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Comment by malandrew | Hacker News Reader

> or if the perpetrator was not a user when they committed the acts.

if this becomes more widespread, this is one of the most chilling aspects. I don't think it takes much imagination at all for anyone to consider a future where something you said today that is totally acceptable by today's standards keeps you from participating in some aspect of society* in 10 to 20 years time. Think about how many public figures have been canceled for things they did that were socially acceptable 10 to 20 years ago. Now imagine tooling being developed that scans your entire social media existence for the past 10 to 20 years and then throws an automated exception saying that you can't register. Then imagine that you have no recourse because there is no due process and practically non-existent Google quality customer service.

* any sufficiently pervasive social network is a significant aspect of society

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I was having this exact conversation with a friend the other day. To engage in any form of (even remotely) political discourse on the internet is to step into a landmine once you consider the 20-year horizon. People are now being fired for things they said as teenagers [1], and while I am all for anti-racism and inclusiveness, have we forgotten that people grow and change with time? That we are products of our society and those societies often imbibe us with some blind spots that we later come to recognize?

The only way I can see out of this displaced and performative moralism is to not attach your name to anything that could be considered even remotely problematic in the future.

To get rid of old tweets, FB posts, anyone reading this might want to try the Jumbo app [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/business/media/teen-vogue... [2] https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/jumbo-privacy-security/id14540...

> those societies often imbibe us with some blind spots that we later come to recognize?

It's not just blind spots you recognize and correct. There are societies in history like the USSR, the DDR, North Korea, etc., where those with dissenting views weren't the ones with the blind spots, but that it was society itself that developed blind spots and punished those that did not go along with those blind spots.

I think it's kinda fascinating to see the things that powerful public figures thought they could get away with.

There's a Hollywood bigwig in trouble these days for doing pretty much what Marco Pierre White did to Gordon Ramsay when Ramsay was an apprentice. In other words, they both violently threw stuff at people in fits of hysterical rage.

If I did that, they'd lock me up. Try being in a rage and throwing stuff at a cop, or perhaps a judge in court. Context seems to matter here: but the question is, should a brilliant chef in the brigade system, or a powerful Hollywood executive, GET to physically attack people? When a regular person does not get to commit assault as just a random everyday thing?

What's making it weird is, we're more or less talking about rule of law, but nobody appointed Twitch a government. But by the same token, if you're on Twitch's property, it seems like they've got a right to apply their own rules.

Folks seem to want to force something like Twitch to also have courts, and treat people innocent unless proven guilty. We expect this of governments because they're so powerful, but a private residence might have a great deal more freedom for the occupant to apply their own rules on their property.

Castle doctrine for Twitch? Do they get to blackball you and ruin your social media life if you're on their property and they think you've done something horrible? Do they get to share their information with other private entities, can you be permanently shunned because one entity got mad at you?

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