[bigdang]

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize.

Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative?

[danbruc]

[...] coupled with lack of moderation in the app [...]

Where does Signal need moderation? Can you have public groups where anyone can join?

EDIT: Just looked it up, there are now public groups. [1] Never noticed this despite using Signal as essentially the only messaging app for years.

EDIT: Actually not, there seems to be nothing on that web page and it is certainly nothing official.

[1] https://signal-groups.com/en/

[bagacrap]

Proud Boys would be a good example. Not sure why they have to single out the right though. I guess every periodical has to take a stance on politics. The original source just said:

""" Employees worry that, should Signal fail to build policies and enforcement mechanisms to identify and remove bad actors, the fallout could bring more negative attention to encryption technologies from regulators at a time when their existence is threatened around the world. “The world needs products like Signal — but they also need Signal to be thoughtful,” said Gregg Bernstein, a former user researcher who left the organization this month over his concerns. “It’s not only that Signal doesn’t have these policies in place. But they’ve been resistant to even considering what a policy might look like.” """

[hellojesus]

> It’s not only that Signal doesn’t have these policies in place. But they’ve been resistant to even considering what a policy might look like.

Could it be that Signal hadn't considered this type of policy because it's in exact opposition to e2e messaging? I swear these government propagandists don't even try to hide their intentions.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Is it not true in technology that either everyone has access to protected communications, or none do?

If the world needs products like Signal, then we just have to accept the inevitable fact that everyone will get products like Signal, or none will. This isn't enriched uranium, it can't be restricted to the few approved.

[hiatus]

> This isn't enriched uranium, it can't be restricted to the few approved.

You say this in jest but encryption was export-controlled under ITAR in my lifetime. With the persistent government attacks on encryption increasing in frequency around the world, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more attempts at containing it in ways not unlike the control of enriched uranium.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> You say this in jest but encryption was export-controlled under ITAR in my lifetime.

And then Zimmerman sort of screwed that up, didn't he? I remember, bet we're about the same age.

> With the persistent government attacks on encryption increasing in frequency around the world, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more attempts at containing it in ways not unlike the control of enriched uranium.

Everything possible must be done to thwart such efforts.

[ctrlp]

"former user researcher" sounds like someone who was a subversive presence at Signal trying to make sure "bad actors" could be disciplined in the service of whatever politics he favors. People shouldn't underestimate that such people are in all the media orgs now and will keep pushing until the surveillance state is pervasive. Wired is just pushing propaganda and cherry-picking quotes to support its pre-determined narrative.

[kornhole]

Far-right or hard-right are terms often used nowadays to refer to any dissident who questions government leadership, the security apparatus, or the war machine. I have learned to ignore these and other labels from the MSM as meaningless. I am not denying that actual fascists exist, but these labels are used to scare us into believing or supporting particular positions such as cracking down on any dissidents.

[southerntofu]

> Far-right (...) to refer to any dissident who questions government leadership, the security apparatus, or the war machine.

That's factually incorrect. There's anti-authoritarian tendencies both on the right and the left, although right-wing anti-authoritarianism (also called libertarianism) is usually very inconsistent and leads to a paradox of "freedom of oppression/exploitation". Far right never meant anti-State capitalists.

Far-right refers historically to conservative and reactionary political groups, in particular it referred to royalists when the left-right concept was invented after the French revolution.

Nowadays, the term refers specifically to fascists, the political movements who believe in empowering the State to protect and develop Capital. Or as Mussolini put it, « Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power ».

From a quick glance the Wikipedia looks very detailed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right

> cracking down on any dissidents

Well there is a huge crackdown on dissidents. However, except for the January 5th crew, it's very clearly not a crackdown against the right, but against the anti-authoritarian left (anarchists) and to some extent the authoritarian left (marxist-leninists) in the US context (see: COINTELPRO, Leonard Peltier, Mummia Abu Jamal...).

With so many trials, arrests and physical assaults against militant ecologists, zadists and anti-racist activists such as in the NODAPL case or against Cop City in Atlanta, it's hard to say the far-left isn't concerned by political repression. On the other hand, with so many terrorist attacks committed by white supremacists on US soil and so little reaction from the establishment, it's very clear that the powers that be are very complacent with the far right.

To go back to lands i know more about, in the EU, islamist attacks are only a few percents of all terrorists attacks. Yet the media only talks about those as if racist militias did not exist. On the other hand, eco-anarchists sabotaging ecocidal industrial projects such as in Notre-Dame-des-Landes or Sainte-Soline get called "eco-terrorists" on every media by the establishment, despite never spilling blood in their actions. And so many comrades rot in jail for daring to believe in a better world.

I'm not saying the term "far-right" can't be misused to misrepresent various (moderate) conservative positions, but claiming it's a rhetorical trick used by those in power to prevent dissent is far from the truth.

[AbrahamParangi]

The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the left has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it.

I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

[programmarchy]

René Girard has done an anthropological investigation of this topic. The gist of it is through the psycho-social mechanism of scapegoating, opposing groups can simultaneously believe they are victims while acting as oppressors, often using their victim status as justification for their oppression of "the other".

Girard explores this phenomenon of scapegoating and postulates it goes back to primitive humans e.g. during a drought tensions rise within a tribe, and a certain "witchy" tribe member is singled out to take the blame and either expelled or murdered. After this, social tensions in the tribe are relieved (even if the drought does not subside), and the scapegoat paradoxically becomes a sacred, or savior, figure. Through history, this develops into ritual and religion. It provides a useful lens to reason about messianic cults, as well as social power dynamics.

There's a good overview on his Wikipedia page, but he delves into this particular topic in the book Violence and the Sacred. He also pioneered the field of Generative Anthropology, which other academics like Eric Gans have built upon, theorizing about the mechanism in much more detail, and using it to explain effects in modern culture.

[AndrewKemendo]

Thank you for referencing Girard!

Agreed that this is a compelling hypothesis

Have you looked through “A thousand plateaus” from Deleuze/Guattari (I don’t know anyone who has actually read the whole thing)?

[programmarchy]

I timidly approached Deleuze a few years ago but didn't make it very far, haha. Should probably give it ago again... did you find it useful?

[AndrewKemendo]

Yes! Though if I could follow along for more than a few pages I would probably get more out of it.

I’m going to actually restart with just Ch15 and see if that is a better approach

[boplicity]

> The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the left

Basically, people are fed up with general bigotry, racism, misogyny, and the destruction of the environment -- all of which have real life and death consequences for many people. That, combined with polarization, has made people very reactive to which "side" they perceive things to be on.

[ralusek]

People are just now fed up with those things, at their lowest point in history?

[boplicity]

Of course people are fed up with those things. They also have the ability to organize and make noise about it. That, combined with polarization, as I've said, heightens both the activism and the perception of such activism.

[ASalazarMX]

I think polarization is the main cause. Demagogues love to craft an "us vs them" narrative, pose as heroes of the "us" side, and plenty of gullible people fall for it with gusto. Mentally, we're still monkeys who will follow a strong leader without questioning.

Mind you, demagogues are not only politicians, they can be human rights activists, teachers, businessmen, neighbors, etc. Emotion managing should be a mandatory class at basic school, so many of us need to think with our heads instead of our guts.

[f38zf5vdt]

Yet, remarkably, many others will identify with:

> The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the right has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it.

> I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

We are diving deep into the irony of bifurcated political systems where the two groups simultaneously believe themselves to be victims of their opposing teams rather than circumstance and systemic failures.

[fluidcruft]

I can't say that I have found the right to be any more accepting of wrongthink.

[enragedcacti]

The paradox of tolerance gets you a long way to understanding it, but you will also have to be far more specific if you want answers because practically everyone has limits to what they consider acceptable speech, even if they don't call it that.

Beyond that, there is a pretty concerted effort to elevate minor grievances into the national spotlight to portray the left a certain way, e.g. the Oberlin Cafeteria scandal, where story in the college paper about the quality of the food in their college cafeteria became both a national news story and a symbol of just how deranged the left had become.

Is that actually indicative of anything? Is it something the general public should actually care about? Does it even reflect "the left" as a political body?

I think once you start asking those questions a lot of the "wrongthink" stories (not all!) start seeming a lot closer to college kids complaining about bad food than they are to the sands of politics and free speech shifting underfoot.

[nostromo]

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech.

Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes that the best path is nearly always rational argumentation of opposing views.

[enragedcacti]

"We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

[nostromo]

You really should read the whole work before citing it.

[mcpackieh]

Even as you describe it (I think you've described Poppler's argument well), it's still bogus. We don't need laws forbidding speech against free speech to protect free speech; the solution to the "paradox" is that there is no paradox. Our system of checks and balances to undo unconstitutional laws works well enough that we don't need to curtail political speech to protect political speech. The system is resilient to speech which criticizes it.

Poppler seems to think that fire must be fought with fire, that's his 'paradox'. He forgets or deliberately discounts the existence of fire extinguishers, e.g. checks and balances.

[foldr]

I can't find any textual support for that narrow interpretation of the Paradox of Tolerance in anything that Popper wrote. Where does he say that only opposition to freedom of speech counts as 'intolerance' in the relevant sense?

[nostromo]

You'll need to read the book -- if you're looking for a soundbite you're doing yourself a disservice -- it's short anyway. But note that he's talking specifically about argumentation.

The book is a response to Plato, who generally opposed free speech for the masses. In general, Popper strongly disagrees with Plato. And it's important to note that he described of the paradox as he understood it from Plato, but does not necessarily endorse it.

The people suddenly fond of this one footnote might take a moment and read his work anyway, as they may be surprised to read his views on socialism and Marx specifically.

[foldr]

I have read the book. I'm saying that I don’t find any textual support in it for your narrow interpretation of the paradox of tolerance. Under that title it's treated by Popper in one brief and quite vague paragraph. If you think that other parts of the book point to a narrower or more specific version of the paradox of tolerance, then you should at least be able to give some indication of which parts.

Also, he more-or-less does endorse the idea just a little bit beyond the famous paragraph:

>All these paradoxes can easily be avoided if we frame our political demands the way suggested in section II of this chapter, or perhaps in some such as this. We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and accountable to, the public.

[gochi]

The book Open Society and its Enemies is moreso about how an open society cannot truly be tolerant, much in the same way that Herbert Marcuse expresses, in that tolerating dangerous ideas allows them to grow thereby destroying the entire concept of an open tolerant society. It was not specifically about opposition of free speech, that's absurd as even he would recognize that you can't protect free speech from dangerous ideas without being intolerant of those ideas. Hence, the paradox.

So people shouting their enemies aren't doing the opposite of what Popper suggests, they are proof of what he claims. Remember, he viewed socialism as a beautiful dream, but struggled to align that with his views on individual freedom and how reaching such goal would be very difficult without violent means of overthrowing the status quo (these means again infringing on his beliefs of individual freedom).

Perhaps you are due for a re-reading of his work.

[username332211]

The paradox of tolerance is the invention of Karl Popper, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society - a hard-right group literally founded by F.A. Hayek. It is a justification for the persecution of collectivists, which mostly meant the persecution of left-wingers at the time. It's the justification of the actions general Pinochet would later undertake.

The only way I can use such a thing to understand left wing thought is by assuming someone is picking and choosing ideas in the pursuit of power . Citing it makes me think of an unconventional medieval priest who tries to justify burning all his enemies at the stake by combining Calvin's inflexible concept of damnation with the Catholic penchant for punishing sinners and heretics.

And the simplest statement of the paradox is "It's OK to persecute and kill collectivists (meaning communists and fascist), because they deny the validity of a universal reason". I assure you it's not an argument that justifies "de-platforming".

[btreecat]

You might be interested in "The paradox of tolerance"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

>Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

[JohnFen]

> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative?

Don't know what they mean, but to me, "far right" doesn't mean that. It means the most radical extreme of the right. Just like "far left" means the most radical extreme of the left. I'd even argue that the far right is not actually conservative, and the far left is not actually liberal.

[zo1]

That's not how the media and most people see it, unfortunately. Anything remotely mean or intolerant that happens to not be left leaning is auto-labelled far right. It's what I would argue is the silent and unlabeled bias of the media against conservatism.

Heck I'm labeled far-right just for suggesting that affirmative action is racist.

[meowface]

>Heck I'm labeled far-right just for suggesting that affirmative action is racist.

By who / where?

[digging]

> What exactly does far-right mean in this case?

I thought, just maybe, they're referring to the groups of openly fascist Americans who attacked the US capitol and organized other violent events. But maybe you're right and "far-right" is meaningless. I don't know why you would be right - it doesn't even make sense to raise the questions you raised, but I supposed we should consider your opinion.

[4bpp]

In what sense were the capitol rioters "openly fascist"? I have not seen any meaningful political group in the US trying to own the label; it is only ever applied to political enemies.

[digging]

> In what sense were the capitol rioters "openly fascist"?

In the sense that they are literally Nazi sympathizers who display Nazi imagery, talk about Nazi ideology, praise Hitler, and write/talk about their racist beliefs influencing their political beliefs. I am not going to dig through these articles for you now and I am not going to respond further because I do not believe you are posting in good faith, but this is for the readers. Look up, like, any article about fascists/Nazis at Jan 6.

[maxbond]

No, it is not an arbitrary politics dig.

At this current moment in history, in the United States at least, there aren't a lot of armed left wing groups. But right wing paramilitary groups have been on the rise for years, and recently they tried to overturn an election by force.

At a different time in history people would have fretted that the Weather Underground or Black Panthers would be using the app. But we're in 2023 and not 1970, and people are concerned about Proud Boys and Boogaloos.

[renewiltord]

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to be moderated.

[TurkishPoptart]

Nobody asked for content moderation, why are they trying to create this complaint out of thin air? If there’s a channel I don’t like, I’ll leave it/unsubscribe.

[HDThoreaun]

Many people are calling for moderation, just not the people in the groups to be moderated. The callers don't want to protect the people in the group, they want to protect people from the group they want to moderate.

[throw10920]

Because Wired, and to a lesser extent some Signal employees, have a political agenda to push that they're willing to distort the truth for.

There's zero evidence that Signal is being used for radical reactionary groups any more than radical progressive groups - and if there was evidence, the Signal employees would have very little additional knowledge due to app's design.

[foldr]

Hard to tell if you are asking in good faith, but the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page has a perfectly serviceable definition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics

>Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left–right political spectrum, with the "far right" considered further from center than the standard political right.

[WeylandYutani]

Fascinating. By this measure de Santis and practically all Republican mainstream candidates would be considered far right.

[foldr]

Only if you agree that de Santis is, e.g., an ultra-nationalist. And if you do agree that all or most of those points apply to de Santis, then it's hard to see why you'd not agree that he's far right. I mean, who would be far right in that case? Only ultra-ultra-nationalists who are more-than-just-radically conservative?

To be clear, I'm not expressing an opinion here as to whether de Santis is far right. I'm saying that anyone who disagrees that he is will probably also disagree that at least one component of Wikipedia's definition applies to him.

[rhinoceraptor]

There are certainly many issues where a conservative of fifty years ago would be considered much further left than modern day conservatives, if not actually further to the left than modern day liberals.

Contrast this clip of the George H.W. Bush of 1980 [1], to the rhetoric DeSantis uses in regards to immigration[2]:

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Y-CtN8Qi0

[chiefalchemist]

The use of anarchism in the title was the first tell. It's an often misused and misunderstood word. I'm confident Wired knows better, but used it because of the pop culture-y biases it is sure to trigger.

This is why we can't have nice things. Why be rational and objective when there a clicks to bait?

[southerntofu]

It's not clickbait if the actual Signal people claim the anarchist label, like m0xie does. Despite all my political and technical disagreements with him, i must recognize he is an anarchist and it's nice to see for once a press article not trying to wash his political engagement away.

[chiefalchemist]

The difference is the context.

Signal's target is more likely to understand the more true and subtle aspects of the word. But most importantly, Signal doesn't make money from ads. Ads that need eye-balls. So in that context, the word is definitely bait-y.

[southerntofu]

I understand your point, but as i read the article from Tor Browser using safest mode i had no idea advertisement was involved. I tend to forget people actually place ads in places. Trying to refrain myself from using stronger, more judgy words.

[southerntofu]

> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative?

It depends how far you go. Does far-left just mean non-conservative and progressive? There's of course a subjective element to the answer, but there's objective arguments to be had as well, but in a specific context and timeframe.

For example, being opposed to abortion rights was once considered normal except in far-left circles where anarchists such as Emma Goldman or Émilie Lamotte organized clandestine courses and workshops. Half a century ago, it could have been considered mildly conservative to be against abortion rights. Nowadays, with many conservative right-wing voices standing for abortion rights, being against would place you immediately on the far-right ultra-conservative spectrum.

[celu]

Excuse me, if being against abortion rights is far-right, most of the right is far-right

[southerntofu]

Note that i'm writing this from the french cultural/political context, but i don't think this is true. Or at least it's not universal. Here even most of the far right would not dare question reproductive/abortion rights. Even Marine Le Pen has proposed to make abortion a constitutional right. The only question on the conservative right here (except for marginal catholic sects such as La Manif Pour Tous) is to oppose extending the incubation period during which abortion is legal.

In the United States the situation is different, mostly due to decades of political lobbying and public disinformation against abortion orchestrated by fascist billionaires associated with various christian churches. But still, i'm guessing some parts of the right wouldn't dare question abortion rights. Despite the democrats being from an outsider's perspective a right-wing party (capitalist and rather conservative), let's pretend for a second the republican party are the entirety of the right, it's still not clear that all democrats stand for abortion and all republicans against:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/17/a-closer-...

Still, i think there is truth in what you say. As much as some issues such as gay/trans rights have advanced in the past decades, the political spectrum has shifted massively to the right in the Global North. Anti-immigration doctrines are far more common, and abolition of capitalism and wage slavery has almost become a taboo even on the so-called left. It's always both funny and sad to see people call Mélenchon or Sanders "far-left" when their social program is rather centrist and not more ambitious/communist than historically very right-wing programs (such as De Gaulle's after WWII).

[FormerBandmate]

Theoretically Nazis could use signal. Nazis can also use any other technology, this justification is really stupid

[anonym29]

Hitler drank water, ergo drinking water is bad! /s

[gfdsgvbcd]

today far right means anything that is not in alignment with the sanctioned corporate propaganda

[freejazz]

> Does far-right just mean non-progressive and conservative?

I don't see anyone asking that besides you, so it really begs the question why given all common sense and reasoning, you'd have to ask this.