4 ms·

Maybe it's time to rethink the visibility and permanence of HN discussions.

by esafak 2y ago

maeil 2y ago
That would be great, but I don't see it. HN has already been obviously violating GDPR and all other right-to-forget laws since forever by not allowong for account deletion, and everytime this has been brought up, dang has pretty much confirmed they don't care ("it would look bad if there were deleted comments [and that's more important than these laws]").
- bolognafairy 2y ago
  huge shock that y combinator doesn’t give a shit about legal risk considering the huge chunk of its successful startups were just law-breaking mobile apps.
  - jamiek88 2y ago
    Move fast and break democracy.
- sneak 2y ago
  It turns out that in real life you don’t have any right to be forgotten, and trying to legally manufacture one is not only nonsensical, it’s impossible. HN is a public forum, if you don’t want your statements here being public, don’t post.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    The right to be forgotten is a natural consequence of reality - nothing is by default permanent. It's digital systems that have perverted reality by persisting information beyond its normal short lifetime. If there's one law of the universe it's that nothing is permanent.
    - Braxton1980 2y ago
      What if I did something and it was written down in a book?
      - com 2y ago
        Books have limited print runs. Many books in libraries are only borrowed and perhaps read a few times. Niche titles more so. Books go out of print and are hard to search for arbitrary text.
        Braxton1980 2y ago
        But digital can also be lost. I think my point is that digital isn't a clear line in this situation
        com 2y ago
        The ease of making copies of digital data, the ease of indexing them is totally different from books, just as writing, clay tablets, scrolls and books were from a purely oral society.
      - kelseyfrog 2y ago
        We can "what if" ourselves into any position we want. The fact is that digital surveillance is here and does collect information about people in a scope that is qualitatively different than putting information in books.
  - anileated 2y ago
    There are many cases where laws that are made for humans before certain tech are not sufficient once certain tech arrives. You don’t need the right to be forgotten outside of specific tech because human brain forgets by default, paper rots, and all of the above is restricted geographically and does not scale.
- vunderba 2y ago
  I have a hypothetical. Let's say you attend a rally and give a hate speech and the entire event is live-streamed / recorded for posterity. Can you use "right to forget" laws to impel all sites hosting that video record to blur out your face in the original videos? What's the functional difference to writing a bunch of hate speech with your username and wanting it scrubbed from the "public record" (which I would argue a popular forum such as HN would be classified) using RTBF? Same thing if you wrote a "Letter to the Editor" to the New York Times expressing something distasteful. I don't see how anyone should be allowed to wield RTBF as a tool for suppressing information.
  - Braxton1980 2y ago
    Does it really matter if your name isn't connected to your real life identity?
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Will that matter in a world of AI? Can't the connection be made - for example based on writing style, political opinions, time of day you post, networks you use, etc etc.
      - Braxton1980 2y ago
        I'm sure it could be figurded out but not easily?
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    The whole idea behind right to forget is that people don't live their entire lives under condemnation for something they stopped doing. You can debate whether or not permanent ostracism is effective as a deterrent, but let's not ban the removal of gang tattoos.
  - econ 2y ago
    You could be indoctrinated or paid to give the speech. You might regret it or change your mind. The video doesn't have to be real, it could be generated, it could be someone with the same name who looks like you. Maybe you got drunk and climbed on stage naked 10 years ago. Should you be that guy forever?
- nindalf 2y ago
  When I asked dang about GDPR this is how he explained HN’s stance on not allowing broad comment and account deletion > Re GDPR: our understanding based on the analysis done by YC's legal team is that HN does not fall under the GDPR, so for the time being we're sticking with the approach of not deleting account histories wholesale but helping with privacy concerns in more precise ways. > Re "aren’t these comments owned by the person who wrote them"? That's a complicated legal question, no doubt, and also philosophically. From my perspective, two other factors are that (1) the threads are co-creations (see pg on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226) and (2) posting to an internet forum is publishing something, not dissimilar to sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper. > Obviously there are many reasonable takes on this. Ours is that we're trying to balance the community interests of a public forum (mainly the interest of commenters not to have their comments deprived of context, and the interest of the community in preserving its archive) with the need to protect individuals. That's a lot of work—we end up taking care of requests manually for people every day—but we're committed to both sides of it because it seems like the only way to do justice to both sides.
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
For a supposedly intellectual site that I clearly am at best in the middle tier of intellectual ability, this place is shockingly passive and accepting of the converging futures of authoritarian AI and the marked collapse of political discourse, if not rule of law. Maybe I'm just a dumb one that speaks up, everyone else has gone dark forest.
- SauciestGNU 2y ago
  Never stop speaking out, and if they come for you do not go peacefully. That's about all an individual in an authoritarian society can control.
  - throwaway91201 2y ago
    Dictatorships tend to do worse economically, the biggest example was the Soviet bloc which fell for economic reasons mostly. You can accelerate this effect by doing sabotage. The WW2 CIA sabotage manual contains a lot of ideas that have pretty good ratio of problems created to personal risk.
  - PieTime 2y ago
    That’s the truth, if we remain silent we will be targeted eventually. I am extremely disappointed by the lack of tech colleagues calling this out. I took an oath of ethics to do no harm and I see many people willing to use technology to find and silence critics of the government.
- arbitrary_name 2y ago
  Fuck Donald Trump and his gross, weird, pathetic mafia. This regime is a rogue autocracy strangling anything good about this once great country. I hope every single person responsible for the many crimes they have committed (and they have committed crimes) faces justice, if not in this life, then the next one. Oh, that feels good to get off my chest.
  - bluecheese452 2y ago
    There is no next life. This is all we got. Let’s make the most of it.

Maybe it's time to rethink the visibility and permanence of HN discussions.

by esafak 2y ago

Maybe it's time to rethink the visibility and permanence of HN discussions.

That would be great, but I don't see it. HN has already been obviously violating GDPR and all other right-to-forget laws since forever by not allowong for account deletion, and everytime this has been brought up, dang has pretty much confirmed they don't care ("it would look bad if there were deleted comments [and that's more important than these laws]").

bolognafairy 2y ago
huge shock that y combinator doesn’t give a shit about legal risk considering the huge chunk of its successful startups were just law-breaking mobile apps.
- jamiek88 2y ago
  Move fast and break democracy.
sneak 2y ago
It turns out that in real life you don’t have any right to be forgotten, and trying to legally manufacture one is not only nonsensical, it’s impossible. HN is a public forum, if you don’t want your statements here being public, don’t post.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  The right to be forgotten is a natural consequence of reality - nothing is by default permanent. It's digital systems that have perverted reality by persisting information beyond its normal short lifetime. If there's one law of the universe it's that nothing is permanent.
  - Braxton1980 2y ago
    What if I did something and it was written down in a book?
    - com 2y ago
      Books have limited print runs. Many books in libraries are only borrowed and perhaps read a few times. Niche titles more so. Books go out of print and are hard to search for arbitrary text.
      - Braxton1980 2y ago
        But digital can also be lost. I think my point is that digital isn't a clear line in this situation
        com 2y ago
        The ease of making copies of digital data, the ease of indexing them is totally different from books, just as writing, clay tablets, scrolls and books were from a purely oral society.
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      We can "what if" ourselves into any position we want. The fact is that digital surveillance is here and does collect information about people in a scope that is qualitatively different than putting information in books.
- anileated 2y ago
  There are many cases where laws that are made for humans before certain tech are not sufficient once certain tech arrives. You don’t need the right to be forgotten outside of specific tech because human brain forgets by default, paper rots, and all of the above is restricted geographically and does not scale.
vunderba 2y ago
I have a hypothetical. Let's say you attend a rally and give a hate speech and the entire event is live-streamed / recorded for posterity. Can you use "right to forget" laws to impel all sites hosting that video record to blur out your face in the original videos? What's the functional difference to writing a bunch of hate speech with your username and wanting it scrubbed from the "public record" (which I would argue a popular forum such as HN would be classified) using RTBF? Same thing if you wrote a "Letter to the Editor" to the New York Times expressing something distasteful. I don't see how anyone should be allowed to wield RTBF as a tool for suppressing information.
- Braxton1980 2y ago
  Does it really matter if your name isn't connected to your real life identity?
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Will that matter in a world of AI? Can't the connection be made - for example based on writing style, political opinions, time of day you post, networks you use, etc etc.
    - Braxton1980 2y ago
      I'm sure it could be figurded out but not easily?
- whatshisface 2y ago
  The whole idea behind right to forget is that people don't live their entire lives under condemnation for something they stopped doing. You can debate whether or not permanent ostracism is effective as a deterrent, but let's not ban the removal of gang tattoos.
- econ 2y ago
  You could be indoctrinated or paid to give the speech. You might regret it or change your mind. The video doesn't have to be real, it could be generated, it could be someone with the same name who looks like you. Maybe you got drunk and climbed on stage naked 10 years ago. Should you be that guy forever?
nindalf 2y ago
When I asked dang about GDPR this is how he explained HN’s stance on not allowing broad comment and account deletion > Re GDPR: our understanding based on the analysis done by YC's legal team is that HN does not fall under the GDPR, so for the time being we're sticking with the approach of not deleting account histories wholesale but helping with privacy concerns in more precise ways. > Re "aren’t these comments owned by the person who wrote them"? That's a complicated legal question, no doubt, and also philosophically. From my perspective, two other factors are that (1) the threads are co-creations (see pg on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226) and (2) posting to an internet forum is publishing something, not dissimilar to sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper. > Obviously there are many reasonable takes on this. Ours is that we're trying to balance the community interests of a public forum (mainly the interest of commenters not to have their comments deprived of context, and the interest of the community in preserving its archive) with the need to protect individuals. That's a lot of work—we end up taking care of requests manually for people every day—but we're committed to both sides of it because it seems like the only way to do justice to both sides.

AtlasBarfed 2y ago

For a supposedly intellectual site that I clearly am at best in the middle tier of intellectual ability, this place is shockingly passive and accepting of the converging futures of authoritarian AI and the marked collapse of political discourse, if not rule of law. Maybe I'm just a dumb one that speaks up, everyone else has gone dark forest.

SauciestGNU 2y ago
Never stop speaking out, and if they come for you do not go peacefully. That's about all an individual in an authoritarian society can control.
- throwaway91201 2y ago
  Dictatorships tend to do worse economically, the biggest example was the Soviet bloc which fell for economic reasons mostly. You can accelerate this effect by doing sabotage. The WW2 CIA sabotage manual contains a lot of ideas that have pretty good ratio of problems created to personal risk.
- PieTime 2y ago
  That’s the truth, if we remain silent we will be targeted eventually. I am extremely disappointed by the lack of tech colleagues calling this out. I took an oath of ethics to do no harm and I see many people willing to use technology to find and silence critics of the government.
arbitrary_name 2y ago
Fuck Donald Trump and his gross, weird, pathetic mafia. This regime is a rogue autocracy strangling anything good about this once great country. I hope every single person responsible for the many crimes they have committed (and they have committed crimes) faces justice, if not in this life, then the next one. Oh, that feels good to get off my chest.
- bluecheese452 2y ago
  There is no next life. This is all we got. Let’s make the most of it.