be the only way we could remain free. They hate us for our freedom, and all that. Things like the PATRIOT act have support outside the nerd-sphere, and the NSA revelations were a nothingburger to most people, and torturing people in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, well, they are all guilty anyways. The only reason those views and motivations get any airtime is so they can be attacked (without opportunity for debate or rebuttal). Had his values and goals had been less comically antithetical to ours, or if he wasn't condemned by his own actions as an irredeemable monster (which further damns anything he has to say), you wouldn't have seen a whiff of them. We only hit those we can beat.
- sanity 3y ago
  > Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student lounge. My example of the NYT publishing Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with comp sci student lounges, can you imagine they NYT publishing something like that today? The equivalent might be an op-ed by Vladimir Putin, it wouldn't happen. The views of the legacy media have shifted dramatically on free speech over the past two decades, particularly over the past 8 years.
- wmidwestranger 3y ago
  There was also that Bush/Cheney thing going on and, very likely, the intelligence-media pipeline was just being brought into operation.
philipkglass 3y ago
By the time the United States Senate held its "Jihad 2.0" hearing in 2015 [1], social media companies were already working to prevent ISIS and other terrorist groups from spreading their messages or media. If there was any pressure from government and the general public, it was to the effect that social media companies weren't censorious enough regarding this sort of content. I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting it. But I don't think that YouTube should be legally required to keep hosting an ISIS video that is technically legal under the First Amendment, and I also understand that my preference is unpopular. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of Americans agreed with me when I say that an ISIS member should be able to publish repugnant, bigoted, propagandistic, even violent videos so long as those videos are legal under First Amendment standards. I personally want minimal filtering on this sort of content because: 1) I'm in no danger of actually being recruited to a terrorist cause. 2) Primary sources, like combat videos from the Syrian civil war (including propaganda videos that compile such clips) can provide more information about ongoing conflicts, combatants, and world events than general purpose news outlets can provide. I think that most people are against dissemination of this sort of content because point 2 is irrelevant to them (they're not news junkies closely following armed conflicts) and, stochastically speaking, a few people who see terrorist propaganda videos will be persuaded to take up terror. Or maybe it's even less calculating: the reasoning could be as simple as "ISIS has a disgusting ideology, and disgusting ideologies shouldn't get free speech considerations." The extreme breadth of speech protected under the First Amendment is more than what the median American wants protected, and spans more than what social media companies want to provide hosting for. High minded commitments to free speech like news outlets publishing a letter by Osama bin Laden in 2002 [3] are more notable for their rarity than for exemplifying a general standard of the time. [1] https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/jihad-20-social-media-in-the-next-evolution-of-terrorist-recruitment/ https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/jihad-20-social-media-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_American_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_American_People
- jcranmer 3y ago
  > I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting it. An online video is almost by definition incapable of being incitement to imminent lawless action. The threshold for this magic phrase is roughly along the lines of leading a mob and saying "there is <member of outgroup>, lynch them." Pretty much anything short of that is constitutionally-protected free speech under the First Amendment, and it's virtually impossible for an internet video to be sufficiently imminent for the purposes of incitement to imminent lawless action.