| HN Mirror

It actually doesn't matter. "Opposing opinions and differing ideologies" must be protected regardless of what they are. It's pointless to cherry-pick.

Exactly. Because once everything isn't protected, someone gets to choose. So what we need are systems where content can't be removed, and users can't be banned, by design.

And yeah, we also need usable and effective filtering, so everyone can choose what to see.

> Exactly. Because once everything isn't protected, someone gets to choose. So what we need are systems where content can't be removed, and users can't be banned, by design.

This is naive at best. I know of no social space on the internet that has light moderation, no moderation, or primarily user-driven moderation that isn't also a dumpster fire.

This is the internet. There are uncountable social spaces on it, and the fantastic thing is that the owners of each social space are free to enforce rules as they see fit. If you are unhappy with the moderation of a social space, or if you get booted, find another one. Or, you could even create your own.

Heck, because this is the internet, you are likely keeping up with many of the people you know from a social space through multiple other platforms, and if you want to peace out from one, you can coordinate a migration.

> I know of no social space on the internet that has light moderation, no moderation, or primarily user-driven moderation that isn't also a dumpster fire.

The cypherpunks list comes pretty close. I don't believe that anyone has ever been banned, and there's no censorship. But yes, there are no ~modern social media like that. Perhaps Notabug could become that, once peers exist.

Dumpster fires aren't problematic if you can filter well enough. And sometimes they're good for lulz :)

josinalvo 2167 days ago

When people build their own platforms, the censorship minded mobs go after their upstream providers, like aws and visa. So this "you can always build your own" is not 100% true.

Also, mobs do go after you for your online speech, so the possibility of a platform that keeps your speech up does not preclude the possibility (and fact) of censorship

True enough. However, I don't believe that anyone has taken down a Tor onion service, except by first identifying the server in meatspace. And that's typically depended on OPSEC failures.

It's true that CMU researchers deanonymized onion services and their users by exploiting the relay early bug, and then produced data to the FBI. However, site owners and users would have been safe if they had protected themselves better. By reaching Tor through nested VPN chains, and by using firewall rules or Whonix to prevent leaks around Tor.

So build accountability into interactions with the internet. For example, I believe for most purposes people should use government-issued access to the internet with an identity that ties to their physical self. Anonymity should cost extra and there should be an implicit lack of trust, credibility, etc. from anything anonymous until it can be thoroughly vetted. I like the urbit model for this where short memorable addresses convey value and social reputation whilst fully anonymous entities are allowed but implicitly untrusted.

AnthonyMouse 2167 days ago

I don't think this fixes anything. Alex Jones already isn't anonymous.

Real name requirements deter dissidents and vulnerable people, not populist bullies. They even make it worse, because you can be more easily targeted by populist bullies who have your legal name than if everyone is using pseudonyms.

If anything we should make it harder to associate internet users with real people to deter this type of in-person harassment from spilling over from the internet.

It's less the real name aspect and more the fact that identity shouldn't be disposable. Anonymity is not a universal fundamental human right at least as understood historically. Perhaps today many would be interested in making it one. I, however, am more interested in preserving things like freedom of expression, formally, than suggesting that we achieve it by way of universal access to anonymity. It's one of my less popular opinions, but I think it's an important topic to discuss especially light of the whole privacy debate, and certainly in light of dismantling internet mobs.

There's also the element of making the reputation war bi-directional. If somebody can trash my reputation without staking theirs, that's pretty harmful and toxic, except in exceptional cases. I think a structure where people steak their reputations when attacking others by virtue of reputation not being a commodity would help "keep things real". On the flip side, a vulnerable person shouldn't be protected just because they're vulnerable. If they're being oppressed then they may steak their reputation or find someone else to do it for them, but they don't get an easy out just because they're perceived as vulnerable.

> Real name requirements deter dissidents and vulnerable people, not populist bullies.

That's where I'm coming from, for sure.

You and like-minded peers could have that, for sure. I can see the value for professional networks. Otherwise it'd arguably be far too dangerous.

I'd love to discuss this in some other context somewhere sometime (: I believe the internet is facing a type of identity crisis, so to speak and there's got to be a middle ground between a giant mass of anons and a polite dinner table gathering. But I'm not sure what the right balance is or the exact mechanisms we're lacking.

> And yeah, we also need usable and effective filtering, so everyone can choose what to see.

I'd be careful about mentioning filtering.

I just remembered that there was a Reddit Masstagger that helped folks with that filtering, but people got really upset about how it infringed on free speech and might have even gotten Google or Mozilla to remove it from the extension store.

I think there might have also been some for Twitter, which I imagine would have elicited a similar reaction.

How can filtering infringe free speech? People can say whatever they want, but why should I have to hear them?

Also, any software tool that can be removed by someone else is broken by design. But yeah, maybe that's why there aren't any useful tools for using Twitter :(

> How can filtering infringe free speech? People can say whatever they want, but why should I have to hear them?

Simple. There's people agitating for free speech on idealistic terms, and then there's people agitating for free speech because they have an agenda and want a captive audience.

You can even see it in this comment thread. Take a look around and see if you can find any greyed-out comments that are arguing against the pro free-speech crowd. Down-voting is censorship via mob rule, so that should be twice as distasteful, but yet you see greyed out comments. The folks doing that are the latter, and not the former.

I advocate free speech idealistically. In case it wasn't obvious.

I don't want filtering that's imposed by sites or their users. I want filtering that's implemented locally. I'm OK with opt-in filter lists, such as those used by ad-block extensions, as long as they can easily be customized. But I'm not OK with server-based filter rules that prevent me from ever seeing stuff.

On HN, I have "show dead" enabled, and I occasionally vouch for dead comments.

Edit: typos

Hold on, "down-voting is censorship"? Since when? The content remains. No disciplinary action is taken against anyone who's comment starts to turn grey. It's simply a feedback mechanism members of this forum use to signal to each other the quality of the content being posted. The analog would be if people here started mass down-vote campaigns against a person because they posted something off-beat, or if we all started petitioning mods to remove content we found uncomfortable.

You generally gravitate towards down-voting unhelpful, out-of-place, or in some way inaccurate content not simply content you don't agree with, BTW. More often than not I see comments start to turn grey because they miss the point and/or aren't really useful contributions to the discussion. Good points, despite the position being argued, tend to remain opaque.

jeromegv 2167 days ago

What if that ideology encourages violence against a certain class of people? Must that be protected?

TheAdamAndChe 2167 days ago

The trouble is that what is considered "violence" varies from person to person, and from ideology to ideology.

SpicyLemonZest 2167 days ago

You don't have to protect the actual calls to violence. But if you don't protect the associated ideology, you're going to end up excluding basically all politics. I've never seen a large political movement that didn't contain a few bad actors promoting violence.

steveeq1 2167 days ago

In the same way that gangsta rap music is protected, yes.

Actually it does matter, if we want to be honest about why we're even having this conversation.

Deplatforming and banning doesn't happen because of some abstract whim, so defending it in abstract terms sans context seems like it's overlooking a large chunk of the conversation.

No. It doesn't. We're having this conversation because angry mobs are unjustly destroying peoples lives. If you think that's okay then we're at an impasse.

Abstract freedom of expression is a prerequisite for preventing oppression by majority rule. It's fundamental to our core as citizens in the United States.

To be clear, are you saying that if I don't agree with preserving the abstract freedom of expression on private social spaces, I am pro angry mob destroying peoples lives?

Not directly, of course. I am saying that the concession that we need to moderate "dirty" behavior is, in and of itself, the rhetoric that validates the mob behavior we're seeing. And there's a difference between dirty and illegal. We do not disagree that unlawful content can responsibly be remove by citizens from the internet. The extrajudicial removal of miscreant expression is what we're talking about.

> I am saying that the concession that we need to moderate "dirty" behavior is, in and of itself, the rhetoric that validates the mob behavior we're seeing.

I think that's a stretch.

The problem with Twitter isn't the moderation or the "leaning", it's the sheer size of the thing. Any sort of decent moderation is completely impossible at the scales of Twitter, and I voted with my feet a long long time ago and frankly don't feel like I'm missing anything.

On the other hand, there are plenty of smaller social spaces out there that are well moderated, do not treat all viewpoints equally, but at the same time somehow manage to prevent their users from anti-social mob justice.

ahelwer 2167 days ago

It isn't all right wing stuff. The recent banwave took out probably the largest leftist community on the internet after a long period of banning users who upvoted opinions there, such as:

* Slaveowners deserved to die

* John Brown is an American hero

* Police & large-corporate property constitue legitimate political targets during protests

etc.

Essentially reddit wants to restrict the scope of permissible discourse to the same region allowed on mainstream news websites: support of neoliberal capitalism with debate focused on how overtly racist the system should be.

And? What did people expect would happen? You cannot trust large corporations with those kinds of discussions.

The thing is, I don't think the solution is to force Reddit to host those kinds of subreddits - the solution it to find or create a different social space. Alternatives to those spaces exist, you just have to look for them.

mistermann 2167 days ago

Reddit itself was such a place not that long ago. Lust for power and money seems to frequently find a way to corrupt even those with the best of initial intentions.

ahelwer 2167 days ago

Yes, things seem to be coalescing around raddle.me.

Acrobatic_Road 2167 days ago

They threw them under the bus to make the banwave come off as non-partisan.

perl4ever 2167 days ago

"John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave, And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save; Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave, His soul is marching on.

He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so few, And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru; They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew, But his soul is marching on."