| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago |
| At this point, whoever opposes big tech regulation is in favor of these kinds of abuses happening. Here in Brazil there is a big discussion around this regulation but for other reasons, like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles. The criticism against these regulations are all valid and need to be discussed, because we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda. But all this discussion should be in the direction of how these companies are going to be regulated, not how they aren't. |
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| ▲ | gruez 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Can you imagine this logic being applied to any other topic? >At this point, whoever opposes [CSAM scanning/encryption backdoors] is in favor of [child abuse/criminal activity] ... |
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| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment (either regulation or rampant corporate abuse). My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit" | | |
| ▲ | gruez 2 days ago | parent [-] | | >This is a stawman designed to misdirect the discussion. How about we keep discussing regulation in the context of ad abuse? I can't see how my comment is a "strawman" in any meaningful sense. >A valid criticism would be an implied false dichotomy in my original comment That's exactly my point. Adopting a "you're either with us or against us" attitude is totally toxic, and shouldn't be accepted just because it's for a cause you happen to agree with. >My idea is for us to discuss this. Is regulation not the right way? What's the alternative? Not, "oh if that doesn't work for all possible universe of applicable solutions, it doesn't deserve merit" If you wanted an intelligent discussion on what regulation should consist of, what's the point of starting off which such an absolutist remark? What does it add compared to something like "what's the right form of regulation to address this?" | | |
| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So, what's the the right form of regulation to address this? Are you against regulation? Or are you here just to discuss aesthetics? | | |
| ▲ | gruez 2 days ago | parent [-] | | >So, what's the the right form of regulation to address this? I don't know, but the ones I've seen so far do not interest me. >Are you against regulation? I'm against bad regulation, yes. >Or are you here just to discuss aesthetics? If you think objections to "you're either with us or against us" and "we have to do something" attitudes are merely objections over "aesthetics", then yes. | | |
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| ▲ | red_trumpet 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. Do you also think your water company should be allowed to poison the water coming from your tap? | | |
| ▲ | gruez 2 days ago | parent [-] | | >You are comparing the regulation of business practices to the breach of human rights. So "you're either with us or on the side of the bad guys" is a valid form of argument, but only when the bad guys are evil corporations? More to the point, much of the "regulations" proposed does end up infringing on human rights. For instance regulations forcing social media companies to remove "disinformation" or "content causing hatred/discomfort" necessarily limits others' freedom of speech. |
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| ▲ | buellerbueller 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The discussion, however, is about this topic, which is meaningfully different due to the sheer scale of the abuses occurring. Entire populations are being subjected to propagandistic brainwashing. That scale is not happening in your example. |
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| ▲ | gjm11 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > like the social media algorithms pushing child abuse content to potential pedophiles There's something weird about this complaint, isn't there? I mean, it's horrifying if social media algorithms are pushing child abuse content to anyone, but so far as I can see it isn't worse if the people they're showing it to are paedophiles. Maybe it's even a bit less bad since they're less likely to be distressed by it. I think there's something deformed about a lot of the moral discourse around this stuff -- as if what matters is making sure that Those Awful People don't get anything they want rather than making sure bad things don't happen. (Far and away the most important bad thing associated with child abuse is the actual child abuse but somehow that's not where everyone's attention goes.) |
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| ▲ | armchairhacker 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What kind of regulation do you have in mind? The government controls the algorithm? Then the government pushes propaganda. The algorithm is public? Then what kind of public algorithm? "Sort by recency", "sort by popularity", etc. will be gamed by propaganda-pushers. "Sort by closest friends" is better, but I suspect even it will be gamed by adversaries who initially push genuine interesting content and encourage you to befriend them, then shift to propaganda. Sorry to be cynical, but I doubt you can prevent people from being attracted to and influenced by propaganda; if necessary, well-funded organizations will hire paid actors to meet people in person. You must narrow the goal, e.g. can hinder foreign propaganda by down-weighting accounts from foreign IP addresses, detecting and down-weighting foreign accounts which use residential VPNs, and perhaps detecting and down-weighting domestic people who are especially influenced by foreign propaganda to the extent they're probably being funded (but you don't know, so then you get controversy and ambiguity...) |
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| ▲ | _Algernon_ 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Reverse chronological + subscription (ie. the user must actively make a choice to follow some channel or creator to get them in their feed). This is how most platforms started, and while there were still issues (eg. rewarding frequent posting) they seemed a lot less problematic than what we have today. The main issue isn't the misinformation or disinformation; it is how quickly you can amplify reach and reach millions. Reverse chronological + follows based on active user choice would largely address that issue. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 2 days ago | parent [-] | | People think that's what they want but they really don't. For most regular social media users if they haven't checked their feed recently they would rather see major life events (birth, death, marriage, graduation) prioritized first instead of a picture of someone's lunch. |
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| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm no political scientist, but I believe in checks and balances. It translates roughly to costly burocracy, but if the next president or Congress will face significant pushback either from each other or the judiciary, and if the democratic institutions are strong, then we can trust that a reasonably well structured law will prevent by itself abuse. The law is abused in the US because they have the tradition of keeping the constitution to a bare minimum and govern by precedence and common sense, which as we can see isn't very productive. So yeah I guess I'm advocating for burocracy for now, at least until someone comes with a better idea. I'd take burocracy many times before corporation abuse. EDIT: now I see I haven't addressed the main question. I believe that society needs a mechanism to hold big tech platforms accountable for abuse. The speed which big techs can push certain kinds of information through their services is such that the due process, when it works, is only effective after damage is done and by then different accounts and different outlets are already pushing the same kind of disinformation ads. Therefore preemptive removal of this content is necessary. The problem now becomes how to make it so that the universe of content eligible for preemptive removal can't be abused by the current administration. How can we make it so that the Israeli misinformation machine can't overshadow other institutions, but at the same time guaranteeing that the next political party in power can't abuse this system to suppress valid propaganda from the opposition? | | |
| ▲ | nradov 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Your comment makes no sense. Laws and regulations aren't intended to be "productive" so that's a total non sequitur. The US Constitution has some flaws but it's still the closest anyone has come to perfection in the governance of human society. | | |
| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Laws and regulations aren't intended to be "productive" so that's a total non sequitur. Saying that the current way isn't productive isn't the same as saying that laws and regulations are designed to be productive. Actually I've acknowledged that first thing when I said that laws are burocratic. But you have to agree that some form of productivity is expected, otherwise why even bother if nothing is gonna get done at the govt level? > The US Constitution has some flaws but it's still the closest anyone has come to perfection in the governance of human society. How can you even falsify this claim? And should I take your word for it? From my point of view that makes little sense when corporations can buy elections like Elon did for Trump, and when Trump can just do as he pleases like it's happening now with university sensorship and the sacking of government officials that doesn't subscribe to the president's ideological agenda. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 2 days ago | parent [-] | | No, I don't have to agree. There is no such expectation. Your premise is fundamentally incorrect. | | |
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| ▲ | cjs_ac 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > we also don't want to create these mechanisms at the government level only so the next authoritarian president can use them for their own personal agenda There's nothing stopping this hypothetical authoritarian president from creating this after they come to power. |
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| ▲ | molszanski 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s much easier to abuse existing oppression machine than to build it from scratch | |
| ▲ | _Algernon_ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It requires less political capital to repurpose an existing system than to introduce a new system for a specific purpose. See for instance the number of times Chat Control has failed to become law. | |
| ▲ | gchamonlive 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which is why the democratic system relies on checks and balances. If the democratic institutions are strong an authoritarian governor will at worse face incredible pushback from the judiciary, if Congress and executive powers are taken over. If one of the three powers remain independent, there is hope to recover the democratic stability without a violent revolution. |
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