Comment by groby_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by groby_b | Hacker News Reader

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I would like to point out that "censorship" is, strictly speaking, an instruments only governments can employ.

So, we're talking about government regulation of speech. And that already exists, for good reason. Incitement to violence, threats of violence, defamation, child pornography are all instances of it.

All of those regulations exist because the damage done to society by these forms of speech has been deemed outweighing the benefits to society that would result from inclusion of it.

If that is true for fake news is arguable. I happen to believe it is, you seem to think the right to speech outweighs the damage.

But I'm not sure if that's what we're talking about here. Are you arguing that the value of being able to have fake speech outweighs the damage it does, or are you arguing that all forms of speech, including the currently outlawed ones, should be free and no restrictions whatsoever should apply?

Related, the question of a "censorship apparatus" is also open to interpretation - we're settling current restrictions mostly through courts & law enforcement. I would guess the answer if you consider that a censorship apparatus is influenced by what you think about current speech regulations.

I guess I'm using the Wikipedia definition of censorship which diverges from yours somewhat. To quote, because it's short:

Censorship is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

I think suppression of public communication by a monopoly corporation like Facebook does count here. And to be clear, yes, I am arguing that the value of being able to have fake speech outweighs the damage it does. As soon as you begin on the mission to suppress "fake" speech, you have to elevate some person or institution to the role of deciding what is fake and what is real, and that's far too much power to give to anyone. That power must remain with the individual, as imperfect as we all may be.

Ah. I'm looking at the first amendment definition, which is indeed somewhat different :)

And even there, we have made that determination e.g. for speech inciting violence. That's a fairly well-defined case, so I assume that's why we all agreed we're OK with that.

As a thought experiment - or, really, to help me understand - what if we declared "fake news" as "intentionally wrong in substantial facts" and had a very clear definition of substantial, and what counts as intent?

Second thought experiment: What if you could still say whatever you wanted, but "fake news" simply wouldn't be content that's promoted into people's streams? Is that still censorship? After all, you can still say whatever you want - but individuals won't have to hear you when they haven't consented?

(I happen to believe that the core issue isn't the fact that there are fake news, but the fact that the various social media ranking algorithms violate consent by injecting things they deem interesting. I.e. it's not about speech, per se - it's about the fact that the platforms allow third parties to inject themselves into conversations unasked)

Amendment I:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That is not a definition of censorship. Nice try, though.

Regarding your first thought experiment, we already have that in the form of libel law. If you have standing to show that you are harmed by what is said and can show it to be intentionally and substantially wrong, you have a good case. Who brings the suit against general purveyors of fake news in your thought experiment? The United States Government?

The bigger problem is that when you move beyond the trivial, the dumb garbage that some people believe because it suits their biases and they don't care to find the truth, you quickly get into territory where people simply cannot agree on the facts. I believe that the truth can only be arrived at in an environment that allows free inquiry and open discussion. If you really think that the truth is a clean thing, and can't name at least a half dozen "open questions" in current world affairs, then you are not paying attention.

I'd appreciate it if we could leave the slights and barbs at home. I really think we can have a conversation without.

As for the definition of censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...

First sentence: "In general, censorship in the United States, which involves the suppression of speech or public communication, raises issues of freedom of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution". I apologize if my short-hand of "first amendment definition" was misleading - it's not defined in the 1st, but the 1st is definitely the basis of legal handling of censorship.

So now we have two competing wikipedia definitions. Looking at the National Coalition Against Censorship, the first amendment still seems relevant: http://ncac.org/resource/what-is-censorship

I think the case can be made, at least, that there are different definitions of censorship, none obviously invalid.

"If you really think that the truth is a clean thing"

In many cases, no. In many other cases, yes. There are things that are verifiably true or false. I'm not interested - for the purposes of discussing fake news - with the open questions. But for the purpose of experiment #1, I am interested in verifiable falsehoods. The dumb garbage. What if the government could and would sue for that? (N.B.: It's a thought experiment. I'm not advocating for that approach)

I also still think that experiment #2 leads in a better direction. Falsehoods will always exist, but there's nothing that says we need to make it easier to propagate them, under your or my definition.

I disagree that we have "competing wikipedia definitions," I don't find that argument convincing and think you're just refusing to admit to being mistaken about what a word means. I hope that's not too sharp of a barb.

One reason I want separate the easily proven falsehoods is that the people who fall for that stuff are not very persuadable anyway, and the damage to the body politic is not very great, and I think that the real goal of the censorship crusaders is to shut down competing worldviews.

Being sued or prosecuted by your government for "propagating falsehoods" would be awful obviously. What else is there to do with that thought experiment than to recoil and place it in the bad outcomes bin?

The thing about recommender systems really is an interesting question and a legitimate gray area but I'm personally not interested in pursuing it at the moment. In fact I'm going to stop replying to this thread, but if you think theres a way to incorporate some sort of unbiased veracity estimate into such a system, by all means go for it.

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