What website should we block if we want to avoid another Boston Marathon bombing or men running trucks over people in Christmas markets like in Berlin?
(I just realized that both happened mere blocks of my residence at the time. Maybe if I become homeless we will be able to prevent these horrific events)
So rare that a very similar one happened in the French Riviera just some months after?
Anyway, the point is that we can not solve social issues with technological solutions. You are just acting on the symptoms but still never going to get a cure. Block a "cancerous" open site, and crazy sick people are just continue to do what they do in a darker corner of the net.
Like a few times in a century, not hundreds times in a year, every year, sir.
Closing social networks is not a technological solution, it's political.
Public speech must not be controlled by private entities
Unless you are the US and don't understand it.
Crazy people with their forums for crazy people have no ability to target hundreds of millions of people through paid ads
Please, try to understand it, because it's really not that hard
There's a reason why every developed country in the World strictly controls firearms but not knifes
There's a reason why the only "developed" country where mass shootings happen all the time is the only developed country that refuses to strictly control firearms
It's the most evident proof of Einstein law of insanity
> Public speech must not be controlled by private entities
This is part where we disagree. Not that I am defending that private entities should "control" public speech, but rather that this control is circunstancial. Remove Facebook and Twitter (and every big media conglomerate as well, FOX, CNN, NBC) all you want, people will still look for groups that share their views and messages that confirm their biases.
This is not just a guess. I am seeing this first-hand with the people looking into leaving Twitter and joining Mastodon. Go to /r/mastodon and you will see me arguing with every one that comes with the idea that different instances mean different "communities" and "interests".
Also, consider the alternative. The article is saying that we shouldn't want a decentralized web. Who would you propose to "control" public speech? If not private companies and if not smaller groups, the only alternatives left is, guess what, Big State and tyrants
They always looked for places where to share their opinions with other people
Those places didn't weaponize their feelings and weaknesses against them to sell them ads
Want to make a global social network?
The State should be able to control them (every single state they operate in) and their decisions should be held accountable in court
The SN banned you?
They should have human support to solve the issues and a judge could overrule the decision, while now they are black holes
I trust the State, more than Facebook, if someone doesn't they shouldn't impose their decisions on other groups, including other countries
It's weird to read that people living in countries where the police can arrest you for not stepping out of the car or saying to a police officer to f*ck off defend the right to wear swastikas or private companies keeping public speech hostage in the name of freedom
Decentralised web can exists only among many small actors, when there are a few behemoth that control everything, of course segregation is gonna be the most obvious response: Russian internet, Chinese internet and let's hope European internet soon.
> There's a reason why every developed country in the World strictly controls firearms but not knifes.
As a slight tangent, Britain actually does strictly control knives - a short folding non-locking penknife is the only knife that can be carried in public without good reason, and “self defence” is considered never a good reason, and the penknife can still get you arrested if you happen to have it on you in an inappropriate place (bar, nightclub, sports event, etc).
(I just realized that both happened mere blocks of my residence at the time. Maybe if I become homeless we will be able to prevent these horrific events)