Said the former Facebook public policy director Katie Harbath, quoted in "Elon Musk wants a free speech utopia. Technologists clap back. Musk’s vision of the Internet is outdated and doesn’t take into account the real world, they say" (WaPo).
That's very well put, right down to the "seemingly."
I think he does know this, and — without digging them out — I think he's made comments conceding that there will still need to be moderation. The questions are about the degree of moderation and the importance of avoiding bias in applying that moderation.
Over on Facebook, one of my friends passed along a tweet that said "[Musk is] not going to encourage 'free speech' he's just going to allow people to say whatever they want, which is not the same thing."
That seemed intended to evoke only mockery, so I wrote: "The assertion is correct. Musk won't cause people to become more courageous, and under the new conditions, some less than fully courageous people will restrain themselves even more than they do now."
Someone responded: "Don't understand. Can you expand on this?"
So I said: "I am free to answer your question but I am not encouraged. If that is a comprehensible statement, you know the answer. If it is not, I am too discouraged to say more."
Posts
96 comments:
You know who else "moderates" her site?
Same people who claim we can't deregulate anything because the result would be unfettered laissez-faire capitalism (which would be terrible I guess because that comes with robber barons (who are nothing like today's hyper-rich) and street urchins (who are nothing like today's homeless)). They're not reasonable, and therefore cannot be reasoned with.
’[Musk is] not going to encourage 'free speech' he's just going to allow people to say whatever they want, which is not the same thing.’
Wow.
Remember when Twitter blocked all those who commented on Trumps ties to Russia? Seems like it happened just.......never.
Musk "owns" twitter already.
"Musks vision of the internet is outdate..."
I think people's assumption about what Musk's vision is, happens to be incorrect. They set up the Musk strawman and proceed to knock it down. That is common to leftists, it appears (Maybe it is true for those on the right as well, but I don't see it as often.) This is not the first industry insider I've seen saying that Musk will get in trouble doing what they think he wants to do.
What I hope Musk wants to fix is view point discrimination - The whole "if we don't like your view we can call it fake, and block you." It is not necessary to block all moderation to allow issues of political and social relevance be allowed to run unfettered. You can still block things that harass or intimidate a person. And no, misgendering you or deadnaming you is not harassment, it's just mildly impolite.
Isn't your reply to the questioner=="If you are too dumb to understand, there's no sense engaging with you?"
There is a real danger that Musk will make Twitter lift its ban on Babylon Bee!
This not just a joke!!
This is why we need moderation!!!
You can't have total absolute free speech on social media sites (or real life actually) because people can and will be jerks. That said, mid level employees tend to play petty tyrant by censoring views they don't like if the standards for moderation are vague enough. They can hide behind "policies" and algorithms to avoid accountability. Musk is simply threatening to hold people responsible for that pettiness.
Over on Facebook, one of my friends passed along a tweet .... so I wrote ....
I thought you quit Facebook.
The Left can’t stand a fair and free debate of ideas so that’s why they love “moderation” with progressives doing the moderation.
I got kicked off of AMZN book reviews for facetiously suggesting that the USAF bomb China’s coal-fired power plants. If carbon dioxide was REALLY threatening life on Earth, we should destroy the number one emitter’s power plants. Right?
Somebody will spell out the n-word, as usual as a mention and not a use, and people of culture will react with horror. Clutch pearls before swine, is their motto.
There's plenty of truth-based courage around, but at the moment also censorship.
Too bad Elon was born in Africa.
I don't understand all these vague generalities.
The point of free speech is so people can say what they want without getting censored by a "moderater". That "Free Speech" will cause cowards to shrink back from saying something is irrelevant. I couldn't care less that some shrinking violet decides to clam up, because the poor dear wants a moderator to protect him.
You have your chance to say what you wish, like everyone else. If you don't have to guts to take some blowback, go back to your safe space echo chamber.
Of course, this is assuming the Leftists asserting this are acting in good faith, which they aren't. They aren't really looking out for those "who don't feel safe" - they don't give a damn about a conservative "who's afraid to speak out".
In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
As to Twitter, one of the best insights I have seen comes from Stephen L. Miller from Red State, to the effect that journalists want Twitter to be their instant, personal studio, where they tweet and you shut up and listen. They want Twitter to be governed by the rules that apply to cable news and newspaper columns, where no one can call them out or refute them.
That is why they are nervous when an outsider like Elon Musk, who isn't known to be respectful towards traditions, rules, or authority, starts to maneuver in this space. They just got rid of Trump (from whom, like a bull in the ring, they profited mightily before they killed him), and now Musk shows up and does not kowtow to the little demons (bésy) of the news. Outrageous! Who does he think he is?
As for Musk turning twitter into pure "Free Speech zone" - of course he won't. Almost nothing on the internet has ever been a pure "free speech zone". But maybe Musk will allow the President of the USA to tweet without being banned. Or conservative pundits. Or recognized medical experts. Or newspapers that disagree with the DNC party line. Or foreign policy experts that disagree with Joe Biden. Or Russians who want their countries POV put forth to the AMerican people.
But no, if Musk takes over, you won't be allowed to tweet the N word, or post child pornography, or issue serious violent threats against specific people.
And...so what?
"The questions are about the degree of moderation and the importance of avoiding bias in applying that moderation."
But the other question is from what vantage point you answer the questions--as a free speech absolutist or as a progressive enforcer of PC groupthink.
"You know who else "moderates" her site?"
If we didn't have a form of moderation, individuals who would like to destroy this place would have run out the good faith commenters long ago. It's easy to embrace free speech in the abstract, but anyone who works on a space that can be shared knows that it can't work without some degree of moderation. You can't just have the worse, most annoying, noisy, vile people stinking up the place so no one else will use it.
You don't see what Meade and I see. If you were in our position you would understand so easily that there would be no dispute.
"Somebody will spell out the n-word, as usual as a mention and not a use, and people of culture will react with horror."
You're implying though that if someone USED the n-word, you'd moderate it out. As I said, it's a question of the degree of moderation. Imagine a group of 10,000 spammers who shouted the n-word over and over at any black person who dared to tweet. Your site would go to hell if you didn't act.
@Chris Lopes
That's it.
I'm sure EM already knows this. But if he doesn't, he'll find out as soon as he is actually involved in running the site (if that every happens). Right now, he's giving a simple clear message, a slogan — free speech. It's not that simple, but it's dumbed down.
"Moderating" social media to exclude obscenities, fighting words, and commercial advertisements is one thing. "Moderating" social media to allow only statements of "the truth" is something else entirely: censorship. That's especially true when the so-called "moderators" really don't know much of anything about the subjects they're dealing with and are just following some politically-inspired guidelines.
"Moderating" social media to exclude obscenities, fighting words, and commercial advertisements is one thing. "Moderating" social media to allow only statements of "the truth" is something else entirely: censorship. That's especially true when the so-called "moderators" really don't know much of anything about the subjects they're dealing with and are just following some politically-inspired guidelines.
"What I hope Musk wants to fix is view point discrimination - The whole "if we don't like your view we can call it fake, and block you." "
I have no doubt that's his goal. "NO moderation" is a strawman.
I love your dialogue with your friend.
The essential question you brought forward is, if you are less than fully courageous, how do you censor yourself now, and how will you then under whatever the rules for moderation turn out to be? What will you want to post? What if you have to post under your own real name? Would you want everything you have ever said in the Althouse comments tied to your real identity? Your employer or prospective employer will search Twitter and Facebook, you know. Irony is often lost in print or out of context.
If someone wanted to calm things down on social media, they would require a real identity and a credit check before granting posting privileges. But they don't want to calm things down, do they? They want to steer thought in "useful" ways. Why give a man two opinions, as Beatty says to Montag in "Farenheit 451". It just causes upset and controversy.
Moderation without viewpoint discrimination is what Althouse does. I don't think it's hard. EM can pull it off.
(I'm NOT saying it's not a lot of work for Atlhouse. I'm sure it is (and we are all grateful for it). But in Musk's case, he'll have employees to do it.)
Free speech is an affordance. It comes from valuing and respecting the rights of others, not from exercising your own. Its high purpose in not allowing the outrageous but allowing the potentially useful and true.
Free speech is free thought. ergo: The Mind Controllers must kill it. Thinking people are too dangerous to be heard.
I am not sure that mid-level petty tyrants are causing the moderation issues at Twitter. Mid-level apple-polishers might be. Think of the Twitter moderation team as a bunch of Eddie Haskells.
Parag Agrawal, the CEO, doesn't seem like a free-speech type. He grew up in India. His father was a senior official in the Indian Department of Atomic Energy and his mother is a retired Economics professor from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute in Mumbai, says Wikipedia. I am sure he knows what is better than you do. Here is a quote: "Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation ... and to focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed."
Times have changed, all right. Forward to Farenheit 451.
There is a not so fine line separating censorship and cancellation, including: allegations of [rabid] diversity, psycho-phobias, occupation of spaces, invasion of neighborhoods, etc.
Principles follows principals through reconciliation. Where this fails there are years, trimesters, of misinformation, disinformation, cover-ups, and colored proclamations in which democracy, and often demos-cracy, are aborted in darkness.
You know who else "moderates" her site?
Althouse does not moderate on the basis of ideological content.
That is precisely the complaint about leftwing Big Tech. They block a lot of non-leftist thought and choose winners and losers based on their own ideological blinders.
The Althouse Blog has degenerated into endless personal attacks at times. When Ann briefly shut it down, a lot of people rethought how they approached conflicting views here, myself included. That is the type of practical (not ideological) moderation that makes sense.
The difference is Elon will work hard to uphold the principle of free speech.
Current Twitter management has no such objective.
It's pretty obvious from my experience that when the progressive left calls for moderation and the end of "free speech" they mean censoring points of view which they are incapable of invalidating because they do not have the moral high ground or the logical basis to refute. They "know" they are right or what they want to be right and so they have decided they do not have to play fair and they ban you or block you. I have been blocked and I have never used foul language or advocated violence or issued threats, which I have been led to believe are the only reasons for blocking anyone.
I think Musk wants us to keep that standard of honest debate alive on social media. He's not advocating for vile behavior. I believe that it's possible to know the difference between those forms of expression. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that a site has to allow idiots to go back and forth infinitely with petty insults as we all saw happening here. Thank goodness for the moderation.
Ann is correct that some moderation is required to have a functional open forum. If you had a public debate and someone showed up naked and started beating everyone with a tire iron, that is not conducive to the discussion.
That said, moderation needs to have rules, those rules need to be known so they can be followed, and said rules need to be enforced uniformly. Otherwise, the moderation looks a lot like censorship. Twitter is notorious for having vague rules that no one seems to fully understand, the rules are often enforced without providing any explanation of what exactly was violated, and they are clearly not uniformly enforced. In fact, the "moderators" clearly target particular opinions to be silenced and do so with great enthusiasm, while letting users they agree with get away with worse. An open forum where only pre-approved opinions are allowed is not "open."
It is arguable that Twitter's problems simply cannot be fixed and we would be better off if it went away.
to truly have free speech today, you need moderation.
In Other (better) Words..
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
or, if you prefer.. Know your rights; all three of them
You have the right not to be killed, Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a Policeman (or aristocrat)
You have the right to food money, Providing of course you Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation And if you cross your fingers.. Rehabilitation
You have the right to Free Speech.. as long as you're not Dumb enough to actually try it.
Still Not Clear? How about
You can have Free Speech on Any Topic that doesn't matter. If it DOES Matter; someone might get upset
Pornography? YES
Politics? NO!
Condemning Christianity? Of Course!
Questioning Islam? HELL NO
"If we didn't have a form of moderation, individuals who would like to destroy this place would have run out the good faith commenters long ago."
I don't think the question is good faith vs bad faith. Very few people are out to "destroy this place." The extreme right simply believes it has some ownership of this site, and typically engages in gang, mean-spirited, ad hominem attacks on those with an opposing viewpoint. The goal is to make those they disagree with go away for good. They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the site today compared with the pre-Trump years.
Mark O said... You know who else "moderates" her site?
But that's Just to make sure, that NO ONE uses any 'N' words that are verbotten by Google..
Because, you see; Google OWNS this sight, and controls EVERYTHING written here
The Babylon Bee was suspended from Twitter for political satire. @libsoftiktok suspended for showing leftists saying what they really believe. Was PraegerU demonetized on Youtube for repeatedly using the n-word? Why was the NY Post suspended for sharing the Hunter Biden laptop story that is now admittedly true? How many people were kicked off Facebook for saying Covid started in a lab? We're not talking about spam. We're not talking about harassment or bullying or true threats or obscenity.
Musk is talking about folks who just want to participate in the public discourse - to have opinions about Covid that the government hasn't sanctioned, state basic biological facts, or simply make political arguments against political opponents, even if they don't want to hear it. We want to be able to criticize people or satirize institutions or events. The left wants to operate without criticism, so it labels it hate speech or misinformation. Criticism isn't hate. Is repeatedly labeling inconvenient facts as "misinformation" any different than Trump calling something he dislikes "Fake News?" Not really.
The "experts" cited in this article are not talking about moderation. They're talking about censorship. They're worried if Twitter lets people say things our Ivy League betters don't like, bad things will happen, like Trump may get elected. Most of their examples have serious causation problems, too. It's also clear they're on one side and the great unwashed is on the other. Better keep THOSE PEOPLE at bay. THOSE PEOPLE aren't smart enough to discern truth from make belief. THOSE PEOPLE may drink fish bowl cleaner if we don't protect them from themselves. These censors are just bullies trying to protect their turf.
Censoring stories about Hunter Biden is not moderation.
for facetiously suggesting that the USAF bomb China’s coal-fired power plants.
There is your problem right there, you tried to be funny on the internet. The Babylon Bee has the same problem. These are serious times and humor ist verboten.
There's a difference between Althouse moderating her site and Twitter.
Each post is on a subject. Commenters should comment on the post, which everyone sees.
Twitter is not like that. It's a mess of comments, with a few threads.
Moderating for personal attacks and threats of violence is not really that hard.
What would also help would be if Google stops handing out free email handles. According to the Hacker Factor blog, talking about a particular new type of "fake invoice" scam: "All were sent from free @gmail.com addresses -- and never from the same address. The scammers appear to have registered hundreds (or thousands) of gmail accounts. They use one gmail account for one mailing, then move on to the next gmail account. So far, I have not seen these scams come from anywhere except gmail."
I guess what happens if Musk gets Twitter to stop the "moderation" is, the information-killing stage of the communication process doesn't disappear, it goes downstream. By this I mean, person A produces some statement (opinion, news, whatever) and the desired outcome for free speech is, person B hears or reads what person A produced, and responds. But with censorship (excuse me, Twitter "moderation") person A's output is filtered or blocked outright. Bad! Person B never hears or sees it! Fine: along comes Elon and removes the filter or block. But then what? The cancel culture kicks in. Person A is mobbed and digitally eviscerated; he or she is doxxed and confronted in meat-space, and much media attention is given to this outcome. And Person B (a) finds this taint has reduced his or her appetite for Person A's opinion (b) decides that he or she doesn't want to suffer what Person A is suffering (from a mob completely outside the control of Elon Musk or any other owner of Twitter) and so he or she shuts up.'
That self-silencing by Person B is at least as destructive of free speech, as a cancellation of Person A by censors ever could have been. At least with censors you could try to read (or write) between the lines). But with self-censorship? There's nothing left but paranoia and silence.
"They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the [Althouse blog] compared with the pre-Trump years."
Baloney. Lefties have been spare here for a very long time.
The unspoken thing in this debate is Donald Trump and whether he'll ever return to Twitter and FB. That he would return is anathema to so many on the left. They'll do anything, even jettison free speech, to prevent it. They want him in exile till he dies. They deplatformed the President of the United States--this is still the astonishing thing. And as they did this to Trump, they can do this to DeSantis or anyone else on deck. They can and will. It's not simply moderating content--it's controlling who speaks in the public square at all.
The extreme right simply believes it has some ownership of this site, and typically engages in gang, mean-spirited, ad hominem attacks on those with an opposing viewpoint. The goal is to make those they disagree with go away for good. They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the site today compared with the pre-Trump years.
1. This lefty has not experienced the abuse, followed by banning, of any dissenting opinion comments at leftists blogs, like Washington Monthly or Mother Jones. I finally gave up at HuffPo.
2.This blog has no shortage of lefty commenters, as you illustrate.
I guess we need to start limiting the protestors, bullies and those who harass on college campuses.
sparse
Original Mike -- I said moderates, not leftists. I understand that Trump supporters believe you are either MAGA or a leftist but that would be wrong. Consider the fact that there are more independents than either Republicans or Democrats. Many/most of them are moderates.
Current Twitter management has no such objective.
I'm starting to wonder if Conservative Tree House is right about Twitter being run by the US Intel agencies. The "Board" has virtually no investment in the company. How does it pay for the huge costs in running the servers?
Conspiracy theories keep coming true the past five years.
The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap. The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account. A public-private partnership.
If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy. Let that sink in.
If she's right, then it only means that the role of moderator in society should be an elected position, subject to public scrutiny, judicial oversight, impeachment, and all the other apparatus of the consent of the governed.
The whole point of the first amendment is to ensure that the censors serve the people, and are accountable to them. If she's right that the censors have moved into the private sphere, then democratic self-rule needs to follow them there. This is not the "get out of accountability free" card that she thinks it is.
Who is bullying who?
Who can only express in a sheltered garden and who can express no matter how rough the terrain?
And yet...there remains the ability yo ignore...
jim5301 said... The extreme right simply believes it has some ownership of this site, and typically engages in gang, mean-spirited, ad hominem attacks on those with an opposing viewpoint. The goal is to make those they disagree with go away for good. They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the site today compared with the pre-Trump years.
I'm trying to understand the logic here. Ann explicitly stated that she moderates the comments to eliminate the very behavior you describe and yet somehow you believe that only those who engage in that behavior are still commenting on her site, having driven everyone else away. Do you care to explain how you reached this conclusion?
A moderate like yourself, Jim?
thanks Professora : I had not mentally connected courage and en-courage to be effect and causative! until your juxtaposing.
I wonder if how many others had already?
thanks Professora : I had not mentally connected courage and en-courage to be effect and causative! until your juxtaposing.
I wonder if how many others had already?
Without moderation on Twitter, people might be able to say that people with penises are men. You know, the position that 99% of people held just a few years ago. Heck, at least 90% probably still thinks that.
I am trying to imagine the journalists and elites being bullied off of Twitter. I am not succeeding.
There is a difference between moderation and what Twitter is doing today. Twitter is banning people permanently for non-violent, non-threatening, opinions. The bans on the NYPost story about Hunter "Crackpipe" Biden's laptop had nothing to do with moderation- it was straight-up censorship. Banning people like Alex Berenson, Emerald Robinson, and others for having a different opinion, with good supporting evidence at the time and today, that the COVID vaccines weren't all that beneficial is also censorship. They also banned people who cited the CDC's own evidence and claims prior to 2020 that masking doesn't help stop respiratory viruses.
And let's discuss Trump- he was banned for claiming the election was stolen. Is that a proper reason for a permanent ban? There were other people also banned on Twitter for collecting and disseminating the evidence that Trump was right about the election being stolen. Twitter banned no one for claiming the 2016 election was stolen.
I think Twitter is a financial sink-hole, and I think Musk would do well to steer well clear of it were I giving him advice he might listen to, however, I really want to see him buy it out and fire the entire management team and reinstate all the people that the blue checkmarks celebrated being banned. Watching them writhe in anguish at the idea that someone they don't like might get to tweet something is just fucking hilarious to me.
The goal is to make those they disagree with go away for good. They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the site today compared with the pre-Trump years.
Sorry jim. That is simply not true. We had an awful lot of conflict during the Obama years.
BTW, who are some of the "moderate" commenters you referred to?
I noticed that your profile says you joined in 2021. What are you basing your opinion about this site on?
You're implying though that if someone USED the n-word, you'd moderate it out. As I said, it's a question of the degree of moderation. Imagine a group of 10,000 spammers who shouted the n-word over and over at any black person who dared to tweet. Your site would go to hell if you didn't act.
I'm with McWhorter and Loury, who on the topic say out loud the full n-word which Althouse rules prevent me from writing. They say taking offense at mention of that full word, those sounds, characterizes blacks as stupid and shallow.
I don't know of anybody who uses the n-word, only mentions, and only on the topic of fake taking of offense and what can be done about it.
I mean, except, blacks use it, but it's a cozy use, no ill will in it.
Look for ill-will, not the n-word, would be a good rule.
You can be anti-censorship because it makes the protected out as imbeciles, a position that elevates censors. Not a good motive in the protective move they make. And McWhorter and Loury are mad about that move, because it makes it tempting to blacks to take offense as a way of life.
And some blacks are imbeciles and taking offense ruins their life prospects, suggesting that a chip on your shoulder is a career enhancement when it's the opposite.
Handle the n-word shout mob when that problem comes up. A mot juste is more likely to be effective than deletion.
The Althouse published rationale was so that Google doesn't get mad at you, as I recall.
The n-word without ill will, as mentions are likely to be, is a plus. Look, it says, there's nothing to take offense at. It's a friend.
"The questions are about the degree of moderation and the importance of avoiding bias in applying that moderation."
Where do you get this absurd notion that allowing people to say what you want them to say, and only what you want them to say, is "free speech"? I thought you were smarter than that, a LOT smarter. It's not complicated. You either allow all speech, or suppress all speech, or suppress only the speech you are biased against. If someone else wants to say it, but you don't want it said, well, there. Now we know what you are biased against. We've done the experiment, we've found the result. Call it moderation if you like, instead of suppression, but don't claim it's unbiased.
"Somebody will spell out the n-word ..."
We don't call it the n-word any more. N-word is hurtful to N-words, so we call it Z-word. Rotate the N clockwise 90 degrees. Z-words can't figure that out, so it doesn't hurt them. Moderation in all things, including moderation.
It’s my opinion that every commenter on this blog is moderate. No one is an extremist. Many are extremely smart, humorous and interesting, most of us only moderately so. But that’s just my modest opinion. Moderately modest, not extremely modest. I could be wrong. Thanks for reading. Carry on.
jim5301 said...
The goal is to make those they disagree with go away for good. They have largely succeeded, as there are significantly fewer moderate commentators on the site today
and then, Maynard said...BTW, who are some of the "moderate" commenters you referred to?
Yes PLEASE, jim? Could you list some of the "moderate" commenters that have been chased away?
I'm wondering if you're referring to people banned by Our Professor.
One way or the other; should be easy to name drop some names
Meade said...
No one is an extremist. Many are extremely smart, humorous and interesting, most of us only moderately so.
and then you have trouble makers like ME; that think that being snarky, is smart, humorous or interesting
;)
I’m not aware of you causing too much trouble, Gils. I could check with the moderator but for now I’d say feel free, be true to your school and express yourself don’t repress yourself.
that think that being snarky
Snark is the second highest form of humor, right after sarcasm.
Oh and one more thing: Keep it gay. Which used to mean, when my parents were young, don’t be a drag, or a drip, or a sourpuss. No one likes a whiner. Chin up. Let a smile be your passport. And God bless the USA.
I assure you that jim thinks the NYTimes and WaPo are neutral to right of center politically and culturally. He definitely thinks FoxNews is Goebbels Broadcasting Corporation, and that Tucker Carlsen is likely proof that Ira Levin wasn't writing fiction all the time.
Blogger Dave Begley said...
got kicked off of AMZN book reviews for facetiously suggesting
==========
I am curious -
as you have been 'licensed' = allowed by gatekeepers to practice law - is not one requirement to shed your ability to "facetiate" >>>>
Blogger Dave Begley said...
got kicked off of AMZN book reviews for facetiously suggesting
==========
I am curious -
as you have been 'licensed' = allowed by gatekeepers to practice law - is not one requirement to shed your ability to "facetiate" >>>>
Number three
You have the right to free speech
As long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it
Know your rights
These are your rights
Know Your Rights - The Clash
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
I was going to say something but… I self moderated.
There you go, Inga. Now you’ve got the spirit!
No moderation. If there's libel, then sue. People need to grow up and learn to ignore idiots. They need to understand they can turn the TV off and put the phone down.
"It’s my opinion that every commenter on this blog is moderate"
But some had to be moderated into being moderate.
Oh..the tired reach for "bullying" as an excuse to squash wrongthink, like a guy who got canned for questioning the jabs the day Elon announced.
Seemed almost like "better get crackin' on these heretics".
"What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation. Otherwise just those who bully and harass will be left as they will drive others away."
That is pure, utter, garbage.
1: The ones who "bully and harass [and] drive others away" are the "moderators" / censors
2: If someone says things you don't like on Social media, you can "mute" them, and never hear them again. you can even "block" them. Heck, lefties maintain "block lists" that you can follow, and never encounter these wrong-thinkers even once
The reason why the lefties demand censorship is because they want to make sure no one ELSE can hear those "wrong-thinkers", either.
Katie Harbath is, as usual, everything that she claims to be against
"Elon Musk wants a free speech utopia. Technologists clap back. Musk’s vision of the Internet is outdated and doesn’t take into account the real world, they say"
"Outdated": "We destroyed that threat to our power, and don't want it to come back"
"doesn’t take into account the real world": Whining babies on Twitter will throw really big tantrums if they're not allowed to censor people
The best part about Musk proposing to buy Twitter is that it's forcing the evil people to take their masks off.
It's practically Trumpian, the way he gets the left wing fascists to show their true colors
Chris Lopes said...
You can't have total absolute free speech on social media sites (or real life actually) because people can and will be jerks.
Yes, you can. That's why the mute and black button's exist, and why there are "block lists".
So long as Section 230 protections exist for "Social Media" companies, they don't need anything else other than a way to deal with posts that are illegal, rather than just obnoxious to somebody
Mark O said...
You know who else "moderates" her site?
Blogger does not provide the ability to mute commenters . threads of argument that you don't like
Twitter does
Every single person on Twitter is their own moderator. What the Left demands is the power to be everyone's moderator, rather than letting each person be empowered to do it for themselves.
Ann Althouse said...
"Somebody will spell out the n-word, as usual as a mention and not a use, and people of culture will react with horror."
You're implying though that if someone USED the n-word, you'd moderate it out. As I said, it's a question of the degree of moderation. Imagine a group of 10,000 spammers who shouted the n-word over and over at any black person who dared to tweet. Your site would go to hell if you didn't act.
IIRC, you can set up a filter on Twitter / Tweetdeck that will filter out any messages that contain a given word. So
1: You have no idea what the skin color actually is of anyone who posts o social media
2: It takes no moderation by the site to stop that from being a problem
What it comes down to is:
Should we expect that legal adults have to bear the responsibilities of being actual adults?
Do we want to empower individuals, or do we want all powerful overlords who run our lives for us?
Blogger rhhardin said...
I'm with McWhorter and Loury, who on the topic say out loud the full n-word
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will that be 5 letters ending or 6 -
Q: does it matter to the Professora's concern for / on this site?
I'm troubled by the high likelihood that bad guys will systematically set out to destroy the forum with messages solely intended to make freedom look bad.
Elon has given two longer form interviews in the past few weeks, one before the Twitter action became public & one since to Chris Anderson the key face, interviewer of TED. I'd say the author cited is fundamentally dishonest as many in the media casually are when they are sure of their correctness.
In the more recent one he is pretty clear about moderation to follow the law and a desire to focus on not ending moderation but making what occurs transparent. Algorithms on GitHub, interventions are disclosed & public, not stopped.
I recommend watching the whole of both, a lot of great stuff, much of it on other topics but here is a relevant part.
https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM?t=958
Later in the interview he talks about sanity straining time, years of it, at Tesla & having an unpleasant childhood. Pretty good things to be aware of about an influential person.
The earlier interview is here & worth the time to listen as well https://youtu.be/YRvf00NooN8.
On the other hand, barring people from saying what they want discourages free speech.
The larger the forum the more moderation is required.Im not impressed by corporations who monopolize online speech and then coming about content. Smaller forums have better content and need less moderation. The problem is size, and Facebook and Twitter intentionally crowded out all competitors. They caused the problem!
Katie Harbath is a global leader at the intersection of elections, democracy, civic, and tech. Most recently she was a public policy director at Facebook where, over the course of ten years, she was credited with building out and leading a 30-person global team responsible for managing elections.
So in other words, she's not somebody who deletes posts with dirty words and bans users who make personal attacks. She was the person who "managed elections" for Facebook. I take it they don't mean internal elections at Meta, but rather the elections in which the rest of us in the US and other countries are supposed to be choosing our leaders by popular vote. Scary. She's afraid that Musk will diminish the ability of people like her to "manage elections." You can find clips of Katie talking with Mr. Potato Head on CNN so I guess she is a "reliable source" as well.
I wanted to make a suggestion on a Wikipedia talk page and found out that I'd been banned again. I can't think why. Most of what I've done lately has been just to make minor suggestions about facts and focus on talk pages, not changing things on actual article pages. My suspicion is that they keep a shit list of computers that have ever posted anything that offended some moderator and that every new post that offends some moderator gets someone on the shit list banned for "persistent vandalism." This may all be done by a bot, though a moderator needs to sign off on it.
This language of "persistent vandalism" has to be over the top, I suppose, to justify banning people, but I wonder whether somebody couldn't sue, arguing that what they were doing wasn't "vandalism" at all and didn't "endanger" Wikipedia's sacred "project."
Also, Katie, if your team is monitoring this, try to get a little volume in your hair. You look a lot like a potato yourself.
Bullying (like everything else) is only proper when the right people do it.
In theory, stopping the bullying and harassment would lead to freer speech, but what we see on Twitter is one side being allowed to bully and harass endlessly, and the other side being strangled slowly.
If, under Musk, Twitter didn't "accidentally" suspend or ban people during critical periods (days just before an election, a major vote in Congress, etc) and then restore their accounts when the moment is over, he will improve Twitter. The majority, if not all, of those "mistakes" seem to happen consistently to one POV. As to bans like Trump's, I think it more a strategic "mistake" by Twitter. The ban made him seem more powerful.
Moderation is fine.
So long as it is cruelly neutral.
"... those who bully and harass ... will drive others away."
Yes, because the twits are compelled to click on the bullies and harassers so they can be bullied and harassed. Also, Twitter is a mandatory platform and the twits are forced to participate.
Lefty logic. Pathetically transparent.
""What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation. Otherwise just those who bully and harass will be left as they will drive others away.""
This argument is civility bullshit on stilts. They are calling censorship "moderation", by framing speech they don't like as "bullying and harassment".
This "heads I win, tails you lose" dynamic has been going on for some time. Disagreement with favored identity groups, which are essentially anyone not white, heterosexual or male, is cast as "hateful, harmful, bullying, harassment", etc by all these cry-bullies. Never mind the similar hateful crap they spew towards the non-protected groups that they openly hate.
Its a tactic that is hypocritical and self serving as hell.
"What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation. Otherwise just those who bully and harass will be left as they will drive others away."
So, when will Taylor Lorentz and WaPo be "moderated" off of social media for their bullying of the woman behind Libs of TikTok
Bullying that was done for the purpose of driving her off of Twitter?
What's that? The "monitors" find this bullying to be perfectly acceptable?
So, we're done now, right? Every single person with a functioning brain now understands that every single argument being made to justify the censorship is complete garbage. Yes?
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