Random News not worthy of own thread

[mr.WHO]

It put a smile to my face that we are all together back to free speech discussion from 2 years ago


First, as I stated a few post above, Elon is NOT some kind of liberty Jesus, he's a billionare egomaniac, so if you expect him to be consistent on free speech principles, you're bound for one a hell dissapointment.

Second, I still think free speech in social media is best approach, coz then you can easily spot who might have deranged point of view - recent stuff from Ye is good example of this.
Still not sure if it's PR stunt, mental breakdown, temporary fad or his genuine believe. Albeit in last 3 yeast we had a couple epic meltdowns, probably will have a several more in next 2-3 years.
Calling for violence should be clear bannable offense, but given that we have things like microaggresion and people in the West now see every little thing as violence, I don't think it will be solid rule for long.

"Muh private company, make your own Twitter" - that would be good approach, if not that we were basically in duopoly of Twitter and Facebook.
Those two (with Google/Alphabet support) were actively trying to kill all new competition by doing schenanigans with payment processor companies and adding legislative bloat that increase the barriers for new competitors to enter.
This means there was no free market here and you didn't had much of a choice.
However since last 2-3 years, we see some cracks in this oligopoly (now with addition of Tik Tok). All big fish seem to have troubles and new competitiors are now by dozen.
If Twitter, Meta and Tik Tok collapse tomorow, it would be social media bubble pop that was long overdue. There will be many companies to build anew from ashes.

Ironically, Elon ruining Twitter might be bigger win for free speech (and free market competition) than any reform he try to do with Twitter 2.0.

[Chips]

Meanwhile, TikTok is apparently hosting videos from Wagner group glorifying violence in Ukraine -- with a billion accumulated views.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63820437

NewsGuard said it had identified 160 videos on the short-video platform that "allude to, show, or glorify acts of violence" by the mercenary group, founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Fourteen of those videos showed full or partial footage of the apparent killing of former Russian mercenary Yevgeny Nuzhin which saw high engagement within days of being uploaded last month, it said.

Analysts said one video of the murder was viewed at least 900,000 times before it was taken down. TikTok is owned by China-based firm ByteDance.

Twitter aint the only platform that has issues - unsurprisingly. More worrying is why anyone would want to watch a video of someone being murdered (was it by hammer blows to the head?). Pretty damned sick, on both accounts.

[Observe]

Calling for violence should be clear bannable offense, but given that we have things like microaggresion and people in the West now see every little thing as violence, I don't think it will be solid rule for long.

A charge of calling for violence should be limited to physical violence. Discussing the validity of gender pronouns, vaccine efficacy, abortion, obesity, or any other subject should be open to a choice of whether to participate or not. If the complaint is that someone is offended, then welcome to the world, which is not and never has been a garden of thorn-less roses.

How about bullying? Yes, there will be unfortunate cases of bullying with consequent distress and suicide, but this problem runs far deeper than social media. If we really want a completely civil social media environment, we would have to root out all the destructive tendencies latent in the human mind. In the meantime, we can choose whether to participate in social media and we can choose where we do so.

For the most part, this forum is really the only social media participation that I have. Why? Because it is well moderated (yes, censored) and I enjoy the members herein. Long ago, I gave up my short-lived Facebook account, because I didn't like the toxicity and plain stupidity of what I experienced there. I never bothered with Twitter, because I didn't see the point.

So, aside from threats or plans to commit physical violence, or breaking the laws of the land, I say let those on social media do what they will. I'm OK with right-wing or left-wing extremists and other misfits, spewing their crazy in the open, where everyone who chooses can see them and be forewarned of their views. Hell, sometimes there is even a nugget of truth to be found in the wilderness of the misty fringe.

[Vertigo 7]

You find truth in racism and bigotry? You find truth in lies about vaccinations? You find it acceptable to give people a voice that would lead others to their deaths?

[Observe]

You find truth in racism and bigotry? You find truth in lies about vaccinations? You find it acceptable to give people a voice that would lead others to their deaths?

In the case of racism and bigotry, I find the truth that those ideas exist and I have an opportunity to dissect their basis. Likewise with lies about vaccines etc. I just don't think it is healthy for us to create an environment where there is only a single, controlled narrative, an echo chamber. I realize that we are at loggerheads on this topic and I'm glad that we have the ability to discuss our differences with civility. I would like to think that any subject would be open to such discussion in pursuit of truth and expression.

[Vertigo 7]

Well, I find it more healthy to stamp it out at its source instead of letting it grow. You can't cure disease by letting it live.

[clakclak]

A charge of calling for violence should be limited to physical violence. Discussing the validity of gender pronouns, vaccine efficacy, abortion, obesity, or any other subject should be open to a choice of whether to participate or not. If the complaint is that someone is offended, then welcome to the world, which is not and never has been a garden of thorn-less roses.[...]In the case of racism and bigotry, I find the truth that those ideas exist and I have an opportunity to dissect their basis.[...]

Are you also against public libraries and schools banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ issues or gender? Just curious, because to be quite frank I often heard similar talking points from people who will then, in the very next sentence, say that books like "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" by Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado or "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe obviously should not be allowed in public libaries. And for the record, YES, I want Jordan Peterson and Adolf Hitler to be available in libaries, just like I want the other two to be available. I do not like Peterson and Hitler, but it is a god damn PUBLIC library where freedom of speech, unlike with a private company, actually applies very directly at least in my opinion.

[Vertigo 7]

Public libraries are very much held to the 1st amendment as they're government owned.

[mr.WHO]

It might be that there is too much subjectivity and fluidity with current "private moderation" over a major internet platforms.

Rules are language of machines - 0 and 1 - the more exceptions, the more double standards the more frequent changes the more confusing and redundant it become.

There is a need for some kind of standard internet bill of rights or constitution - the first country, organization or even company who will create it, will gain and edge over the one not having it.

...and no, TOS is nothing like that, it's just a HR/PR brainlet to protect companies from litigation.


I mean the first pieces of puzze are already there, like:
- EU "right to be forgoten(on the internet)" - e.g. this was made so if you post something dump on twitter, it shouldn't be pull on you 10-15 years in future, when definition of <pick the -ism of your choice> change.
- EU General Data Protection Regulation of how to handle user privacy and data protection
- US section 230 that defines, if the platform is public square or a publisher and what are priviledges and responsibilities of each.

What else could be added:
- some kind of goverment regulation of user limit/traffic where company over certain size automatically became public square (e.g. too big to fail, but instead, too big to remain as a publisher).
- some kind of restrictions on "trending/recomended" manipulation in public square
- some kind of oversight and countermeasures regulation against bot usage in public platforms (I wouldn't like to be an advertizer to pay hard hash only to find out 80% of user base are bots, that won't buy anything)
- probably many more things that I'm not aware of


We probably still need maybe a decade for various regulation to be iron out and tested in reality.
At some point we'll reach critical mass of trial and error, to produce some kind of unified bill, that will become the core standard of future internet.

[clakclak]

Public libraries are very much held to the 1st amendment as they're government owned.

True. Problem: I worded that statement so that it seemed as if I was only referencing the situation in America. I did so because I assumed most people would be most familiar with that. However I mean the statement in a more universal way, so let me rephrase:

Are you also against public libraries and schools banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ issues or gender? Just curious, because to be quite frank I often heard similar talking points from people who will then, in the very next sentence, say that books like "Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen aber wissen sollten" by Alice Hasters or "Radikale Zärtlichkeit – Warum Liebe politisch ist" by Şeyda Kurt obviously should not be allowed in public libaries. And for the record, YES, I want Hans-Georg Maaßen and Adolf Hitler to be available in libaries, just like I want the other two to be available. I do not like Maaßen and Hitler, but it is a god damn PUBLIC library where freedom of speech, unlike with a private company, actually applies very directly at least in my opinion.

[Alan Phipps]

Woah there. Given the title of this thread, would a dedicated Musk thread (and/or yet another separate FoS thread) be preferred now?
(I ask mainly because FoS discussions tend to get heated/personal and their threads are prone to getting official interventions in some way - yes, I can plainly see the irony in that statement.)

[mr.WHO]

Woah there. Given the title of this thread, would dedicated Musk and/or (yet another) FoS threads be preferred now?

The tales of Musk been a hot topic for last weeks, thus why it's end out being put here.

I don't think it will last long, probably die out by Holiday Break, so it's probably not worth of opening new topic.

[Observe]

Are you also against public libraries and schools banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ issues or gender? Just curious, because to be quite frank I often heard similar talking points from people who will then, in the very next sentence, say that books like "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" by Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado or "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe obviously should not be allowed in public libaries. And for the record, YES, I want Jordan Peterson and Adolf Hitler to be available in libaries, just like I want the other two to be available. I do not like Peterson and Hitler, but it is a god damn PUBLIC library where freedom of speech, unlike with a private company, actually applies very directly at least in my opinion.

For the record, I am a long-time liberal Democrat. As such, I don't subscribe to most right-wing talking points by default. Yes, I am against banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ etc. Let people discuss these things from all viewpoints, without fear of being censored from discourse.

[clakclak]

Woah there. Given the title of this thread, would dedicated Musk and/or (yet another) FoS threads be preferred now?

I think I will refrain from commenting further on FoS. I should not have made any comments to begin with (I can understand if others answer my post above, but I will not answer back or if they want me to send them a PM). All of us have thought about this topic a lot of times. All of us have our opinions. And I think no matter how long we discuss the topic, there will be no new thought to be found here that was mentioned before. So I agree with mr.WHO in that I do not think it will be needed.

[Vertigo 7]

For the record, I am a long-time liberal Democrat. As such, I don't subscribe to most right-wing talking points by default. Yes, I am against banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ etc. Let people discuss these things from all viewpoints, without fear of being censored from discourse.

See that's where you and I disagree. People should fear consequences otherwise there's 0 accountability.

You can't sit there with a straight face and say "Jewish space lasers cause California wildfires" is a debate worthy topic (or has anything meaningful to dissect) even though that bs came from a sitting member of congress, and that's not even the most asinine thing that's been said. Yet you're okay with allowing this kind of nonsense to persist? I fail to see how anything meaningful can come from allowing things like that (and worse) to be part of any notion of a civilized society. All that does is encourage others to follow in their footsteps and we all saw what happens (Jan 6, 2021) when these ideologies are allowed to thrive.

I'll further add, these same people you're saying deserve a voice are trying to rewrite history by burying any truth of slavery and replacing it with fallacies like "slavery was a choice" and other truly disgusting moves. Yes - these people need more platforms to voice their bs, for sure!

And here's the other side of this... They're not interested in debate or discourse or whatever you wanna call it. In their alternate universe, they're right and nothing you can say will change their mind (or they know they're wrong, they don't care, they want to brainwash the next and following generations). And this isn't a recent revelation. This begs the question, did you sleep through the last 6 years?

[chew-ie]

For the record, I am a long-time liberal Democrat. As such, I don't subscribe to most right-wing talking points by default. Yes, I am against banning books on critical race theory, LBTQI+ etc. Let people discuss these things from all viewpoints, without fear of being censored from discourse.

See that's where you and I disagree. People should fear consequences otherwise there's 0 accountability.

You can't sit there with a straight face and say "Jewish space lasers cause California wildfires" is a debate worthy topic (or has anything meaningful to dissect) even though that bs came from a sitting member of congress, and that's not even the most asinine thing that's been said. Yet you're okay with allowing this kind of nonsense to persist? I fail to see how anything meaningful can come from allowing things like that (and worse) to be part of any notion of a civilized society. All that does is encourage others to follow in their footsteps and we all saw what happens (Jan 6, 2021) when these ideologies are allowed to thrive.

I'll further add, these same people you're saying deserve a voice are trying to rewrite history by burying any truth of slavery and replacing it with fallacies like "slavery was a choice" and other truly disgusting moves. Yes - these people need more platforms to voice their bs, for sure!

And here's the other side of this... They're not interested in debate or discourse or whatever you wanna call it. In their alternate universe, they're right and nothing you can say will change their mind (or they know they're wrong, they don't care, they want to brainwash the next and following generations). And this isn't a recent revelation. This begs the question, did you sleep through the last 6 years?

That last paragraph of yours is homing in to the core problem: unfiltered free speech is flooding the world with nonsense - even in places it shouldn't be. (government, universities etc)

If leader boards degrade to regulars tables we are in serious trouble. And there are people out there who think this it worth it. Or - and this is my pov as well - those people doesn't have the slightest clue about the consequences of going "full on free speech".

[Warenwolf]

Meanwhile in USA:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/poli ... index.html

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution”

[matthewfarmery]

Things are hotting up against him. He wants the shield of the presidency to protect him from being indicted. Especailly as he lost many court cases against him, also two former white house lawyers have answered questions in a grand jury. He is sweating. But he also mentally unfit. He should be removed from holding any farther office.

He will only get worse as the pressure continues to build.

[chew-ie]

Awesome - the French are banning short flights: https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/ ... -proposals

[mr.WHO]

Make sence, if you have reliable and well connected high speed rail.

Too bad in many other places, rail was neglected in favor of air and highway network.