Is this thread about Twitter only, or is Facebook news okay here, too? Cause Facebook has made The Daily Caller (yes THAT Daily Caller) an official "non-partisan" fact checker.
This is less a philosphical issue than a technical one, but for fuck's sake, if I've turned off retweets from someone I follow, I sure as shit don't want to see random tweets from people they follow.
The daily caller likes to run fan fiction that looks like news articles, including fictional sourcing to fox news for legitimacy. Fox news has occasionally then sourced daily caller fictional stories as sources for reporting.
It's insane to think you would let that site be a fact checker.
The daily caller likes to run fan fiction that looks like news articles, including fictional sourcing to fox news for legitimacy. Fox news has occasionally then sourced daily caller fictional stories as sources for reporting.
It's insane to think you would let that site be a fact checker.
When snopes refused to do it for free, it would make sense that some partisan outfit would gladly pay for the privilege of controlling everyones feeds.
The Verge has an overview of the Battle for the Blue Bird. Some key takeaways:
* The case against Dorsey is, put simply, damning. While yes, Twitter did reach profitability under his tenure, given things like killing Vine on has to ask if that was because or in spite of Dorsey. There's also the fact that his being a part time CEO more interested in the company where his money actually is (remember, Dorsey's Africa trip is so he can look at how the continent has embraced financial technology - something much more applicable to Square.)
* The investor in question has a track record of dethroning CEOs - one targeted CEO likened learning about this record to consulting with Dr. Google.
* There was an argument that this will push more tech founders to go the dual-tier stock path - after all, can't be pushed out if you control the majority of votes. (This still remains an argument as to why dual-tier structures should be illegal.)
I suppose that whatever happens, it won't make much of a difference in the final product
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I suppose that whatever happens, it won't make much of a difference in the final product
This was started because someone with too much money thought Twitter was too hard on conservatives and too soft on leftists. The same twitter that has been documented as bending the rules twitter makes to favor conservatives. This says to me that Dorsey being removed can only make things worse.
+18
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I suppose that whatever happens, it won't make much of a difference in the final product
This was started because someone with too much money thought Twitter was too hard on conservatives and too soft on leftists. The same twitter that has been documented as bending the rules twitter makes to favor conservatives. This says to me that Dorsey being removed can only make things worse.
Yeah, the difference is that Dorsey is sympathetic, but doesn't particularly care. This guy wants to make twitter a conservative haven. All of those Gab assholes will probably be coming back.
+4
Options
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
edited March 2020
It's entirely about information flow.
Selective bannings and censoring on Twitter is an absolute treasure trove for those seeking to influence popular narrative and low information reactionaries. Getting a new CEO in place who doesn't have the veneer of "Libertarian Techbro" means they can move right to further measures.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is reevaluating his plans to spend part of the year in Africa, telling a crowd at a Morgan Stanley conference on Thursday that he may no longer be traveling to the continent amid on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and what Dorsey worded as “everything else going on.”
That “everything else” is likely the open threat to his removal from activist investor Elliott Management Corporation, which last week purchased a 4 percent share in the company with the intention of nominating four members to its board and replacing Dorsey as CEO.
Dorsey now characterizes announcing the Africa decision without any proper context as a “mistake.” He went on to clarify that, as one of the most populated continents over the next few decades, Africa will be a “huge opportunity” for young people to join the platform and that Twitter will be exploring options in Africa in the future. But it sounds like the plan to move there for part of the year is far less likely now.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is reevaluating his plans to spend part of the year in Africa, telling a crowd at a Morgan Stanley conference on Thursday that he may no longer be traveling to the continent amid on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and what Dorsey worded as “everything else going on.”
That “everything else” is likely the open threat to his removal from activist investor Elliott Management Corporation, which last week purchased a 4 percent share in the company with the intention of nominating four members to its board and replacing Dorsey as CEO.
Dorsey now characterizes announcing the Africa decision without any proper context as a “mistake.” He went on to clarify that, as one of the most populated continents over the next few decades, Africa will be a “huge opportunity” for young people to join the platform and that Twitter will be exploring options in Africa in the future. But it sounds like the plan to move there for part of the year is far less likely now.
Do any of the people who write these articles have an iota of self awareness?
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is reevaluating his plans to spend part of the year in Africa, telling a crowd at a Morgan Stanley conference on Thursday that he may no longer be traveling to the continent amid on the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and what Dorsey worded as “everything else going on.”
That “everything else” is likely the open threat to his removal from activist investor Elliott Management Corporation, which last week purchased a 4 percent share in the company with the intention of nominating four members to its board and replacing Dorsey as CEO.
Dorsey now characterizes announcing the Africa decision without any proper context as a “mistake.” He went on to clarify that, as one of the most populated continents over the next few decades, Africa will be a “huge opportunity” for young people to join the platform and that Twitter will be exploring options in Africa in the future. But it sounds like the plan to move there for part of the year is far less likely now.
Do any of the people who write these articles have an iota of self awareness?
Honestly, I have to wonder if getting bought out by a republican shit weasel might finally result in Twitter going under. I'll have to dig up the article, but someone did do a study on twitter's base and found that rightwing scum are a very small fraction of the user base. So having an actual Nazi running it instead of a shitty Nazi sympathizer might drive a ton of that user base out because IIRC a good chunk of them were black women. It probably makes it much easier for many European countries to sell laws to reign in the BS on social media and immediately start smacking twitter with them. Also don't really see China being too keen tolerating twitter if it essentially becomes an organ for white supremacists, probably similar deal in India.
Also no doubt the rule change will be unreasonable banning anyone that doesn't agree or support their bullshit, while letting absolute human trash be extremely vocal. So quite possible, you get a scenario where people are leaving the platform en masse, while also getting massive boycotts. I mean, the platform is already accused of being too accommodating of Nazi shitbags, racists and sexists. So I just see assholes that feel conservatives are being treated unfairly there letting those fuckers do as they please and then being surprised when it falls apart. I mean, there is a reason Gab didn't do well. I doubt twitter is irreplaceable enough where a ton of people will tolerate that shit, someone else can easily make a twitter alternative that doesn't openly embrace all the garbage.
Still, twitter, fb and youtube are all good examples of how we need some good old trust busting because they are too big and they allow too much influence to too few actors.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
Clinton was talking about conversations she had on FB when she was on the Obama admin. This is not a new problem.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
Clinton was talking about conversations she had on FB when she was on the Obama admin. This is not a new problem.
As Secretary of State she couldn't "out the weight of law" on Facebook either. That's not what a SoS does.
Especially not with Republican control of at least one part of Congress for most of Obama's term.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
Not to take away from the dreadfully self-satisfying tone of the article, but the CDA was a horrible piece of legislature. It needed to go for several reasons, safe-harbor provisions notwithstanding so I'm glad to have seen it struck down. As for the rest, I didn't know that being so close to self-awareness but yet so far away was a genre Slate delved into. The author states that there is so much good brought about by collaboration, such as Wikipedia, but throws up their hands in a "what are you going to do?" manner when addressing that the same helps hate groups.
It's almost like a child's dare. I dare you to think that maybe we can work on getting more good out into the world without accompanying bad, but in no way will I help you figure out how to do that. Because principles that are ill-defined and aren't worth seeing if they too could use some revision.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
There's also the big problem that the internet is international. The US should not get to regulate it alone. Nor should Canada, even if we would obviously do a better job. We just don't have a good framework to deal with the regulation of something like that, other than treaties and standards.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
There's also the big problem that the internet is international. The US should not get to regulate it alone. Nor should Canada, even if we would obviously do a better job. We just don't have a good framework to deal with the regulation of something like that, other than treaties and standards.
Much of the default use of US laws was due to the fact that until the mid-2000s the root name servers were all located here. Ultimately, that meant that the US had default control over how the internet evolved. And while the root servers have been more or less distributed (which is why/how China, Russia, Iran, etc can do the censorship they do) if the US govt wanted to, they could still have a outsized say over such things due to the tech still mostly being homed here.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
There's also the big problem that the internet is international. The US should not get to regulate it alone. Nor should Canada, even if we would obviously do a better job. We just don't have a good framework to deal with the regulation of something like that, other than treaties and standards.
What is happening is that the eventual result is the balkanization of social media, with Russia and China leading the trend:
In less-democratic nations, counterpart platforms—like Baidu and Weibo in China or VK in Russia—dominate their respective markets, but their relationships with the relevant governments are cozier, so their market-dominant status isn’t surprising.
So, while people are aghast, I easily see a future where every country has their own government controlled social network and the US giants get harsh local regulations on them.
Trying to get people to properly comprehend what the internet is and what it actually means is annoying, because if you actually start addressing what it has become in the last decade and a half and it's effect on humanity itself everyone thinks you're a fuckin whack job.
There's also the big problem that the internet is international. The US should not get to regulate it alone. Nor should Canada, even if we would obviously do a better job. We just don't have a good framework to deal with the regulation of something like that, other than treaties and standards.
What is happening is that the eventual result is the balkanization of social media, with Russia and China leading the trend:
In less-democratic nations, counterpart platforms—like Baidu and Weibo in China or VK in Russia—dominate their respective markets, but their relationships with the relevant governments are cozier, so their market-dominant status isn’t surprising.
So, while people are aghast, I easily see a future where every country has their own government controlled social network and the US giants get harsh local regulations on them.
That balkanisation is not new, and is very much suboptimal. It's mostly invisible from the US, but companies and copyright holders have already implemented that. It suck. More of that is bad.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
Clinton was talking about conversations she had on FB when she was on the Obama admin. This is not a new problem.
As Secretary of State she couldn't "out the weight of law" on Facebook either. That's not what a SoS does.
Especially not with Republican control of at least one part of Congress for most of Obama's term.
It is nearly blasé to now say that social media has become a problem in American politics. By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course. This is wretched for institutional parties who can no longer control fundraising and messaging. This is fantastic for folks in the political wilderness who now face few barriers to entry (e.g. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders).
This isn’t an American phenomenon, but is instead global. Arguably the United Kingdom’s BBC has gone furthest down this road and is now a pitiful shell of its former glory. Canada’s CBC isn’t far behind and IMO ranks slightly below the American majors in terms of (lack of) quality. France24 is probably the Western institution that has fought off these trends most effectively, although even there the drop in excellence is obvious. Of the global news services Al Jazeera is the company making the best effort at providing what we used to think of as good global reporting (which is hardly to say AJ has no biases).
Now, like I said, we’ve been here before.
The last time the world wrestled with a new technology that reduced the costs of information flow, it was the telegraph and telephone. Then, like now, we had no legal tools for regulating what people could and could not say in the public domain. Slander became omnipresent, particularly in politics. Congress was of questionable effectiveness, and ultimately it fell to the Supreme Court to force a nationwide standard for libel. Media became responsible for the accuracy of what they printed.
In other words, Zeihan proposes that if Congress doesn't act, eventually a social media NYT vs. Sullivan ruling will happen and Section 230 gets demolished.
Congress proposes anti-child abuse rules to punish web platforms — and raises fears about encryption
The EARN IT Act would tie legal protection to new rules
By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy Mar 5, 2020, 1:40pm EST
Senators have proposed a law requiring websites to actively fight child exploitation or risk losing legal protections. The bill, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (or EARN IT) Act, was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today. It would establish a new government commission composed of administration officials and outside experts, who would set “best practices” for removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material online.
The principles are theoretically voluntary, but if companies don’t comply, they can be held legally responsible for that content — losing some protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They can maintain immunity if they establish that they have “other reasonable practices” in place.
A draft of the EARN IT Act circulated in late January, and it was met with alarm by privacy advocates and some tech companies. The draft bill gave the committee wide latitude to make rules governing online platforms, and it gave the Justice Department substantial influence over the committee. It was widely seen as an attack on encryption since the “best practices” could include a backdoor giving law enforcement access to users’ private conversations. Attorney General William Barr has previously pushed Apple to unlock phones for criminal investigations and urged Facebook to delay implementing end-to-end encryption on its messaging apps.
The final bill is supported by several Republican and Democratic lawmakers in addition to the four above. The bill is also backed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media, among other groups. “For the first time, you will have to earn blanket liability protection when it comes to protecting minors. Our goal is to do this in a balanced way that doesn’t overly inhibit innovation, but forcibly deals with child exploitation,” said Graham in a statement.
Clinton’s allusions to Zuckerberg as a world leader are fitting. “I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said, referencing conversations she’s had “at the highest levels” with Facebook. “He’s immensely powerful,” she told me. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
Clinton was talking about conversations she had on FB when she was on the Obama admin. This is not a new problem.
As Secretary of State she couldn't "out the weight of law" on Facebook either. That's not what a SoS does.
Especially not with Republican control of at least one part of Congress for most of Obama's term.
It is nearly blasé to now say that social media has become a problem in American politics. By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course. This is wretched for institutional parties who can no longer control fundraising and messaging. This is fantastic for folks in the political wilderness who now face few barriers to entry (e.g. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders).
This isn’t an American phenomenon, but is instead global. Arguably the United Kingdom’s BBC has gone furthest down this road and is now a pitiful shell of its former glory. Canada’s CBC isn’t far behind and IMO ranks slightly below the American majors in terms of (lack of) quality. France24 is probably the Western institution that has fought off these trends most effectively, although even there the drop in excellence is obvious. Of the global news services Al Jazeera is the company making the best effort at providing what we used to think of as good global reporting (which is hardly to say AJ has no biases).
Now, like I said, we’ve been here before.
The last time the world wrestled with a new technology that reduced the costs of information flow, it was the telegraph and telephone. Then, like now, we had no legal tools for regulating what people could and could not say in the public domain. Slander became omnipresent, particularly in politics. Congress was of questionable effectiveness, and ultimately it fell to the Supreme Court to force a nationwide standard for libel. Media became responsible for the accuracy of what they printed.
In other words, Zeihan proposes that if Congress doesn't act, eventually a social media NYT vs. Sullivan ruling will happen and Section 230 gets demolished.
Having read what wiki says the decision was about, I would say that the exact opposite would be true. It wouldn't get rid of Section 230, but reinforce it as it pushed the bar far up the scale in order to show detriment in favor of the publisher. And we've already had many of those kinds of rulings, especially in favor of Google and YouTube.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
This line makes me feel dirty:
By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course.
The idea that there needs to be a cost to participate in democracy really worries me. The whole point is that everyone gets a voice, equally. The problem with social media is that it amplifies voices, not that it exists in the first place. If someone was yelling facts and/or conspiracy theories on the steps of the white house, people would judge them based on... well, a ton of factors. But the internet is all anonymous, so there is a lot less information about who is entering the discussion. So something needs to replace that information. It just can't be a "cost" or people will be disenfranchised.
I think the core problem is time. Few can pay the cost of time into democracy, and as a result they make assumptions and the system breaks down.
Congress proposes anti-child abuse rules to punish web platforms — and raises fears about encryption
The EARN IT Act would tie legal protection to new rules
By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy Mar 5, 2020, 1:40pm EST
Senators have proposed a law requiring websites to actively fight child exploitation or risk losing legal protections. The bill, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (or EARN IT) Act, was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today. It would establish a new government commission composed of administration officials and outside experts, who would set “best practices” for removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material online.
The principles are theoretically voluntary, but if companies don’t comply, they can be held legally responsible for that content — losing some protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They can maintain immunity if they establish that they have “other reasonable practices” in place.
A draft of the EARN IT Act circulated in late January, and it was met with alarm by privacy advocates and some tech companies. The draft bill gave the committee wide latitude to make rules governing online platforms, and it gave the Justice Department substantial influence over the committee. It was widely seen as an attack on encryption since the “best practices” could include a backdoor giving law enforcement access to users’ private conversations. Attorney General William Barr has previously pushed Apple to unlock phones for criminal investigations and urged Facebook to delay implementing end-to-end encryption on its messaging apps.
The final bill is supported by several Republican and Democratic lawmakers in addition to the four above. The bill is also backed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media, among other groups. “For the first time, you will have to earn blanket liability protection when it comes to protecting minors. Our goal is to do this in a balanced way that doesn’t overly inhibit innovation, but forcibly deals with child exploitation,” said Graham in a statement.
It's an attack on encryption wrapped in a "butbutbut whaddabouttehchildrenssss!!!11!1!" blanket. They get that, then suddenly they have an excuse to crack open phones and stuff.
By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course.
The idea that there needs to be a cost to participate in democracy really worries me. The whole point is that everyone gets a voice, equally. The problem with social media is that it amplifies voices, not that it exists in the first place. If someone was yelling facts and/or conspiracy theories on the steps of the white house, people would judge them based on... well, a ton of factors. But the internet is all anonymous, so there is a lot less information about who is entering the discussion. So something needs to replace that information. It just can't be a "cost" or people will be disenfranchised.
I think the core problem is time. Few can pay the cost of time into democracy, and as a result they make assumptions and the system breaks down.
The basic problem we are running into is that "let everyone have a voice equally" does not take into account how people actually respond to information that gets sent to them.
By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course.
The idea that there needs to be a cost to participate in democracy really worries me. The whole point is that everyone gets a voice, equally. The problem with social media is that it amplifies voices, not that it exists in the first place. If someone was yelling facts and/or conspiracy theories on the steps of the white house, people would judge them based on... well, a ton of factors. But the internet is all anonymous, so there is a lot less information about who is entering the discussion. So something needs to replace that information. It just can't be a "cost" or people will be disenfranchised.
I think the core problem is time. Few can pay the cost of time into democracy, and as a result they make assumptions and the system breaks down.
The costs were not necessarily monetary. Anyone could run ads in the days before social media. And ads werent that much cheaper than they are now. But in order to do so you would have to have your content and organization vetted by media organizations (fox notwithstanding).
It was harder to run propaganda because it was harder to obfuscate the fact that you were doing it. Now you can send ads that avoid scrutiny by major media, avoid non-targeted groups making yourself almost invisible, while paying though an automated system via proxy so no one has any clue what kind of speech theyre supporting.
By reducing the cost of not simply contributing to, but initiating, a political conversation to zero, we are now subject to an onslaught of voices ranging from the crazy cousin we all avoid to Russian propaganda as a matter of course.
The idea that there needs to be a cost to participate in democracy really worries me. The whole point is that everyone gets a voice, equally. The problem with social media is that it amplifies voices, not that it exists in the first place. If someone was yelling facts and/or conspiracy theories on the steps of the white house, people would judge them based on... well, a ton of factors. But the internet is all anonymous, so there is a lot less information about who is entering the discussion. So something needs to replace that information. It just can't be a "cost" or people will be disenfranchised.
I think the core problem is time. Few can pay the cost of time into democracy, and as a result they make assumptions and the system breaks down.
The costs were not necessarily monetary. Anyone could run ads in the days before social media. And ads werent that much cheaper than they are now. But in order to do so you would have to have your content and organization vetted by media organizations (fox notwithstanding).
It was harder to run propaganda because it was harder to obfuscate the fact that you were doing it. Now you can send ads that avoid scrutiny by major media, avoid non-targeted groups making yourself almost invisible, while paying though an automated system via proxy so no one has any clue what kind of speech theyre supporting.
And the reason that this has happened is that we've completely indemnified the systems that push those ads, so that they have no liability for what's being said. At least with the papers and television stations, they could be held accountable if they didn't at least perform basic due diligence on the content to make sure it wasn't being defamatory, because reckless malice (not caring if you allow defamation) is a thing.
Congress proposes anti-child abuse rules to punish web platforms — and raises fears about encryption
The EARN IT Act would tie legal protection to new rules
By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy Mar 5, 2020, 1:40pm EST
Senators have proposed a law requiring websites to actively fight child exploitation or risk losing legal protections. The bill, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (or EARN IT) Act, was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today. It would establish a new government commission composed of administration officials and outside experts, who would set “best practices” for removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material online.
The principles are theoretically voluntary, but if companies don’t comply, they can be held legally responsible for that content — losing some protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They can maintain immunity if they establish that they have “other reasonable practices” in place.
A draft of the EARN IT Act circulated in late January, and it was met with alarm by privacy advocates and some tech companies. The draft bill gave the committee wide latitude to make rules governing online platforms, and it gave the Justice Department substantial influence over the committee. It was widely seen as an attack on encryption since the “best practices” could include a backdoor giving law enforcement access to users’ private conversations. Attorney General William Barr has previously pushed Apple to unlock phones for criminal investigations and urged Facebook to delay implementing end-to-end encryption on its messaging apps.
The final bill is supported by several Republican and Democratic lawmakers in addition to the four above. The bill is also backed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media, among other groups. “For the first time, you will have to earn blanket liability protection when it comes to protecting minors. Our goal is to do this in a balanced way that doesn’t overly inhibit innovation, but forcibly deals with child exploitation,” said Graham in a statement.
Given bipartisan support, what's the likelihood this passes? It sounds like an absolutely terribly written law.
Also I have similarly dubious feelings about groups who used to have names like "Morality in Media"
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Congress proposes anti-child abuse rules to punish web platforms — and raises fears about encryption
The EARN IT Act would tie legal protection to new rules
By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy Mar 5, 2020, 1:40pm EST
Senators have proposed a law requiring websites to actively fight child exploitation or risk losing legal protections. The bill, Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (or EARN IT) Act, was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today. It would establish a new government commission composed of administration officials and outside experts, who would set “best practices” for removing child sexual exploitation and abuse material online.
The principles are theoretically voluntary, but if companies don’t comply, they can be held legally responsible for that content — losing some protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They can maintain immunity if they establish that they have “other reasonable practices” in place.
A draft of the EARN IT Act circulated in late January, and it was met with alarm by privacy advocates and some tech companies. The draft bill gave the committee wide latitude to make rules governing online platforms, and it gave the Justice Department substantial influence over the committee. It was widely seen as an attack on encryption since the “best practices” could include a backdoor giving law enforcement access to users’ private conversations. Attorney General William Barr has previously pushed Apple to unlock phones for criminal investigations and urged Facebook to delay implementing end-to-end encryption on its messaging apps.
The final bill is supported by several Republican and Democratic lawmakers in addition to the four above. The bill is also backed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media, among other groups. “For the first time, you will have to earn blanket liability protection when it comes to protecting minors. Our goal is to do this in a balanced way that doesn’t overly inhibit innovation, but forcibly deals with child exploitation,” said Graham in a statement.
Given bipartisan support, what's the likelihood this passes? It sounds like an absolutely terribly written law.
Also I have similarly dubious feelings about groups who used to have names like "Morality in Media"
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is an American non-profit organization with the goal of "exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation".[1] It was established in New York City as Morality In Media, Inc. in 1962 and changed its name in 2015.[2] The organization advocates legislation to reduce the exposure of children and teenagers to "sexually violent content", including all forms of pornography.
They do things like oppose access to health magazines and even general databases because gasp you can look up sexual terms.
I'm not saying that this is a good law, BTW. But as always in politics, if the status quo is unacceptable, and it is, eventually someone will do something about it. Even if is very much not for the better. Doesn't surprise me that Feinstein or Blumenthal are sponsors, better to have some voice on a law that will have such incredibly powerful effects than none. Because a law or a SCOTUS decision that contains the social media giants will happen.
Posts
Agreed.
There’s no middle ground with Nazis. You either are 100% on board or are just another thing for them to corrupt entirely, or destroy.
Dorsey trying to have it both ways was always doomed to failure.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Results are exactly as you'd expect.
ThinkProgress founder and Clinton campaign research director
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
It's insane to think you would let that site be a fact checker.
When snopes refused to do it for free, it would make sense that some partisan outfit would gladly pay for the privilege of controlling everyones feeds.
MWO: Adamski
* The case against Dorsey is, put simply, damning. While yes, Twitter did reach profitability under his tenure, given things like killing Vine on has to ask if that was because or in spite of Dorsey. There's also the fact that his being a part time CEO more interested in the company where his money actually is (remember, Dorsey's Africa trip is so he can look at how the continent has embraced financial technology - something much more applicable to Square.)
* The investor in question has a track record of dethroning CEOs - one targeted CEO likened learning about this record to consulting with Dr. Google.
* There was an argument that this will push more tech founders to go the dual-tier stock path - after all, can't be pushed out if you control the majority of votes. (This still remains an argument as to why dual-tier structures should be illegal.)
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
This was started because someone with too much money thought Twitter was too hard on conservatives and too soft on leftists. The same twitter that has been documented as bending the rules twitter makes to favor conservatives. This says to me that Dorsey being removed can only make things worse.
Yeah, the difference is that Dorsey is sympathetic, but doesn't particularly care. This guy wants to make twitter a conservative haven. All of those Gab assholes will probably be coming back.
Selective bannings and censoring on Twitter is an absolute treasure trove for those seeking to influence popular narrative and low information reactionaries. Getting a new CEO in place who doesn't have the veneer of "Libertarian Techbro" means they can move right to further measures.
Do any of the people who write these articles have an iota of self awareness?
It's The Verge, so it's the tech press, so no.
Also no doubt the rule change will be unreasonable banning anyone that doesn't agree or support their bullshit, while letting absolute human trash be extremely vocal. So quite possible, you get a scenario where people are leaving the platform en masse, while also getting massive boycotts. I mean, the platform is already accused of being too accommodating of Nazi shitbags, racists and sexists. So I just see assholes that feel conservatives are being treated unfairly there letting those fuckers do as they please and then being surprised when it falls apart. I mean, there is a reason Gab didn't do well. I doubt twitter is irreplaceable enough where a ton of people will tolerate that shit, someone else can easily make a twitter alternative that doesn't openly embrace all the garbage.
Still, twitter, fb and youtube are all good examples of how we need some good old trust busting because they are too big and they allow too much influence to too few actors.
Like, country
Hillary Clinton denounced that on January:
It gets missed on the shuffle, but it seems that both her and Biden find incredibly insulting having to treat an US company as it was a foreign country that has to be requested to behave.
Instead of, you know, just putting the weight of the law on them.
Neither Clinton nor Biden can put the weight of the law on Facebook. They are both private citizens. Maybe once Biden is President he can appoint someone to the SEC/DOJ/DOL who will actually do something about it, but right now neither one of them has any power to do so.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Clinton was talking about conversations she had on FB when she was on the Obama admin. This is not a new problem.
As Secretary of State she couldn't "out the weight of law" on Facebook either. That's not what a SoS does.
Especially not with Republican control of at least one part of Congress for most of Obama's term.
A lot of the problem is dealing with the gooseshit the early internet activists pushed, thanks to so many of them coming from the heavily libertarian "hacker" mindset.
Not to take away from the dreadfully self-satisfying tone of the article, but the CDA was a horrible piece of legislature. It needed to go for several reasons, safe-harbor provisions notwithstanding so I'm glad to have seen it struck down. As for the rest, I didn't know that being so close to self-awareness but yet so far away was a genre Slate delved into. The author states that there is so much good brought about by collaboration, such as Wikipedia, but throws up their hands in a "what are you going to do?" manner when addressing that the same helps hate groups.
It's almost like a child's dare. I dare you to think that maybe we can work on getting more good out into the world without accompanying bad, but in no way will I help you figure out how to do that. Because principles that are ill-defined and aren't worth seeing if they too could use some revision.
There's also the big problem that the internet is international. The US should not get to regulate it alone. Nor should Canada, even if we would obviously do a better job. We just don't have a good framework to deal with the regulation of something like that, other than treaties and standards.
Much of the default use of US laws was due to the fact that until the mid-2000s the root name servers were all located here. Ultimately, that meant that the US had default control over how the internet evolved. And while the root servers have been more or less distributed (which is why/how China, Russia, Iran, etc can do the censorship they do) if the US govt wanted to, they could still have a outsized say over such things due to the tech still mostly being homed here.
What is happening is that the eventual result is the balkanization of social media, with Russia and China leading the trend:
So, while people are aghast, I easily see a future where every country has their own government controlled social network and the US giants get harsh local regulations on them.
That balkanisation is not new, and is very much suboptimal. It's mostly invisible from the US, but companies and copyright holders have already implemented that. It suck. More of that is bad.
Is not the point. Point is: Why the hell should Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey have to be shown the same deference as a foreign head of state? That's vastly insulting to both elected officials and the people that voted for them. Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan has proposed that eventually SCOTUS is going to intervene if Congress won't:
In other words, Zeihan proposes that if Congress doesn't act, eventually a social media NYT vs. Sullivan ruling will happen and Section 230 gets demolished.
(Generally anything bipartisan with "think of the children!" Involved is horrible)
Having read what wiki says the decision was about, I would say that the exact opposite would be true. It wouldn't get rid of Section 230, but reinforce it as it pushed the bar far up the scale in order to show detriment in favor of the publisher. And we've already had many of those kinds of rulings, especially in favor of Google and YouTube.
Yes, but the EFF's position of "Section 230 is fine and shouldn't be touched" needs to also be rejected as well.
The idea that there needs to be a cost to participate in democracy really worries me. The whole point is that everyone gets a voice, equally. The problem with social media is that it amplifies voices, not that it exists in the first place. If someone was yelling facts and/or conspiracy theories on the steps of the white house, people would judge them based on... well, a ton of factors. But the internet is all anonymous, so there is a lot less information about who is entering the discussion. So something needs to replace that information. It just can't be a "cost" or people will be disenfranchised.
I think the core problem is time. Few can pay the cost of time into democracy, and as a result they make assumptions and the system breaks down.
It's an attack on encryption wrapped in a "butbutbut whaddabouttehchildrenssss!!!11!1!" blanket. They get that, then suddenly they have an excuse to crack open phones and stuff.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
The basic problem we are running into is that "let everyone have a voice equally" does not take into account how people actually respond to information that gets sent to them.
The costs were not necessarily monetary. Anyone could run ads in the days before social media. And ads werent that much cheaper than they are now. But in order to do so you would have to have your content and organization vetted by media organizations (fox notwithstanding).
It was harder to run propaganda because it was harder to obfuscate the fact that you were doing it. Now you can send ads that avoid scrutiny by major media, avoid non-targeted groups making yourself almost invisible, while paying though an automated system via proxy so no one has any clue what kind of speech theyre supporting.
And the reason that this has happened is that we've completely indemnified the systems that push those ads, so that they have no liability for what's being said. At least with the papers and television stations, they could be held accountable if they didn't at least perform basic due diligence on the content to make sure it wasn't being defamatory, because reckless malice (not caring if you allow defamation) is a thing.
Given bipartisan support, what's the likelihood this passes? It sounds like an absolutely terribly written law.
Also I have similarly dubious feelings about groups who used to have names like "Morality in Media"
You should:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_on_Sexual_Exploitation
They do things like oppose access to health magazines and even general databases because gasp you can look up sexual terms.