Browser Politics
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@LonM said in Browser Politics:
I haven't seen any indication that mozilla is asking for censorship. I did find a corporate blog post where they asked for the following:
- Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted.
- Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact.
- Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation.
- Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platformsβ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.
All of which sounds perfectly sensible to me, and doesn't mention censorship at all.
Did you miss this part?
Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms.
In other words, they are in favour of deplatforming, they just don't think it's enough.
(And because people think in such tribal, black-and-white terms, I guess that I will have to put a disclaimer here that I am not necessarily against the removal of people engaged in the malicious spread of misinformation from social media platforms, just because I happen to be pointing out a fact that might be construed as supporting the other 'side.' sigh)
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@purgat0ri the way I had interpreted what they wrote was if their suggestions were implemented, then we would not need to deplatform people as the public would be better informed and avoid falling into extremist views (of one side or the other).
In the absence of improvements to social media which could preclude such behaviour, if certain people are going against accepted social norms or rules (making death threats, inciting violence) them I am in favour of deplatforming them as a fallback measure.
But right now it seems social media companies cannot even get that right. It took a world leader inciting violence to be removed from the platform, yet people in marginalised groups continue daily to receive death threats and other horrible messages online. I don't know if it is laziness, a double standard, or what, but social media is just a mess in general.
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@guigirl I am genuinely unsure how to respond to that. I have a more optimistic view of humanity.
Maybe that was the dinosaur's true downfall. They invented some cretaceous social media and the asteroid was all "nope, time for them to go".
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@LonM said in Browser Politics:
@guigirl I am genuinely unsure how to respond to that. I have a more optimistic view of humanity.
Maybe that was the dinosaur's true downfall. They invented some cretaceous social media and the asteroid was all "nope, time for them to go".
I'm afraid that I share @guigirl's gloomy view of humanity, which is where a lot of my ambivalence about censorship comes in. Whenever I speak up, I seem to annoy all of the tribes, so I'm not really confident that the power used by one (perhaps less?) rotten group of herd-mentality bigots to shut down another group of (perhaps more?) rotten group of herd-mentality bigots won't be used to oppress people who merely disagree with one or more details of that group's received wisdom about reality.
On top of that, big tech just seems to be breathtakingly incompetent (and that's a conclusion reached by operating under an intelligent interpretation). YouTube, for instance, have done a lot to clamp down on the spread of anti-vax scuttlebutt, and that's fine and dandy with me; however, any YouTuber who wishes to offer factual information to anti- the anti-vaxxers runs the risk of having their content memory-holed as well, thanks to whatever asinine algorithms Google have half-baked into existence.
I will admit, though, that it is kinda nice to be able to search YouTube for things like 'esoteric symbology' and get some academic information, rather than nothing but addle-brained analyses of the 'secret code' supposedly embedded Madonna/Beyonce/Lady Gaga videos, or to find actual footage & interviews related to the moon landing rather than a billion "it was a hoax" videos.
But on the whole, I think that I am increasingly just done with social media (not that I was heavily, or even moderately, invested to begin with). For the marginal amount of real information disseminated by the various platforms (most of which just links back to journals or 'legacy,' but legit, publications anyway), I think the price of of either being surveilled and curtailed by the Stasi, or trolled and rickrolled (I know Pepe has supplanted Rick, but this rhymes) by the stupids, is simply too high.
PS, have you heard of Vivaldi's RSS reader? (rhetorical question)
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Searching for esoteric symbolism on YT is probably the fastest way down the rabbit hole of madness
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@purgat0ri said in Browser Politics:
Did you miss this part?
Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms.
In other words, they are in favour of deplatforming, they just don't think it's enough.
Not really. That interpretation is reading something into the quote that isn't there. They don't really say anything positive about temporary or permanent removal of bad actors. And 'more' in the quote doesn't imply anything in particular about censorship.
As you pointed out here:
On top of that, big tech just seems to be breathtakingly incompetent (and that's a conclusion reached by operating under an intelligent interpretation). YouTube, for instance, have done a lot to clamp down on the spread of anti-vax scuttlebutt, and that's fine and dandy with me; however, any YouTuber who wishes to offer factual information to anti- the anti-vaxxers runs the risk of having their content memory-holed as well, thanks to whatever asinine algorithms Google have half-baked into existence.
Deplatforming is kind of a blunt tool. It's not going to solve the problem of misinformation or other bad actors.
Deplatforming does the job, and might be appropriate to use in particular circumstances. But it doesn't do the job well, and it has side effects. 'More' needs to be done in the sense that there are better alternatives to deplatforming.Again, Mozilla's comments are perfectly reasonable and don't necessarily imply that they're calling for more censorship. The assumption that they are calling for censorship is the typical overreaction, fearmongering and irresponsible speculation that particular groups on the internet are known for. If certain groups that have a victim-complex are looking for things to be outraged about, statements can be twisted around and interpreted any way they want.
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@ugly said in Browser Politics:
Again, Mozilla's comments are perfectly reasonable and don't necessarily imply that they're calling for more censorship. The assumption that they are calling for censorship is the typical overreaction, fearmongering and irresponsible speculation that particular groups on the internet are known for. If certain groups that have a victim-complex are looking for things to be outraged about, statements can be twisted around and interpreted any way they want.
So, by interpreting 'more than x' to mean 'something in addition to x' instead of 'as an alternative to x' I am the one drawing a long bow here? Got it. The next time a shop assistant disregards my clear intention that they put my items next to my bag rather than inside the bag, as expressed by my request to "put them in the bag, please," I'll thank them to leave their wild speculations out of it and simply do what I asked!
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@purgat0ri "Treatment of splenic cancer requires more than antibiotics and aspirin, and broken bones require more than prayer."
"You mean antibiotics and aspirin plus something or prayer plus something?"
"No, I mean something more effective than utterly ineffective antibiotics and aspirin and prayer. I mean surgery and chemo or setting bones and employing immobilization, like a cast."
That said, my experience to date has been that literally no one in US society in the last 50 years who screamed "censorship!" had anything worthwhile or constructive to say, nor were they actually being censored. As a rule, the utterances that they demanded a platform for, a platform provided to them by others, no less, were false and/or toxic. But that's just my tupennyworth. Just sayin'...
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@Ayespy said in Browser Politics:
@purgat0ri "Treatment of splenic cancer requires more than antibiotics and aspirin, and broken bones require more than prayer."
"You mean antibiotics and aspirin plus something or prayer plus something?"
"No, I mean something more effective than utterly ineffective antibiotics and aspirin and prayer. I mean surgery and chemo or setting bones and employing immobilization, like a cast."
I'm not denying that 'more than' can mean 'other than' in certain contexts, but not always: if a coach says to his or her players, "we'll need more than grit and determination to win this one," it doesn't follow that they are saying that they can dispense with grit and determinationβonly that these alone are unlikely to secure victory. Given that Mozilla's article, unlike the example you posted, offers no clarification one way or another, which interpretation could be fairly said to hew most closely to the letter of the text?
That said, my experience to date has been that literally no one in US society in the last 50 years who screamed "censorship!" had anything worthwhile or constructive to say, nor were they actually being censored. As a rule, the utterances that they demanded a platform for, a platform provided to them by others, no less, were false and/or toxic. But that's just my tupennyworth. Just sayin'...
Ok?
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@purgat0ri To be fair, I don't really care - as Mozilla doin's don't really concern me. And I'm disinclined to argue the point.
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@LonM said in Browser Politics:
"It took a world leader inciting violence..."
I don't think that's fair. The closet thing I saw Trump doing to inciting violence, was him using the phrase "fight like hell".
And if we're going to call that "inciting violence": What if a kid said "my dad is going to kill me for this"? Would you call the cops, and tell them that this kid's father is planning to murder him? Of course not.
"...yet people in marginalised groups continue daily to receive death threats and other horrible messages online. I don't know if it is laziness, a double standard, or what, but social media is just a mess in general."
That, I agree with! There are far worse things on social media, then the phrase "fight like hell". Both from ordinary people, and (without naming names) from major politicians. Yet they're allowed to stand.
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@tmaxcontact Yes, that is what I want to hear: "Vivaldi does not have any politics or any political position"!
With one exception: I don't mind if Vivaldi takes a position on net neutrality, or something like that. But I don't want to see Vivaldi telling us who to vote for, to support or oppose (for example) the Tea Party or the LGBT movement, etc. And I definitely don't want Vivaldi supporting Big Tech censorship!
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@guigirl uuuh
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@Eggcorn I'm not sure it's fair to compare a world leader (with a cult following he himself has acknowledge and egged on) to a toddler using hyperbole.
Or maybe it is a fair comparison, I don't know.
In any case, his own government voted to impeach him, so they can take handle of burden of proof or whatever, there's not much more I (a random internet forum user) can add to this discussion.
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@guigirl said in Browser Politics:
People who are kind to others, & who honour facts, science & morality..., are worthy of my time & respect.
I don't think you get it. This value, in and of itself, makes you a member of the irredeemable, immoral, anti-tradition, lawless, socialistic, communistic, evil, inimical-to-social-order, un-patriotic "left." In other words, the enemy. If you value objective reality, people of good will and their personal welfare over guns, heroes, the symbols of patriotism and "freedom," you are the problem, and you are damned to hell. You ARE the conspiracy to deny patriots their "rights." I don't understand why people can't get this.
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@Ayespy I'm going to be honest: I could honestly say pretty much the same thing that you're saying. Except I'd say it about the left. I'd say that in the left's eyes (at least a huge chunk of the left), valuing reality and morality and all makes you part of the "evil racist hateful right".
And that shows how polarized things have become, if both of us can honestly say that. It also helps show why Vivaldi should stay out of politics!
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@Eggcorn said in Browser Politics:
I'd say that in the left's eyes (at least a huge chunk of the left), valuing reality and morality and all makes you part of the "evil racist hateful right".
I agree this is a popular misconception concerning "liberal" thinking among persons who have been taught to hate and fear a fictitious type of person labeled as "liberal." There is not actually anyone alive who thinks that way. If there were, and that were liberalism, then indeed liberalism would be a bad thing.
It's tough to deny, however, that folks who shout for the death of elected representatives based on a fictitious narrative while storming a seat of government really do exist, and that they really do hold "liberals" to be the embodiment of evil. 'Cuz, really, they say it out loud and put it in writing all the time. I personally know folks who think like this, have no choice but to do business with them, and I am cautious never to let any word concerning political ideology escape my lips. Because they would cut me off as soon as look at me. So consider that. Knowing how they would react if they knew my politics (and I know because they say out loud what "ought to" happen to "people like me," I keep that a secret. Still, knowing their politics, I smile and make nice and do business with them. Hm.
So, yeah. The world is divided. But not everyone on both sides of the divide harbors the same kinds of attitudes toward each other. They just don't.
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@Ayespy said in Browser Politics:
...a fictitious type of person labeled as "liberal."
I don't think that type of person is as fictitious as you think it is. But if I explain why I think that, this thread would likely become a shitstorm (plus, it'd be off-topic). So if we're going to continue this conversation, we should take it to PM.
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@Eggcorn And that's why Vivaldi has no politics. Jon definitely has political views and positions, as do everyone else on the team, but the closest Vivaldi comes to politics is, "The internet ought to be open, and people should be allowed their privacy. Personal data should not be monetized." That's pretty much it.
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@Ayespy Well, that makes me feel bad for Jon. If he publicly expresses even a mild political position (outside of the open Internet thing), it could blow up in his face and Vivaldi's face!
Edit: Or for that matter, a social position. The divide in society isn't just political, it isn't just related to how government should be run. It's also (perhaps even primarily) social, about what society's values should be and all.