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At this point, whoever opposes big tech regulation is in favor of these kinds of abuses happening. Here in Brazil there is a big discussion around this regulati

At this point, whoever opposes big tech regulation is in favor of these kinds of abuses happening. Here in Brazil there is a big discussion around this regulation but for other reasons, like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles. The criticism against these regulations are all valid and need to be discussed, because we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda. But all this discussion should be in the direction of how these companies are going to be regulated, not how they aren't.

cjs_ac 1y ago
> we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda There's nothing stopping this hypothetical authoritarian president from creating this after they come to power.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  It requires less political capital to repurpose an existing system than to introduce a new system for a specific purpose. See for instance the number of times Chat Control has failed to become law.
- molszanski 1y ago
  It’s much easier to abuse existing oppression machine than to build it from scratch
- gchamonlive 1y ago
  Which is why the democratic system relies on checks and balances. If the democratic institutions are strong an authoritarian governor will at worse face incredible pushback from the judiciary, if Congress and executive powers are taken over. If one of the three powers remain independent, there is hope to recover the democratic stability without a violent revolution.
armchairhacker 1y ago
What kind of regulation do you have in mind? The government controls the algorithm? Then the government pushes propaganda. The algorithm is public? Then what kind of public algorithm? "Sort by recency", "sort by popularity", etc. will be gamed by propaganda-pushers. "Sort by closest friends" is better, but I suspect even it will be gamed by adversaries who initially push genuine interesting content and encourage you to befriend them, then shift to propaganda. Sorry to be cynical, but I doubt you can prevent people from being attracted to and influenced by propaganda; if necessary, well-funded organizations will hire paid actors to meet people in person. You must narrow the goal, e.g. can hinder foreign propaganda by down-weighting accounts from foreign IP addresses, detecting and down-weighting foreign accounts which use residential VPNs, and perhaps detecting and down-weighting domestic people who are especially influenced by foreign propaganda to the extent they're probably being funded (but you don't know, so then you get controversy and ambiguity...)
- gchamonlive 1y ago
  I'm no political scientist, but I believe in checks and balances. It translates roughly to costly burocracy, but if the next president or Congress will face significant pushback either from each other or the judiciary, and if the democratic institutions are strong, then we can trust that a reasonably well structured law will prevent by itself abuse. The law is abused in the US because they have the tradition of keeping the constitution to a bare minimum and govern by precedence and common sense, which as we can see isn't very productive. So yeah I guess I'm advocating for burocracy for now, at least until someone comes with a better idea. I'd take burocracy many times before corporation abuse. EDIT: now I see I haven't addressed the main question. I believe that society needs a mechanism to hold big tech platforms accountable for abuse. The speed which big techs can push certain kinds of information through their services is such that the due process, when it works, is only effective after damage is done and by then different accounts and different outlets are already pushing the same kind of disinformation ads. Therefore preemptive removal of this content is necessary. The problem now becomes how to make it so that the universe of content eligible for preemptive removal can't be abused by the current administration. How can we make it so that the Israeli misinformation machine can't overshadow other institutions, but at the same time guaranteeing that the next political party in power can't abuse this system to suppress valid propaganda from the opposition?
gruez 1y ago
Can you imagine this logic being applied to any other topic? >At this point, whoever opposes [CSAM scanning/encryption backdoors] is in favor of [child abuse/criminal activity] ...
- red_trumpet 1y ago
  You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. Do you also think your water company should be allowed to poison the water coming from your tap?
  - gruez 1y ago
    >You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. So "you're either with us or on the side of the bad guys" is a valid form of argument, but only when the bad guys are evil corporations? More to the point, much of the "regulations" proposed does end up infringing on human rights. For instance regulations forcing social media companies to remove "disinformation" or "content causing hatred/discomfort" necessarily limits others' freedom of speech.
- gchamonlive 1y ago
  This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment (either regulation or rampant corporate abuse). My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit"
  - gruez 1y ago
    >This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? I can't see how my comment is a "strawman" in any meaningful sense. >A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment That's exactly my point. Adopting a "you're either with us or against us" attitude is totally toxic, and shouldn't be accepted just because it's for a cause you happen to agree with. >My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit" If you wanted an intelligent discussion on what regulation should consist of, what's the point of starting off which such an absolutist remark? What does it add compared to something like "what's the right form of regulation to address this?"
gjm11 1y ago
> like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles There's something weird about this complaint, isn't there? I mean, it's horrifying if social media algorithms are pushing child abuse content to anyone, but so far as I can see it isn't worse if the people they're showing it to are paedophiles. Maybe it's even a bit less bad since they're less likely to be distressed by it. I think there's something deformed about a lot of the moral discourse around this stuff -- as if what matters is making sure that Those Awful People don't get anything they want rather than making sure bad things don't happen. (Far and away the most important bad thing associated with child abuse is the actual child abuse but somehow that's not where everyone's attention goes.)

cjs_ac 1y ago

> we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda There's nothing stopping this hypothetical authoritarian president from creating this after they come to power.

_Algernon_ 1y ago
It requires less political capital to repurpose an existing system than to introduce a new system for a specific purpose. See for instance the number of times Chat Control has failed to become law.
molszanski 1y ago
It’s much easier to abuse existing oppression machine than to build it from scratch
gchamonlive 1y ago
Which is why the democratic system relies on checks and balances. If the democratic institutions are strong an authoritarian governor will at worse face incredible pushback from the judiciary, if Congress and executive powers are taken over. If one of the three powers remain independent, there is hope to recover the democratic stability without a violent revolution.

armchairhacker 1y ago

What kind of regulation do you have in mind? The government controls the algorithm? Then the government pushes propaganda. The algorithm is public? Then what kind of public algorithm? "Sort by recency", "sort by popularity", etc. will be gamed by propaganda-pushers. "Sort by closest friends" is better, but I suspect even it will be gamed by adversaries who initially push genuine interesting content and encourage you to befriend them, then shift to propaganda. Sorry to be cynical, but I doubt you can prevent people from being attracted to and influenced by propaganda; if necessary, well-funded organizations will hire paid actors to meet people in person. You must narrow the goal, e.g. can hinder foreign propaganda by down-weighting accounts from foreign IP addresses, detecting and down-weighting foreign accounts which use residential VPNs, and perhaps detecting and down-weighting domestic people who are especially influenced by foreign propaganda to the extent they're probably being funded (but you don't know, so then you get controversy and ambiguity...)

gchamonlive 1y ago
I'm no political scientist, but I believe in checks and balances. It translates roughly to costly burocracy, but if the next president or Congress will face significant pushback either from each other or the judiciary, and if the democratic institutions are strong, then we can trust that a reasonably well structured law will prevent by itself abuse. The law is abused in the US because they have the tradition of keeping the constitution to a bare minimum and govern by precedence and common sense, which as we can see isn't very productive. So yeah I guess I'm advocating for burocracy for now, at least until someone comes with a better idea. I'd take burocracy many times before corporation abuse. EDIT: now I see I haven't addressed the main question. I believe that society needs a mechanism to hold big tech platforms accountable for abuse. The speed which big techs can push certain kinds of information through their services is such that the due process, when it works, is only effective after damage is done and by then different accounts and different outlets are already pushing the same kind of disinformation ads. Therefore preemptive removal of this content is necessary. The problem now becomes how to make it so that the universe of content eligible for preemptive removal can't be abused by the current administration. How can we make it so that the Israeli misinformation machine can't overshadow other institutions, but at the same time guaranteeing that the next political party in power can't abuse this system to suppress valid propaganda from the opposition?

gruez 1y ago

Can you imagine this logic being applied to any other topic? >At this point, whoever opposes [CSAM scanning/encryption backdoors] is in favor of [child abuse/criminal activity] ...

red_trumpet 1y ago
You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. Do you also think your water company should be allowed to poison the water coming from your tap?
- gruez 1y ago
  >You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. So "you're either with us or on the side of the bad guys" is a valid form of argument, but only when the bad guys are evil corporations? More to the point, much of the "regulations" proposed does end up infringing on human rights. For instance regulations forcing social media companies to remove "disinformation" or "content causing hatred/discomfort" necessarily limits others' freedom of speech.
gchamonlive 1y ago
This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment (either regulation or rampant corporate abuse). My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit"
- gruez 1y ago
  >This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? I can't see how my comment is a "strawman" in any meaningful sense. >A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment That's exactly my point. Adopting a "you're either with us or against us" attitude is totally toxic, and shouldn't be accepted just because it's for a cause you happen to agree with. >My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit" If you wanted an intelligent discussion on what regulation should consist of, what's the point of starting off which such an absolutist remark? What does it add compared to something like "what's the right form of regulation to address this?"

gjm11 1y ago

> like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles There's something weird about this complaint, isn't there? I mean, it's horrifying if social media algorithms are pushing child abuse content to anyone, but so far as I can see it isn't worse if the people they're showing it to are paedophiles. Maybe it's even a bit less bad since they're less likely to be distressed by it. I think there's something deformed about a lot of the moral discourse around this stuff -- as if what matters is making sure that Those Awful People don't get anything they want rather than making sure bad things don't happen. (Far and away the most important bad thing associated with child abuse is the actual child abuse but somehow that's not where everyone's attention goes.)