4 ms·

For some reason, conversations on HN and in tech circles are behind the curve when it comes to social media bans. Most countries are looking at social media ba

For some reason, conversations on HN and in tech circles are behind the curve when it comes to social media bans. Most countries are looking at social media bans, and there is a deep groundswell of public opinion against tech today. Yes, in the 90s, tech was the good guy, but today people are frightened and upset with tech companies. This would be less of a problem, if governments globally were not tending towards authoritarianism. Governments are more than happy to appear responsive to voter needs, while also finally getting some form of control over (primarily American) tech firms. As it stands though - safety is a bad word, enshittification is an actual word, and profit seems to be the final word. The Techlash is real, but it doesn’t seem to feature in calculations and discussions on HN. The problem with that is that it just creates a blind spot, and a miscalculation in the energies underlying such drives. The OSINT report from r/linux got more traction, even if it was riddled with issues, giving birth to the belief that this is all driven by Meta. A reading of the same data sits comfortably with Meta simply taking advantage of the macro trends to push onerous burdens onto its competitors. I am sorry for the meta comment, but the blind spot in logic is annoying to me since it results in a mis-estimation of the energies at play here. That in turn means the responses or ideas people have are not calibrated and scaled correctly. People are going to respond to incentives and instigate for their needs to be met. My guess is that if tech invested significantly in customer support and safety, being more responsive to user needs, perhaps the underlying anger can be alleviated. —— Anecdotes: There needs to also be actual signal sharing between safety teams in tech. Same for customer support - Far too many please for help go through slack and WhatsApp. I know of posts on reddit where people are asking for help reporting and taking down NCII found on Instagram/Threads. ideas.

b112 7mo ago
Meta may be manipulating things to try to ensure they don't pay for age verification, but I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence. The very fact that we allow armies of state-actor paid posters to work diligently to undermine the views of our own citizens, and even more important our impressionable children, is beyond bizarre. Advertising works, manipulation works, and in an age where you can make up any story you want, create any visual appearance you want, create any history you want, this sort of manipulation is at an entire new level. There is always more than one reason for any action, but I think a primary for this literal world wide push to add age verification, and eventually identity verification, is because states are finally waking up to the wide-scale manipulation happening on platforms today. States take years and years to make policy change. From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically. What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting. To end or significantly reduce sock-puppetry. Corps like Meta, X, etc would hate this on its own, for an enormous amount of accounts are fake accounts. Realistically, however, it would be a one time correction... Anyhow. Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta. None of this is nefarious, either. An example? Every decade or so every country in the world sends representatives to discuss ... effectively, "roads" and "road safety". One thing they do is, try to make the rules of the road as similar as possible everywhere. An example is, in BC, Canada, a 'flashing green light' used to mean 'pedestrian crossing is active'. I kid you not. Meanwhile in Ontario, it meant 'turn left is OK'. That's not how it works any more. BC now changed that flashing green light, and everywhere has almost completed the 15+ year long migration to an actual left arrow for 'turn left'. Road lines were yellow in Canada most of the time, even in the middle of lanes. The logic was, you can see yellow easier than white, when there is some snow on the ground. Now, all lines tend to be white in Canada. Why? Because they're white everywhere. The goal with road signs, is to have them as pictures, rather than words, and the same everywhere on the planet, so anyone of any language can understand them. This is the sort of generic collaboration that happens in the background constantly. And its sensible, everyone wants tourism, everyone wants drivers to be safer, understand the rules of the road when traveling, and so on. Everyone benefits. So from my perspective, to see all democracies passing laws, I simply see that probably there was a conference somewhere, and everyone discussed it, and thought "yeah, this is a problem".
- simoncion 7mo ago
  > Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta. Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely. The fact that those "P" members refused to meet their obligations to cast a vote in any later ballots (resulting in the failure of several key ballots, bringing ISO to a standstill) only strengthens the claim that their actions were genuine grassroots activity. No. Doubt. Megacorps never use their massive gobs of money and influence to co-opt processes that require all participants to mostly operate in good faith. Nope. > States take years and years to make policy change. The USian post-9/11 hysteria would like to have a word with you. Authoritarians rarely miss an opportunity to manufacture (or inflame) a crisis in order to present their pre-prepared rules changes that just happen to further expand their power and influence. > I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence. ... From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically. Not in the US, no. Not without a fair bit of legwork. Though, I don't know much about the situation on the ground in countries like Britain and Germany. Perhaps things are so now bad there that you need to attach your Posting Loicense/Papers to everything you post, IDK. > What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting. Yeah, here it is. "Keep those fuzzy foreigners out of our discussions!". For the sake of discussion, let's assume that banning and/or jailing "Those People" is a reasonable thing to want to do. [0] The problem with this is that once you deploy and normalize this sort of "social technology", it always, always creeps further. Today it's "dangerous foreigners" with their "subversive ideologies". Five, ten years from now, it's whoever is the equivalent of today's LGBT&etc underclass. [0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact.
  - intended 7mo ago
    > Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely. Yes - Meta is most definitely taking advantage of the situation, but it’s surfing the waves, not generating them. > [0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this defense (more speech) has been defeated. We (humanity) have developed attacks that avoid these defenses. Our defenses were primarily against government control of data. The current attacks leverage the mechanized production of speech, and achieve influence via an abundance of content. Between attention seeking algorithms, the death of classifieds and the revenue sources for independent journalism, the creation of party+media entities, and actual foreign influence operations - theres a surfeit of content traps to catch voters up. “Flood the zone”, so to speak. It’s very similar to the sub prime mortgage/ NINJA loan scenario: On the one hand you have professional teams / media market makers which specialize in figuring out content that works. On the other side you have the average joe who is entering the marketplace with their wits and experience. This iteration of the market place of ideas result in unfair fights between the average person, and whichever entity decides they have the money to spend.
simoncion 7mo ago
What's that smell? It smells like a high-tech 1980's NFL playing field in here. Wild. > Most countries are looking at social media bans, and there is a deep groundswell of public opinion against tech today. Not sure what this has to do with laying the groundwork for an Internet Posting License, but sure. I expect that if Big Tech wasn't shoving LLMs up every available nook and cranny, wasn't using a shocking amount of money, power, and land for said LLMs, and wasn't firing tons of people in order to spend more money on those LLMs, people would be far, far less angry. > I know of posts on reddit where people are asking for help reporting and taking down NCII... NCII? [0] Why would anyone want to take down or report that? Is this some new acronym for "kiddy porn"? Those seem to change every year or two. [0] <https://intensiveintervention.org/ https://intensiveintervention.org/>
- intended 7mo ago
  Man you are definitely blessed if that’s the first result for NCII. That is the acronym for non consensual intimate imagery, the superset that contains revenge porn. https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/policies/1437976901029950/?srsltid=AfmBOopXNlQBQMx5f12FeX_mi2CKz-B09DYMOhRpCsYNlMpx3lizLPnV https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/policies/1437976901029950/?s... Is that what comes up for you when you search for NCII? You must be doing something right if it is. More power to you, and may that be the case for everyone else someday.
  - simoncion 7mo ago
    > Is that what comes up for you when you search for NCII? Nope. That link appears nowhere in the first or second page of results on Kagi. There's one link on the first page that might be related? All the others are mostly the NCII (which appears first), along with a smattering of other businesses whose name is also that acronym. The first Facebook-related link (which appears on the second page) is this one [0]. I don't think I'm blessed to get these results, I think we work in different industries. ;) [0] <https://www.facebook.com/reel/1524708315840049/ https://www.facebook.com/reel/1524708315840049/>
    - intended 7mo ago

b112 7mo ago

Meta may be manipulating things to try to ensure they don't pay for age verification, but I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence. The very fact that we allow armies of state-actor paid posters to work diligently to undermine the views of our own citizens, and even more important our impressionable children, is beyond bizarre. Advertising works, manipulation works, and in an age where you can make up any story you want, create any visual appearance you want, create any history you want, this sort of manipulation is at an entire new level. There is always more than one reason for any action, but I think a primary for this literal world wide push to add age verification, and eventually identity verification, is because states are finally waking up to the wide-scale manipulation happening on platforms today. States take years and years to make policy change. From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically. What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting. To end or significantly reduce sock-puppetry. Corps like Meta, X, etc would hate this on its own, for an enormous amount of accounts are fake accounts. Realistically, however, it would be a one time correction... Anyhow. Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta. None of this is nefarious, either. An example? Every decade or so every country in the world sends representatives to discuss ... effectively, "roads" and "road safety". One thing they do is, try to make the rules of the road as similar as possible everywhere. An example is, in BC, Canada, a 'flashing green light' used to mean 'pedestrian crossing is active'. I kid you not. Meanwhile in Ontario, it meant 'turn left is OK'. That's not how it works any more. BC now changed that flashing green light, and everywhere has almost completed the 15+ year long migration to an actual left arrow for 'turn left'. Road lines were yellow in Canada most of the time, even in the middle of lanes. The logic was, you can see yellow easier than white, when there is some snow on the ground. Now, all lines tend to be white in Canada. Why? Because they're white everywhere. The goal with road signs, is to have them as pictures, rather than words, and the same everywhere on the planet, so anyone of any language can understand them. This is the sort of generic collaboration that happens in the background constantly. And its sensible, everyone wants tourism, everyone wants drivers to be safer, understand the rules of the road when traveling, and so on. Everyone benefits. So from my perspective, to see all democracies passing laws, I simply see that probably there was a conference somewhere, and everyone discussed it, and thought "yeah, this is a problem".

simoncion 7mo ago
> Point is, when you see every democracy passing these laws, it isn't Meta. Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely. The fact that those "P" members refused to meet their obligations to cast a vote in any later ballots (resulting in the failure of several key ballots, bringing ISO to a standstill) only strengthens the claim that their actions were genuine grassroots activity. No. Doubt. Megacorps never use their massive gobs of money and influence to co-opt processes that require all participants to mostly operate in good faith. Nope. > States take years and years to make policy change. The USian post-9/11 hysteria would like to have a word with you. Authoritarians rarely miss an opportunity to manufacture (or inflame) a crisis in order to present their pre-prepared rules changes that just happen to further expand their power and influence. > I think the state's true goal is more about foreign influence. ... From the perspective of the state, they already know who you are when posting domestically. Not in the US, no. Not without a fair bit of legwork. Though, I don't know much about the situation on the ground in countries like Britain and Germany. Perhaps things are so now bad there that you need to attach your Posting Loicense/Papers to everything you post, IDK. > What they're gaining is an enhanced ability to ban externals from posting. Yeah, here it is. "Keep those fuzzy foreigners out of our discussions!". For the sake of discussion, let's assume that banning and/or jailing "Those People" is a reasonable thing to want to do. [0] The problem with this is that once you deploy and normalize this sort of "social technology", it always, always creeps further. Today it's "dangerous foreigners" with their "subversive ideologies". Five, ten years from now, it's whoever is the equivalent of today's LGBT&etc underclass. [0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact.
- intended 7mo ago
  > Sure. And the outpouring of support for ratification of OOXML as an ISO standard wasn't motivated by Microsoft. Nor was the large influx of new "P" members who arrived just in time to vote to adopt OOXML. Absolutely. Yes - Meta is most definitely taking advantage of the situation, but it’s surfing the waves, not generating them. > [0] It's absolutely not. The remedy for bad speech is more speech. The remedy for falsehood is truth. The remedy for invalid attempts to sow discontent is to show how those attempts are not grounded in fact. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this defense (more speech) has been defeated. We (humanity) have developed attacks that avoid these defenses. Our defenses were primarily against government control of data. The current attacks leverage the mechanized production of speech, and achieve influence via an abundance of content. Between attention seeking algorithms, the death of classifieds and the revenue sources for independent journalism, the creation of party+media entities, and actual foreign influence operations - theres a surfeit of content traps to catch voters up. “Flood the zone”, so to speak. It’s very similar to the sub prime mortgage/ NINJA loan scenario: On the one hand you have professional teams / media market makers which specialize in figuring out content that works. On the other side you have the average joe who is entering the marketplace with their wits and experience. This iteration of the market place of ideas result in unfair fights between the average person, and whichever entity decides they have the money to spend.

simoncion 7mo ago

What's that smell? It smells like a high-tech 1980's NFL playing field in here. Wild. > Most countries are looking at social media bans, and there is a deep groundswell of public opinion against tech today. Not sure what this has to do with laying the groundwork for an Internet Posting License, but sure. I expect that if Big Tech wasn't shoving LLMs up every available nook and cranny, wasn't using a shocking amount of money, power, and land for said LLMs, and wasn't firing tons of people in order to spend more money on those LLMs, people would be far, far less angry. > I know of posts on reddit where people are asking for help reporting and taking down NCII... NCII? [0] Why would anyone want to take down or report that? Is this some new acronym for "kiddy porn"? Those seem to change every year or two. [0] <https://intensiveintervention.org/ https://intensiveintervention.org/>

intended 7mo ago
Man you are definitely blessed if that’s the first result for NCII. That is the acronym for non consensual intimate imagery, the superset that contains revenge porn. https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/policies/1437976901029950/?srsltid=AfmBOopXNlQBQMx5f12FeX_mi2CKz-B09DYMOhRpCsYNlMpx3lizLPnV https://www.meta.com/en-gb/help/policies/1437976901029950/?s... Is that what comes up for you when you search for NCII? You must be doing something right if it is. More power to you, and may that be the case for everyone else someday.
- simoncion 7mo ago
  > Is that what comes up for you when you search for NCII? Nope. That link appears nowhere in the first or second page of results on Kagi. There's one link on the first page that might be related? All the others are mostly the NCII (which appears first), along with a smattering of other businesses whose name is also that acronym. The first Facebook-related link (which appears on the second page) is this one [0]. I don't think I'm blessed to get these results, I think we work in different industries. ;) [0] <https://www.facebook.com/reel/1524708315840049/ https://www.facebook.com/reel/1524708315840049/>
  - intended 7mo ago