https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biggest-isps-pai...
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-...
No, it's not merely arguable. Large portions of the Republican Party in government, including every Republican member of the FCC, are overtly their allies on this.
> The SMART Copyright Act is a thinly veiled proxy war over mandatory filtering of copyrighted works. . . mandatory filters are error-prone in ways that hurt consumers, and they raise entry barriers in ways that reduce competition.
> More generally, the SMART Copyright Act would give the Copyright Office a truly extraordinary power–the ability to force thousands of businesses to adopt, at their expense, technology they don’t want and may not need, and the mandated technologies could reshape how the Internet works.
They're the ones stretching. If we were restricted to talking about only one or the other at a time, that would unnecessarily limit our ability to brainstorm. Fortunately, we have the freedom to discuss what we want and when.
Is there that big of an overlap between content owners and ISPs? For example, is Disney an ISP?
Right, the trouble is that our democracies really haven't proper ways of handling this type of monopoly. It seems to me that the problem will not be solved until individuals are no longer allowed to hide behind corporate walls and thus not able to be individually held accountable or liable for their actions.
Fear of public exposure and ridicule not to mention penalties imposed on them for their actions would stop most of this behaviour. The trouble is that large corporations have such a stranglehold on governments that it's proving very difficult to do anything about the problem.
It's one of the biggest problems facing our democracies, I only wish I knew how we could solve it.
The public sphere changed with the advent of social media. At first, corporations and governments found themselves at the whims of people, and then it flipped. I believe we may be able to bring back some balance with reviewable moderation such as via a site I made, https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/
We should know who these individuals are whether they're making decisions that are in our interests or otherwise.
As it stands now many of the individuals who've the power and who have altered our lives for good or worse by their decisions remain hidden completely anonymously behind both corporate and government bureaucracies. Anonymity, has in many instances enabled them to act without accountability and with complete impunity.
This is the crux of the problem, until these individuals know that their decisions will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb by the population at large and that they will be held accountable then nothing will change.
Both now and in the past the argument against this approach is that such scrutiny will make decision-makers ineffective in that they'll be too scared to make hard or effective decisions. This is a weasel argument argued by bureaucracies to protect themselves and to make their lives easier. There are numerous ways to protect individuals who make 'sensible' decisions from, say, an over-zealous citizenry or unreasonable shareholders who may not understand all the facts but that's for another discussion.
Change has to come because this anonymity has allowed fairness and due process to be so abused that our institutions now have an ethical crisis. It's why so few people have faith in or have respect for them anymore.
It's happening, even while they are anonymous. When unscrupulous mods cannot maintain the theater of innocence while continuing to manipulate, they tend to step aside themselves or be put aside by Reddit [4-6].
Deanonymizing the internet isn't going to happen because that would be hugely unpopular. But also, you'd need to wall it off because it will always be possible to be anonymous in certain parts of the world.
It may not be enough to know who's in charge. Consider how many actions public figures take that we don't know about.
> This is the crux of the problem, until these individuals know that their decisions will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb by the population at large and that they will be held accountable then nothing will change.
This is precisely it. Knowing their actions alone may be enough. It's hard to grow a following, so when faced with knowledge of their actions, mods are incentivized to incorporate users' feedback into their moderation style. Perhaps surprisingly, this can all happen while they are anonymous! And that's a good thing because again, there are parts of the world we just can't deanonymize, to say nothing of the backlash such a policy would have in the free world.
The more who know about Reddit's secret removal feature [1], the more difficult it will be for Reddit to keep that feature as is. I've observed positive changes in communities that know about it. Mod behavior does change when users are informed about removals.
Still, Reveddit is not widely known, and it can be difficult to share since mods often remove it. When I first made this site I assumed it would go viral immediately. I overlooked the fact that mods would often remove it or even add it to their automod configurations [2] so that it becomes unmentionable.
> Both now and in the past the argument against this approach is that such scrutiny will make decision-makers ineffective in that they'll be too scared to make hard or effective decisions.
Yes, I've heard that. Former presidential advisor Ben Rhodes, at a recent panel on disinformation, remarked [3] that it used to drive him insane that in 2014-2015 he was unable to immediately declassify imagery of Russian weapons and personnel flowing into eastern Ukraine, even though that imagery was commercially available. He says 2022's instant declassification process is clearly much more effective.
> Change has to come because this anonymity has allowed fairness and due process to be so abused that our institutions now have an ethical crisis. It's why so few people have faith in or have respect for them anymore.
In my opinion, it's not the anonymity that is the significant issue, it is that the actions themselves are hidden in a way that users do not expect. That may be why some mods consider it to be so effective.
[1] https://www.reveddit.com/images/removed-views.png
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/ocflqy/has_anyo...
[3] https://youtu.be/Nd1CKG3o818?t=24473
[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZedong/comments/tluuv5/genzedong...
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZedong/comments/txucxj/genzedong...
Exposing individuals in a fucked system is a blunt tool but it's better than nothing (or when other approaches fail or when unavailable).
Right, the digital era has thrown up challenges that are far from resolved. The problem as I see it is that far too few people are interested in seeing that these issues are solved and even fewer are actively engaged in doing something about solving them. The world seems more preoccupied with nonsense and trivia like yesterday's news headlines about a Kardashian wearing an ancient Monroe outfit than resolving issues that would actually improve people's lives.
I'm cynical enough to believe that these trashy distractions are encouraged, after all the technique's not new, one of the reasons why emperor Vespasian built the Colosseum was to distract the masses from serious issues such as food shortages.
The video is good but long so I've only seen the beginning of it so far.
I forgive people for not knowing. The worst mod abuses are hard to see. When you reveal them, the behavior disappears; either the mods leave on their own accord or Reddit removes them. Then, when you can no longer point to an egregious case, people who didn't see the previous abuses wonder what the problem is: what they see isn't that bad. I guess the solution is to continue sharing and chip away at the problem.
About the video, I only meant to share that linked clip, 30 seconds or so, although that last panel is quite good.
> I'm cynical enough to believe that these trashy distractions are encouraged
I don't think that's cynical. The book by Pomerantsev that I mentioned in another comment, "This Is Not Propaganda", argues such distractions are part of the propaganda targeting democracies.
I think revealing what gets removed gives people a better idea for how forums are managed and encourages healthier conversations by treating us all as equally worthy of access to information. Not necessarily free access, but equal access to what's publicly accessible.
It isn't enough to mark news as fake. Some people won't believe you. But when you start to show what is removed, then people start to have a better sense for what is propaganda and what is not.
Right, we're (a) not training people properly and a young enough age and (b) we're not telling them the truth - so they end up cynical or misinformed or both.
Haven't read Pomerantsev but his background would give him great insight. Similarly, Chomsky's works are full of it - here's just one: Manufacturing Consent, etc.:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent. Trouble is, Chomsky is heavy going for the average person, it's dense and almost turgid, it's got all the good oil if one is prepared to mine his books for it. (I actually met him once on a lecture tour 20-plus years ago - he's much easier to understand in person than from reading his books).
We need to get simple versions of these ideas out to the population at large but it's always proven difficult.
The issue of course is that for quite some time we've pretty much an overview of what the problems are but we don't have the same power resources to implement them as does the 'Establishment'. (Again, there's no doubt that we know the facts: Pomerantsev, Chomsky et al have documented this stuff ad nauseam—latest developments, social media etc. only add nuance to the basic facts—the problem is that we've failed to implement the fixes.)
"It isn't enough to mark news as fake. Some people won't believe you. But when you start to show what is removed"
Right again, but this takes training (and it can be slow) if it's to be done well. It comes back to what I was saying above about training. One doesn't start training a six-year-old with fake news (although that's difficult not to do these days), rather you train basic logic such as arguments have subjects and predicates or otherwise they make little sense, and to understand simple fallibility tests, false/contradictory statements, etc. such as 'All swans are white' and 'Western Australia has black swans'. Even very young kids can quickly see that just one exception—even if it's on the other side of the planet—makes the first statement false.
In essence, kids need to develop good bullshit filters at a young age. As they grow older, they'll learn to fine tune and better filter what they hear.
What concerns me is that this sort of training isn't done as a matter of course. (I suppose I was luckier than many, it was taught at my primary school.)
Could be. With or without education, many people are shocked to discover how social media platforms permit anonymous moderators to remove content and, at the same time, still pretend that this content is live to the author of the content. The fact that it's possible to set up a system that way doesn't mean it is expected. I wouldn't say people are dumb for not knowing or expecting that.
> Chomsky
I understand Chomsky has a lot to say about propaganda. How much attention does he give to the censorship part of the manipulation equation? Pomerantsev, I am discovering, gives no attention to it that I can find.
> Right again, but this takes training (and it can be slow) if it's to be done well.
Yes and no. Show someone something they posted that's been removed without them knowing and they immediately understand the potential for wider abuse. The trick may be showing people things they care about being removed.
> What concerns me is that this sort of training isn't done as a matter of course. (I suppose I was luckier than many, it was taught at my primary school.)
Where was that, if you don't mind me asking?
> There are instructions on how to control an internet forum, including tips on “consensus cracking”: using a fake persona to express the ideas you oppose in such a weak and unconvincing manner that you can then use another fake persona to knock them down.
Here is Peter speaking [2] a week ago at a Stanford conference on disinformation where Obama gave the keynote [3].
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41717504-this-is-not-pro...
> And it’s not just conflicts or elections that are affected. I see people I have known my whole life slip away from me on social media, reposting conspiracies from sources I have never heard of, some sort of internet undercurrent pulling whole families apart, as if we never really knew each other, as if the algorithms know more about us than we do, as if we are becoming subsets of our own data, which is rearranging our relations and identities with its own logic, or in the cause of someone else’s interests we can’t even see.
> When she interviewed Al-Qaeda recruits and their families, what struck her was how normal their backgrounds were, how distant fundamentalist purity was for most of them. Bin Laden's trick had been to take the different grievances of different groups and give them the illusion that if they united globally, they would achieve a better world, if only they could get rid of unbelievers.
> Russia, with its social media squadrons, haunts these [social media network] maps. Not because it is the force that can still move earth and heaven as it could in the Cold War, but because the Kremlin's rulers are particularly adept at gaming elements of this new age, or at the very least are good at getting everyone to talk about how good they are, which could be the most important trick of all.
A key use of propaganda is demoralisation. Sapping the enemy's resolve and sowing seeds of doubt. It's a long march. For years I've noticed certain voices in tech forums who are not merely fearful of the negative effects of some technologies against liberal democracy, they positively celebrate them.
"Liberal values are doomed." - they tell us. "The battle is already lost." Their relentless message is that authoritarian technology is inevitable. It's already ubiquitous. Privacy is an illusion we are better to give up on. The corporations are too powerful. Against state actors there is no point even trying to secure your digital world. Regardless your choice or morals, eventually everyone will be forced to fall into line... etc etc ad-nauseum.
I see this as a corrosive meta campaign by voices that have unwittingly been recruited as denouncers of liberal democracy. They sound like the mocking voice of Lord Haw-Haw or the German denouncer in Saving Private Ryan, calling;
"The Statue of Liberty ist Kaput!"
BTW: This looks like a very interesting book I may be buying. Thanks for posting these snippets.
I wonder whether things like these are more intuitively understood by someone who grew up in the shadow of USSR and is always on the lookout for misinformation and propaganda.
That said, it seems some parts of the book could help me clarify/support my own experiences and provide wider context and more examples.
Why does this necessitate the neologism "concensus cracking" rather than the well-established term "false flagging"?
But also, a false flag pins blame on someone else in order to change public opinion.
Cracking consensus is any disguised action and does not require blaming someone else. It can just be secretive actions like a mod removal where the removal is not apparent to the logged-in author, like on Reddit.
Unfortunately, the only way the left (I chuckle at any conservatives/libertarians who claim to actually oppose corporate campaign finance) has managed to get people into congress is a couple people per election. People on the whole just aren’t in to campaign finance reform, even when it’s decoupled from the so-called “woke agenda”.
It has consistently had its advocates over the centuries. I too feel it's underrated as a method. Plato was basically right all those years ago; those who actively seek power generally don't deserve it. I seriously wonder if we'd be better off with a legislature selected of random citizens, and an executive council selected the same way.
It did work for the Ancient Athenians for some 300+ years. Democracy in ancient Greece meant selection by lottery and most offices in the Athenian democracy were picked that way. Following selection there was a public interview during which any citizen could pose questions and the candidate could at that point be disqualified for a legally established reason by a vote of the previously-elected archons. (The main exception was military generals, who were elected by popular vote. Competence and respect were considered more important than incorruptibility for that particular office.)
Sortition does that probabilistically, so it would be better in that sense. OTOH, most of the other proposed benefits of sortition are dubious.
E.g., it's often portrayed as insulation against corruption because people aren't dependent on corporate cash to get reelected. OTOH, with most politicians not careerists with a relatively reliable fallback of various cushy sinecures in periods where they are out of office, the amount of money you need to dangle in front of randomly chosen and soon to revert to normal life citizens to radically change their post-term life drops considerably, and neither public enforcement nor media outlets are going to be able to devote the bandwidth necessary to police corruption in the firehouse of people pumped through government.
Basically the (proportionally) representatively elected career politicians in the lower chamber would become experts at law making, and build up reputations and relationships with the public and each other, but any law they proposed would have to get through the screening process of a chamber of "ordinary" people.
By not allowing the upper chamber to draft its own proposed legislation, there would be less risk of them falling into some populist mania and pushing through some half-baked idea that was trending on Twitter.
> And with the rise of social media, the Philippines has become a capital for a new breed of digital era manipulation. I meet with "P"...
> ... By the age of twenty, he claims he had fifteen million followers across all platforms. The modest middle-class boy from the provinces could suddenly afford his own condo in a Manila skyscraper.
> ... He pitched his approach to several parties but the only candidate who would take P on was Rodrigo Duterte, an outsider who looked to social media as a new, cheap route to victory.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/wo5tDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gb...
You think Americans are only unconcerned about campaign financing because they think they are going to get a job from the out of control spending?
Why?