Mailchimp outlines right to ban users for “inaccurate” content
reclaimthenet.org
reclaimthenet.org
If their views were the ones these companies were shutting down, they'd be up at arms about it. The evidence is in the response to Coinbase recently instituting a No Politics policy. Plenty on the left construed that as being censorship, ironically enough.
To the right liberal judges are "activist judges". To the left conservative judges are "activist judges".
As a "liberal" (I'm not sure what that even means anymore) in his mid 40s I've been appalled at the portion of the left turning their back on the idea of free speech.
The hypocrisy, lack of critical thinking and myopia runs in both directions. And, unfortunately, it runs deep.
https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-removed-130-accounts-linke...
https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/01/20/154481/cybersecu...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/12/twitter-d...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-shuts-down-200000-chin...
You can find many more sources like these. They do also delete accounts from far right troll farms, but the amount of astroturfing and gaslighting with the intention of pushing civil unrest, especially during this election, is palpable. Right now I'm looking at Reddit where garbage posts are somehow getting massively upvoted and gilded (with real money), pushing encouragement for civil unrest and paranoia about our democratic processes and whether or not they work.
It's state-sponsored. I don't have the keys to Reddit's back-end so I can't prove it, but there are plenty of sources on nation states trying to spread this type of garbage. Proceed to Google to find further sources beyond the ones I already gave.
I don’t see why a private company with a website is any different than the above situations that no one bats an eye about. No one is entitled to grab any available microphone and say something awful. The only privilege you have is that the government shouldn’t go after you for this. Not that you shouldn’t get the privately owned microphone removed from your hands. And the government is not throwing alex jones into a jail cell despite the hysteria.
Doing the math: the "side" that holds power in a certain sector is the one wanting to control information. The best conclusion from that has to be "those in power want to control information to keep themselves in power", which makes a lot more sense than trying to attribute something as simple as "controlling information" to any particular political leaning.
The political spectrum in the US is fascinating in the worst way possible. If there is a range of the political spectrum that more closely reflects reality, it contains a part of the blue, but almost everything else is outside it. So, if one were to sensor dishonesty, and preserve what's more factual, it would really not surprise me that, from a political point of view, its very biased against the right.
Then the question is if its correct to focus on the political nature of it, or the factuality of it. Imagine if one were to sensor a press conference from the White House based on factual correctness. Not much would get through, and one would say it is "Liberal sensorship".
In any case. I should know better by know that comments like these are not welcome. But, those were my two cents.
The past 5 years have shown us that as a society we have lost our common basis in fact (alternative facts, fake news etc.) and the whole thing worries me. It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship. Short of a massive change in education to focus on critical thinking and evaluating received information, but that takes years and the problems we have now are destroying western democracy.
This is not reasoning for censorship by the way, its reasoning for systemizing trustable sources of information. Someone will care enough to get it right and fair so we should promote them and ignore the others.
It also worries me that so many people have been so pickled in today's ubiquitous leftist policing of what must and can't be said, what mustn't be reported, what must be publicly proclaimed (or you're a "literal nazi") that they literally can no longer understand the arguments of old fashioned leftists like Noam Chomsky about how silencing opposing opinions, regardless of what justification you claim, is utterly corrupt.
A debate where one party gets to decide what both parties get to say is a sham. Whatever it pretends to be about, it's not about trying to determine actual facts.
This seems to be the goal of any divide-and-conquer strategy.
Please rest assured that there's nothing you can do about it and that is a beautiful thing.
Personally, if [company] wants to filter or censor, go for it if and only if a) they disclose it and b) I can turn it off. We have a model for this already, it's called "safe search"
When you filter without disclosing, you're stealing my agency and creating a situation for near-undetectable abuse.
> We have a model for this already, it's called "safe search"
An interesting position, keep in mind that many people consider the act of ordering to be a form of censorship. That is, it is "censorship" if a site is pushed to the second page of the Google search results. You can't opt-out of that.
Yep. In the old days you had a killfile in your newsreader (NNTP client), problem solved.
Imagine a church emailing its members before Easter saying that Jesus rose from the dead. Since that's impossible, it's a clear violation of this misinformation rule. But I doubt MailChimp will ban it because their "sole discretion" is obviously going to be biased political opinion, not anything objective.
Section 230 was implemented to ALLOW for moderation, not to prevent it.
If platform published their content rules and publicly demonstrated how they apply them equally I doubt we would be having any of these discussions.
Instead we have "moderation" that always favors one political line of thought. That's not moderation, that's editorial control and at that point I think it's more than reasonable to argue you have crossed the threshold from platform to publisher.
Usenet survived for decades and still does without some central bureaucracy lording over it. Have an issue with them? Plonk!
Freaking snowflakes. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is the slipperiest road yet. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Remember when that used to be a catch phrase of the left? What a bizzaro time we live in.
They do (or at least the publishing part). Who decides whether or not they apply them "equally"? The government? Like you want the Trump administration to have decision making power over whether or not Twitter is fairly moderating content?
> Instead we have "moderation" that always favors one political line of thought.
This is certainly a claim made. I view things differently: right-wing media and pundits have been treated with kid gloves for decades now. The shift to treating them "fairly" is viewed as discrimination, much the same way as certain groups on the far right have viewed every other example of "objective" fair treatment as discrimination, since they ultimately feel as though they've lost some privilege.
You may view things differently, but you're clearly biased (and perhaps, so am I). So why should I trust you to make objective decisions here?
Either way it is a slippery slope.
It's when they are vague and applied unevenly that the line between platform and publisher gets crossed.
For example, I find it fascinating that Twitter doesn't put warnings on the leader of Iran's racist tweets (or even bans him for clear TOS violations) but peppers the US presidents tweets with warnings. With a straight face you are going to tell me that politics has nothing to do with it?
“There has been an increased amount of criticism of the platforms. But it’s not accurate. There’s a First Amendment distinction between publishers and distributors. But since Section 230’s been in place, that’s not really been an issue for the internet.”
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte...
I'm waiting for people to go after someone's electric company.
Just because there are network effects at play does not for a second mean that a private business loses the right to regulate who it has as a customer.
your analogy doesn't even begin to apply. I can go to another mall if I'm banned. there isn't another dominant social network. Getting banned from Facebook and Twitter is like having your phone line cut off by Ma Bell in 1950, not like getting kicked out of a mall you incredible dunce
Therefore you wouldn't see any problem with regulations or laws that restrict the rights of companies to enact this sort of policy that Mailchimp is.
In other words, someone posting dangerous content could threaten my deliverability, even though I didn’t do anything. Therefore, if I purchase services from an email provider, I will want them to moderate it.
You also solve the coordination problem by making all businesses accept minority customers. Southern racists couldn’t boycott all businesses. Likewise, left wing activists can’t boycott you for allowing conservative speech if all of your competitors also have to allow it.
Stop comparing conservative speech to people who were actually oppressed because a large number of people want to use services that have someone moderating the content. It’s offensive.
https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr...
I'll believe it when I see it and in the meantime this is just political posturing.
most of us have corporate jobs that pay well compare to the majority of the people around. That isn't a recipe for fermenting rebeliosness , it is more of a way for complacency and being content, at least deep inside, with the things they are.
That said, I don't think it is a good idea. What prompted this change? I would guess PR since that is their business.
Deleted comment
This is true, but it overlooks the fact that it can be used to shut out a lot more than QAnon.
> Which is the responsible thing to do.
That is a matter of opinion, not fact. What QAnon "is", is a matter of opinion, and each individual opinion is based on what the individual knows about QAnon. Based on my experiences, most people's perception of QAnon is derived from reading stories about QAnon in the media, and most every story I've ever read in the media seems far more like propaganda [1] than reporting well researched evidence. This might not be so bad if people realized that this is the case, but from what I read on forums, most people seem to believe that these stories are ~purely factual (I imagine this is what they believe because it seems that way, because each new story is cognitively evaluated within the context of current knowledge, which is of course based on the prior consumption of such stories).
[1] Example: QAnon "is" [X], "QAnoners" "believe(!)" [X, Y, Z, etc], etc. These are estimates, at best, due to the fundamental of the organization/phenomenon (actually, such statements are always estimates, it's just particularly difficult with things like QAnon, conspiracy theorists, supporters of a political party, etc - and also, there is psychological motive (often not even consciously realized) for framing reality in a certain way). What QAnon/QAnoners is/are, precisely/comprehensively, is not known. The human mind often seems to not willingly accept the notion of unknowness, particular on certain classes of topics [2], which makes this sort of propaganda particularly potent.
[2] Replace QAnon in the above with "Jews" or "Black people", and observe whether your mind processes the examples differently. I find thought experiments like this to be quite an effective tool for checking whether one is biased when reading the news - I would think that if politicians and the media really cared about "fake news" as much as they breathlessly proclaim, we would have seen some organized public initiative for actually teaching the critical thinking skills we're constantly told are needed. But what we actually see is the notion of critical thinking being used as a psychological talking point in the overall, unseen meme war. But then, has this not always been more or less the case throughout history?
While true, this technicality can be applied to almost anything. This type of statement tends to shut down discussion instead of encouraging it. We should be striving to come to a consensus on topics and to share perspectives - not to just throw our hands up because we might not have perfect knowledge.
Regarding QAnon, while media stories might be sensationalist, QAnon itself is a disturbing trend. QAnon originated in conspiracy theories (on 4chan) and is still promoting some pretty fringe theories.
In my opinion, the real danger of QAnon is their use of social media to take people further and further into their theories. I was disturbed when the "save the children" campaign was in full force on Facebook/Twitter. I did not need a media story to tell me about QAnon in these moments, I could personally click on stories and follow the rabbit hole back to QAnon. They led to conspiracy theories about politicians trafficking children, the "deep state," etc. These were not hidden - they were only a couple clicks away from the "save the children" posts that were trending. These types of conspiracy theories do not contribute to any sort of rational discourse - they only push people farther into the QAnon group.
I believe Facebook (and Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, etc) has the responsibility to not allow these "rabbit holes" that feed conspiracy theories. Otherwise, anyone with enough influence to generate these echo chambers can use them to influence large swaths of the public into believing things that have no basis in reality.
...
You... do realize TFA is about censorship, that is, a attempt to actively and deliberately shut down discussion, right?
Exactly, and the reason for this is fundamental: reality is largely unknown. Whether we choose to acknowledge that is up to each of us, but it doesn't change the underlying fact.
> We should be striving to come to a consensus on topics
Not me, not if we are lying to ourselves in the process. If something is literally unknown, it should be acknowledged thusly. We're not comfortable relying on pure intuition in science or programming, why do it in the rest of life if it isn't necessary? Shall we think logically and scientifically, as we're told, or shall we not? Pick a side.
> and to share perspectives
Yes, but as it, perspectives are often misperceived (and in turn, mass-broadcast) as facts (distorting the perceptions of reality of unknow numbers of other people). I imagine you can see the harm in the case of conspiracy theories, but can you see the possible harm of it outside of that sphere? Does your thinking methodology change, depending on the scenario? Have you ever spent any serious time thinking about such things?
I suspect people here would prefer that conspiracy theorists tighten up their epistemology levels - but if we refuse to do the same, who are we to be lecturing others?
> not to just throw our hands up because we might not have perfect knowledge.
I've never understood this style of thinking - just because one acknowledges reality as it is, you have to throw up your hands and give up? Why? You can still make decisions, just be honest about the fact that they are based on speculation.
> Regarding QAnon, while media stories might be sensationalist, QAnon itself is a disturbing trend. QAnon originated in conspiracy theories (on 4chan) and is still promoting some pretty fringe theories.
95% agree, except for the origin. There is a plausible theory that QAnon is actually a state sponsored psy op. You have to admit, the QAnon story (and coverage in the media) has been incredibly effective in shaping widespread public opinion on the epistemic validity of not just QAnon, but conspiracy theories in general. The effects of this can be observed right here on HN, a community with far above average critical thinking skills. Surely you realize that propaganda has always existed, right? Is it impossible(!) that this is a new, more sophisticated form of propaganda? (Here is an example of where not lying to ourselves might be a good idea - or at least, trying to.)
> In my opinion, the real danger of QAnon is their use of social media to take people further and further into their theories.
This will eventually materialize into a (currently unknowable) harm of magnitude X.
The QAnon phenomenon is also being used as a justification for censorship, which will eventually materialize into a harm of magnitude Y.
Which is higher, X or Y? Do we know? Do we care? Or, will we instead assert as "fact" that such concerns are "gish-galloping* (ie: choosing to lie to ourselves, and broadcasting those lies into the minds of others)?
> I was disturbed when the "save the children" campaign was in full force on Facebook/Twitter. I did not need a media story to tell me about QAnon in these moments, I could personally click on stories and follow the rabbit hole back to QAnon. They led to conspiracy theories about politicians trafficking children, the "deep state," etc. These were not hidden - they were only a couple clicks away from the "save the children" posts that were trending. These types of conspiracy theories do not contribute to any sort of rational discourse - they only push people farther into the QAnon group.
I'm disturbed by the percentage of the population that is more concerned about conspiracy theories (with no concern for the actual magnitude of harm such theories cause [1]) about children, than they are about the possibility that children are actually being sexually abused.
Do you believe the whole Epstein thing is a nothingburger? Totally made up by QAnon? Do you perceive that your mind contains the sum total knowledge of all that occurs on planet Earth with respect to the abuse of children? Of course, it seems that way, but if you stop and think, are you able to realize that you are only aware of the subset of knowledge that you have consumed? Maybe you can when thinking directly and abstractly about the notion...but what about when you don't stop and think, and are just going about your day....are you consciously aware at all times that you only have access to a small portion of reality, or do you actually accept as fact that it seems like you have access to the entirety of reality? Have you ever considered in depth the potential consequences of this phenomenon, and how it can be (and historically has been) exploited?
> I believe Facebook (and Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, etc) has the responsibility to not allow these "rabbit holes" that feed conspiracy theories. Otherwise, anyone with enough influence to generate these echo chambers can use them to influence large swaths of the public into believing things that have no basis in reality.
You're not wrong, but don't forget that you are guessing at what the right thing to so is, and that the X vs Y comparison above is very much in play - Mother Nature does not require our agreement when setting the state of reality.
[1] ...in cases where the accusation has had a conspiracy theory label attached to it.
EDIT: I reckon I've hit my comment cap for the day so may not be able to respond to criticism in a timely manner, but I enthusiastically encourage any you may have. These are complicated topics, and I certainly don't have all the answers.
I stated that we should come to a consensus on topics - not rely on intuition. Science is a great example of a field that relies on critical thinking and debunking theories, but also in our ability to build consensus about how the world works. Disagreeing with the consensus should be encouraged, but it needs to be done with the facts (experimental results) - not just stating that something is unknown (a statement that can be applied to 99.9% of science if taken at face value).
> Yes, but as it, perspectives are often misperceived as facts
Agreed.
> You can still make decisions, just be honest about the fact that they are based on speculation
In complicated topics, this should be a given. But agreed in general.
> There is a plausible theory that QAnon is actually a state sponsored psy op
I have heard that, but my point was that QAnon is not a "typical" political group. Regardless of its founders (foreign actors, bored kids, whatever), there should be a heavy dose of skepticism when looking at their theories, especially when many of their theories have been debunked but are continued to be peddled.
> The QAnon phenomenon is also being used as a justification for censorship
It is, and that is a bad thing. Unfortunately, we need to do something to correct the amplification problem of social media. Now we can disagree on the extent of the role that private companies should play in this policing, but it should be illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded theory - even virtually.
> I'm disturbed by the percentage of the population that is more concerned about conspiracy theories ... about children, than they are about the possibility that children are actually being sexually abused
The beauty of "save the children" is that it is impossible to call it out as coordinated propaganda without being accused of not caring about children. Of course I care about children. But I am also concerned that the upswell of social media was not natural.
> don't forget that you are guessing at what the right thing to so is
I am, but we as a society have always faced these dilemmas. Before social media, there were libel and slander laws that discouraged outright lies. With social media, however, there is almost nothing to gain from going after someone who posts slander. There is a fundamental problem when any random person can write whatever they dream of as fact and then amplify it to millions of people through social media.
I don't have all the right answers. But I think we need to agree that something should be done to prevent this amplification of propaganda. And then let's figure out how to fix it together.
> These are complicated topics, and I certainly don't have all the answers.
Same. This site is one of the only places where these topics can still be discussed without devolving into flame wars. So thank you for that.
You did indeed, and I responded:
>> We should be striving to come to a consensus on topics
> Not me, not if we are lying to ourselves in the process. If something is literally unknown, it should be acknowledged thusly. We're not comfortable relying on pure intuition in science or programming, why do it in the rest of life if it isn't necessary? Shall we think logically and scientifically, as we're told, or shall we not? Pick a side.
> Disagreeing with the consensus should be encouraged, but it needs to be done with the facts (experimental results) - not just stating that something is unknown (a statement that can be applied to 99.9% of science if taken at face value).
Oh? Things that have had(!) a "conspiracy theory" label attached (by the media, the experts, etc) are regularly asserted to be False, here and elsewhere, with absolutely no requirement for facts or evidence. But asserting that something is unknown, which is the actual state of affairs, needs to be done with facts (which are not known, hence the epistemic status of unknown)?
> I have heard that, but my point was that QAnon is not a "typical" political group. Regardless of its founders (foreign actors, bored kids, whatever), there should be a heavy dose of skepticism when looking at their theories, especially when many of their theories have been debunked but are continued to be peddled.
I agree 100% with skepticism - but that's not my complaint. My complaint is that skepticism towards those who say (without evidence) that it "is X", or "its followers believe Y" seems to be ~not allowed, that they are accepted enthusiastically as False, just because they have had a label attached. This seems not too unlike how members of ethnic minority classes were described in the media in the not too distant past, also without appropriate accompanying evidence.
> It is, and that is a bad thing. Unfortunately, we need to do something to correct the amplification problem of social media. Now we can disagree on the extent of the role that private companies should play in this policing, but it should be illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded theory - even virtually.
Agreed. But what do you think about two adjacent ideas:
1. Does it seem optimal that journalists seem to have an odd lack of interest in certain stories?
2. If "fake news" is really such a massive societal risk, does it seem at all odd that there is no initiative whatsoever to investigate some of the more pervasive stories and prove(!) then False, once and for all? Or, that there is no bi-partisan effort (or even discussion of such a thing in the mainstream) to develop a plan for teaching critical thinking and epistemology skills to the public? If this problem is genuinely so dangerous, why do we do nothing about it other than censorship (which can be used for both good and evil, which is not true of the other approaches)?
> The beauty of "save the children" is that it is impossible to call it out as coordinated propaganda without being accused of not caring about children. Of course I care about children. But I am also concerned that the upswell of social media was not natural.
The degree to which the public truly cares about children compared to how much they care about implementing broad censorship, and fast, seems a bit misbalanced to me. I suspect that there may actually be the possibility that the general public doesn't even think about such philosophical ideas, similar to how they don't seem to think much about other things like quantum mechanics, yak-herding, or 18th century art.
Does this seem possible?
> I am, but we as a society have always faced these dilemmas. Before social media, there were libel and slander laws that discouraged outright lies. With social media, however, there is almost nothing to gain from going after someone who posts slander. There is a fundamental problem when any random person can write whatever they dream of as fact and then amplify it to millions of people through social media.
Agreed. And it seems like the general consensus (in the general public and here on HN) of what we should do about this problem has arrived at censorship, as much as is required. And this consensus has been reached with no serious/honest debate, here or elsewhere. Each to his own, but I am very much "not cool" with this. But then perhaps I put too much faith in wisdom from times past - maybe censorship of non-sanctioned ideas, with no reasoned public debate, really is the optimum approach. I mean, who am I to disagree, right? Who do I even think I am!
> This site is one of the only places where these topics can still be discussed without devolving into flame wars. So thank you for that.
Likewise...a willingness to engage in dialogue on such matters is quite rare, so I do appreciate your efforts despite our (likely minor) differences, which is probably not at all reflected in my tone.
Oh no. The horror. Lets shut everything down. Won't you think of the poor politicians? We must do everything possible to protect the reputation of politicians? Are you a journalist because you sound like one. So what about all the nasty things said about putin, xi, erdogan, etc? Should we also censor those? Or are you just talking about protecting politicians of your preferred political party?
> Otherwise, anyone with enough influence to generate these echo chambers can use them to influence large swaths of the public into believing things that have no basis in reality.
So should facebook, youtube, twitter, instagram, etc also shutdown every news organization on their site? For all the talk about "Qanon", the biggest conspiracies peddled are by traditional media. And why stop at social media? Should telephone companies, ISPs, Office Depot, CDNs, etc censor "disinformation"?
It's amazing to shallow logic of authoritarian types. Just because they think "big tech" is on their side.
Suggest using the microchips to make Microsoft muscle in on psychopharmaceutical market and VR if they actually did have the chips and it is jabbing at the logic of the conspiracy theory. Actually taking the absurd premise and using with more logic is clearly taking the piss like showing up to a crystal healing group and suggesting rolling paraplegics down stairs into piles of gemstones or throwing bleeding out soldiers onto them - you will likely be thrown out as a troll.
> Media lawyers note this is not the first time this sort of defense has been offered. A $10 million libel lawsuit filed by the owners of One America News Network against MSNBC's top star, Rachel Maddow, was dismissed in May when the judge ruled she had stretched the established facts allowably: "The context of Maddow's statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be opinion."
> “Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement ‘of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false,’” he said.
https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2019/12/02/rachel-maddo...
Judge ruled in her favor:
> “The context of Maddow’s statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be her opinion. A reasonable viewer would not actually think OAN is paid Russian propaganda, instead, he or she would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles. Anything beyond this is Maddow’s opinion or her exaggeration of the facts,” the judge decided.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/23/judge-tosse...
Back in my old country, before I foolishly immigrated to the land of "the free" (drum drum), political commentary was first turned into satire and then that was embedded in children's stories, and you had that interesting phenomena of adults passing around children's stories. Good times.
All authoritarian system are fundamentally psychological in nature. Brute force is theraputical. The ultimate objective is acceptance of authoritative narrative. The content matter is entirely irrelevant. Recall in 1984, Winston is being asked "how many fingers?" and "what does 2+2 equal?". Outside of fiction, recall the Church of Rome asserting it's authority by modifying commandments. Rationality, authenticity, applicability, or heaven help us, veracity, are not even variables in the equation of Authoritarian Control Over Information and Social Discourse.
The universal subjective human experience is that of interacting with other human beings, not all of whom are assumed to be "truth tellers". Discerning and dealing with falsehood or half-truths is the daily bread of a functioning mind.
Since when are we no longer to be trusted with discerning truth from lies?
Do you know what Velayateh Faqih, the theocratic doctrine of Ruhollah Khomeini and Iran's "Islamic Republic", means? It means 'guardianship of the learned'. According to Mr. Khomeini, your average adult Iranian is technically a "minor" that requires the "guardianship" of an "adult".
Are you a child or are you a citizen of a nation which had enshrined Free Speech as a fundamental instrument of its constitution and essence?
Mailchimp doesn't have that status. Perhaps it should. Perhaps all companies listed on the stockmarket should fall under this status. It would have pitfalls but overall it might strike the right balance.
"Your freedom of speech does not require me or your ISP to carry, propagate, or amplify your speech, whether for free or for pay."
Start to see the problem here, yet?
Plus they have common carrier status meaning they cannot offer/not offer service based on the content they carry for you. They must remain neutral.
You don't have to be. Neither does mailchimp.
I am certainly also subject to anti-collusion legislation.
> Plus they have common carrier status meaning they cannot offer/not offer service based on the content they carry for you.
Not since 2017.
This is why private email services and roll your own exist.
But you are right. Mailchimp and all these corporations which have clearly shown they have no regard for the civil liberties that are fundamental to the American Social Contract need to find robust competitors, post haste.
Likewise, if we want to talk about social norms -- private publishers have long enjoyed editorial authority in the US. Only in very few specific instances have we forced private publishers to publish against their will.
> guaranteeing the accuracy
The entire construct of "disinformation" is a strawman. There is ample historic evidence that the populations of societies subject to lying government organs (c.f Pravda in USSR) learn to discern deception.
If "disinformation" was so potent and deadly, none of the authoritarian societies that heavily relied on disinformation and lies would have needed to apply secret police tactics to control the population. They had both and they all still collapsed.
"We need to control disinformation" is double speak for "we control what you are permitted to know".
Propaganda is not a recent phenomena and we went through an entire Cold War with a noted power with excellent propaganda techniques (soviets) without censoring at this level.
The red scares and blacklistings and HUAC were just my imaginings.
Just one will do.
If your asking if a news group has ever refused to run a story due to dubious sources, yes. That happens all the time and has happened as long as there has been journalism.
Going back to my original post, note that I didn't say I'm entirely okay with it. My argument is more along the lines is that a grassroots expression of opinion by individuals to other individuals who voluntarily want to receive it is okay but content being pushed by a source with money behind it can reasonably be treated with more suspicion because it raises questions about who exactly the money comes from and whether or not they have ulterior motives.
I don't know if it's...super hidden. Isn't that the entire point of the marketplace of ideas?
You're free to espouse anything, free from government intervention. But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace.
Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea. It's the freedom to enter the idea into the marketplace of ideas. But the marketplace of ideas is as cutthroat a business as any other marketplace.
I _can_ understand the complaint from an anti-monopoly point of view: arguing that Facebook and Twitter have too strong a hold on that marketplace, and their influence over it should be reduced. But that strikes me more as an anti-monopoly stance that should be directed at particular actors.
Entirely true and I 100% agree but that's not what the "other choices" argument is about. There are groups attempting to force expression of certain opinions to only be through "other choices" and preventing third parties from interfering with communication between a speaker and people who voluntarily want to listen to that idea, no matter how good the intentions of the third party are, _is_ very much a matter of freedom of speech. For example, note the "seek, receive, and impart" part of Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.[0] That's why the "other choices" argument isn't persuasive; its underlying intent is often interference with voluntary communication in order to cut it off.
[0] "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
This seems to highly misrepresent the situation. Actually, the reality is all "reputable members of society" who control a major publishing platform. So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed).
> Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea. It's the freedom to enter the idea into the marketplace of ideas. But the marketplace of ideas is as cutthroat a business as any other marketplace.
An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms. Yes, one "can" "just" move to another platform, or roll your own, but framing this in a manner that overlooks the fact that all other things are not equal seems rather disingenuous, and this occurs extremely frequently on social & mainstream media, which is quite concerning.
I would argue that the number of gatekeepers to nationwide mainstream dialog is much higher than 3 or 4 individuals. I think the number is too small, but 3 or 4 seems to me to be an incredibly hyperbolic number of individuals to name as gatekeepers to the entire marketplace of ideas.
If you think only 3 or 4 people control the entire marketplace of ideas for "reputable members of society", then you should be able to exhaustively name them. Who are these 3 or 4 people that control all of reputable society?
> An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms
It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands. I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all!
Hence the italicized portion from my prior comment: "So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed)"
Let's try to minimize not acknowledging uncertainty qualifiers that are literally written within comments please.
Since we seem to be now in the mode of hyper-dissection of assertions, hyperbole, etc, and I may have committed the sin of being off by a couple hundred people, what would this same level of scrutiny come up with when taken to your claim:
>> But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace.
Which of these two numbers would be larger in your estimation?
([All members of society] - [People who control a major publishing platform])
([People who control a major publishing platform] - [4])
...where [All adult members of society - USA] = ~250 million
...where [Twitter Users - USA] = ~68 million
...where [Facebook Users - USA] = ~235 million
...where [YouTube Users - USA] = ~126 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-face...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-...
> It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands.
I would say it's exactly that, and also other things. I don't consider myself in disagreement on that point.
> I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all!
It is literally both, so I think we should treat it as both.
I wonder though...might the problem be not so much my math, but more so that I happen to hold an unacceptable opinion on the matter of censorship, in general? Based on voting patterns on anti-censorship comments (most of which contain no mathematics), I'm leaning towards the latter. Considering the way the wind is blowing on such matters, maybe people like me should start toeing the party line around here, lest the very topic of conversation pays a personal visit to our doorstep.
And that's fine, right? How is this any different than not being able to publish in the most prestigious science journals because you're a crank?
Believe me, after the last few years, I'm all for keeping cranks out of power but not at the cost of creating a mechanism that can be used to suppress grassroots movements, regardless of stripe. That's dangerous; "what goes around, comes around" eventually.
On the other hand, its much more difficult to switch ISPs, so I would be very concerned about censorship at that level. Things like search engines which are substitute-able but held by few hands and difficult to replicate privately are more of a grey area in my opinion.
Are you saying the lunch counter can refuse service for any reason?
So I should be able to refuse to send an email on your behalf no matter your race, if the content of the email is uninteresting to me.
Is membership in a "protected class" a license to email anything you want?
It can’t be black and white; the line has to be drawn somewhere. The grey is what makes things so complicated. Ask 1000 people about 100 different edge cases, no one will give the same answer to all of them.
"First they came for the…"?
Does this make Mailchimp a publisher now? Since they are effectively editing what can and cannot be shared via their service? Wouldn't that place them under much stronger legal scrutiny?
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. I understand a business can refuse to do business with anyone they please. That's already the case though. Why a change like this to the TOS?
Either way, I'm all for businesses being able to pick and choose their customers. I would never use Mailchimp based on a change like this, but they are free to change their service however they'd like.
The implication is that there does not exist a gradient between (or even orthogonality to) left and right. If something is just a little bit short of left, it's considered a "dog whistle", implicative that it's all the way to the right now.
I know a lot of people who have voted blue their entire lives that are against cancel culture btw.
The truth is, it's only "Cancel Culture" if it's against something they like
No, people should be allowed to do as they please (assuming they aren't abusing the earth or other living beings), and boycotts are a useful tool for change.
But it's becoming the first tool people reach for, and that's not healthy. Kind of how force is sometimes necessary, but should be avoided as much as possible. Someone who jumps to force immediately is a scary person to empower.
Also, there is a noteworthy difference between boycotting something you don't like and boycotting whichever power is capable of cancelling the thing you don't like. It's definitely necessary at times, but it's not a great means to an end.
My mother read me this book as a child (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_Battle_Book) and the fact that overt force will be met with greater overt force until someone hits a limit (and nobody really wins) has stuck and has been very consistently reinforced in my life. I see cancel culture as pretty obvious show of force and no matter how much people might inflate its victories and minimize its short-comings, I see it netting out to roughly zero. It really just enables worse behavior on both sides.
To claim it implies a lack of a gradient is a bit of a slip given the absense of left wing practice of it and looks a lot like projective assumptions "everyone steals" from a serial thief to claim it is unfair they are the only one arrested for stealing.
Maybe we are all affected and should try to just judge things on their own merit, without looking for which side they belong to to..
When the government fails to protect its population from information warfare, because it engages in it, it's time the businesses stepped up.
This is the new digital battlefield. Wars will be fought by trying to destabilize and influence people's opinions through information consuming mediums.
Social media is a cancer, because it allows external parties, through ads, to fight for and steal your attention and time, and in the process influence your decisions and perspective of specific topics and issues to suit their agenda.
Twitter/Facebook may or may not be legal monopolies and this type of behaviour may or may not be one of those protected activities, but both pieces can be made from a moral position if not a legal one.
The monopolistic aspect is why this feels more acceptable for Mailchimp than for Twitter/Facebook.
The question of “will google deliver my mail to a gmail inbox?” is the key one, not whether someone, given enough time to study the matter carefully, can intellectually determine that mailchimp acted ok.
> At least Mailchimp, a US email and marketing automation service – doesn’t even try to pretend there is some objective, consensus-based way in determining what’s false and what’s true. Instead, they’re saying what many others in the tech industry are thinking and doing: “misinformation” is simply what we decide it is, because we can.
Mailchimp is outright acknowledging that epistemically-sound, conclusive Truth is not a deciding factor, whereas Twitter, Facebook, etc (and much media reporting) hint/imply that conclusive Truth is a deciding factor.
Secondly, if one is deplatformed from Mailchimp, one can move to another provider with little loss, particularly as it comes to the most important aspect: attention. The commonly repeated meme that deplatforming or filtering are not(!) in any way free speech issues "because you can "just" move to a new platform (or build your own)" completely overlooks this aspect of the debate.
https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-tech-turmoil-n...
>> Here's how this golden age of speech actually works: In the 21st century, the capacity to spread ideas and reach an audience is no longer limited by access to expensive, centralized broadcasting infrastructure. It’s limited instead by one’s ability to garner and distribute attention. And right now, the flow of the world’s attention is structured, to a vast and overwhelming degree, by just a few digital platforms: Facebook, Google (which owns YouTube), and, to a lesser extent, Twitter.
>> These tactics usually don’t break any laws or set off any First Amendment alarm bells. But they all serve the same purpose that the old forms of censorship did: They are the best available tools to stop ideas from spreading and gaining purchase.
>> Even when the big platforms themselves suspend or boot someone off their networks for violating “community standards”—an act that does look to many people like old-fashioned censorship—it’s not technically an infringement on free speech [1], even if it is a display of immense platform power. Anyone in the world can still read what the far-right troll Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet has to say on the internet. What Twitter has denied him, by kicking him off, is attention.
[1] Here the author actually falls victim to conflating free speech (the general principle) with The First Amendment, but makes up for it well enough.
Another good article (with a John Stuart Mill basis):
https://felipec.substack.com/p/the-fatal-freedom-of-speech-f...
>> In 2020 the concept of cancel culture is rampant. The common argument is that the right to freedom speech doesn’t imply that people must listen to you, or that you cannot get canceled, or that you should be free from the consequences of your speech.
>> This is correct. But did you spot the fallacy? The [right] to freedom of speech is not the same as the freedom of speech [argument]. That is an equivocation fallacy.
EDIT: It seems these ideas are unpopular - I would appreciate hearing any opposing ideas so that I can improve my stance.
A single standard has all three equally right with private property administration.
There's a rather large difference between Twitter, which has a lot of people using it every day for information, and that of smaller companies. A company like Twitter can influence the fabric of society for good and bad by a large amount, but a smaller company has far less effect. A single standard is a simple approach, but that doesn't make it the best option.
The value of mailchimp and other ESPs is not that the email transaction is technically difficult, but rather that managing delivery rates is hard.
You still need an SMTP server somewhere to connect to.
The majority of mailchimp-sent mail is spam.
Who in our society is rewarded by undiscriminating consumers, or an undiscriminating electorate?
The fact that sites like Reclaim the Net willfully misunderstand this to drum up anger hurts the cause of digital freedom, rather than helping it.
We're in quite a situation then. Let's look at the options for forums with protected speech.
* If only publicly funded communication channels have protections of freedom of speech. Can you tell me where I can find a public social network with free speech protections?
* Private media doesn't owe anyone almost anything lately. They publish whatever they want and will not talk about what's not convenient for the stories they tell. We've seen too much of it this year.
* Even if there was this great publicly-funded unbiased media source. Public funded usually means government. Twitter, Facebook, and others are now explicitly marking all the government-funded media and sources, as a way of implying bias. Essentially, bit by bit discrediting these platforms.
* All the private social platform don't owe you anything and will kick you out at will without any need for explanation.
If we agree that free speech is a critically important value of a civil, prosperous, modern civilization, then we're in big trouble. Most if not all the discourse these days is happening online and all the communication channels that people use belong either to:
* private corporations that are not bound by free speech laws
* non-profits overrun by often biased volunteers
* privately owned media companies pushing their agenda without any boundaries or common sense
* biased government sources pushing their propaganda
So where is the avenue for free speech in the 21st century? Shouting on the street outside?
Not only that, but the proposed solution of repealing Section 230 of the CDA would make hosting free speech impossible for anyone other than trillion dollar corporations that can throw billions at making sure users never use their services to upload illegal content.
This is such a low effort take, such obviously motivated reasoning, that wouldn’t deserve response but for being so prevalent as a way for otherwise thoughtful people to stop thinking and not confront the hypocrisy of supporting mass corporate censorship because it supports their favorite political party.
Which is not to say there’s not a nuanced argument to be had, but your one-dimensional argument isn’t that.
Sometimes it’s not a low-effort take … but simply reflective of the way legal precedent works.
Instead of focusing on trying to prevent social networks from moderating their platforms so that they’re safe, you should instead work to strengthen open protocols so that they work better and offer better alternatives to what already exists.
I think the reason there’s always resistance to these complaints is because when it comes down to it, people want to be able to experience the internet in a safe environment, and preventing networks from moderating that experience limits that possibility.
It is perfectly legitimate to be angry when companies start restricting their services to political allies, or arbitrarily blocking communication for people who disagree on who to vote for. Freedom of speech is a value encoded in the constitution because it is important, and because societies have learned over and over what happens when it's lost. It's the first thing dictatorships get rid of for a reason.
And your comment does the exact same thing only more explicitly. The First Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. And it's very telling that people would prefer to focus on platforms regulating their content and "cancel culture" than addressing the very real and consistent attacks on the First Amendment by the current administration.
I think back to this article a lot: https://www.salon.com/2012/07/01/southern_values_revived/
Scary times we are living in.
Emails are private communication. It's not a public forum. Censorship in the private arena is an order of magnitude more intrusive. It's not just free speech at this point, it's peaceful assembly. The "monopoly vs many choices" argument notwithstanding.
If you could choose between five or more cell providers, yet T-Mobile started dropping your calls (to your mom, or your business contacts, or whoever) every time you mentioned a watchword like "Trump,"* how would that make you feel?
*Note Twitter (edit: Instagram) is literally censoring the hashtag #trump now: https://twitter.com/fleccas/status/1321999369680334848?s=19
If so, call @dang to delete my comment. An anonymous high level official said it "smells like" Russian disinfo.
On the note of twitter, they should have just banned Trump and told him "it's a free country" years ago. The fact they are censoring #trump while not banning him comes off as extremely weak. It's exactly the kind of move that makes liberals seem hairless and under-handed.
MailChimp on the other hand is primarily a ad/spam tool. They do have transactional email abilities, but any email that isn't transactional is (IMO) ad/spam. The whole point of ad/spam is to manipulate people... it's not a conversation. Limiting what type of mass manipulation they allow is very different from not letting people talk about whatever they want.
Also, Mailchimp is not primarily an ad/spam tool, and any nontransactional email is not necessarily ad/spam. Emails about outages to a service you use are not transactional (others also use it), advertising or spam. Emails about changes to a product or service are not transactional (others use it), advertising, or spam. Community newsletters are not transactional, and not necessarily advertising. Some of these emails could be or contain advertising, but that doesn't equate to spam, and many people want these emails. In fact, Mailchimp has policies against using their platform to send any unsolicited email, regardless of content, even if it is legal. You must have consent from each recipient. See Prohibited Actions at [1].
[1]: https://mailchimp.com/help/single-opt-in-vs-double-opt-in/
- A persons right to opt-in to (as an extreme) ego-centric mass manipulation in which they sell their very being for the sake of feeling smarter/better than other people.
- A corporations right to not enable anything they see as manipulating a narrative in ways they dislike.
Obvs both are extremes, but it implies that somewhere in-between is a sweet spot.
Not cool
Another way to look at it. When you were a child did you ever imagine you would become an advocate for censorship?
Are there any good alternatives to Mailchimp which aren’t headquartered in the USA?
The US software industry seems to be gradually abandoning whatever libertarian roots it once had, in favour of a weird kind of paternalism.
As soon as you editorialize you become a publisher. You’re now liable for what you’ve published.
If you disagree, then go stand with the bakers who refuse to bake cakes for gay couples.
It also a hypercritically in calling them emphasis on "ivory" tower and "neckbeards" - implying both ugliness and not getting out much and then deridding them for being priveledged socially when they are already below the baseline and then dismissing concerns about a /social standing/ issue for double irony. "What do those ugly nerds know about being an outcast?"