GlyphFeb 20

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116103661147175039

Mekka's take on the methodological implications on the (lack of) cross-tabs on this study are on point, but there's another thing to look at here: our definition of "platforming". So much discussion of "platforming" is conducted from the perspective of "are these ideas dangerous, is it OK to let people hear these dangerous ideas". That's not what is happening. The speech acts involved are not "conveying ideas" and letting people analyze them.

Show threadGlyphFeb 20
One way to look at this is to say "oh, algorithmic feeds make people more racist" but the way that attitudes are being measured, the entire way that attitudes *work*, is actually showing something different here: what algorithmic feeds do is *allow racists to efficiently find each other*. "platforming" in this context is not allowing people to hear racist ideas, it is allowing people to *build a command and control network for white supremacist violence*.
Show threadGlyphFeb 20
If nazis are dropping bombs on you by flying planes that communicate by radio, blowing up their ground control radio towers or jamming their radio signals is not "censorship". Similarly, deplatforming is not about preventing their "dangerous ideas" from winning in the "marketplace of ideas", it is about disrupting their communications so they cannot organize and build power to kill people.
Show threadGlyphFeb 20
Freedom of speech is important and I do believe that we need to be careful when we punish people for speaking. But the american left needs to contend with the cold hard fact that Fox News needs to be made illegal *somehow*. We have seen the results, the violence and death which is the result of this "speech". The right has been dancing on the line of the Brandenburg test for decades now: causing violence with speech, then pretending they couldn't have known the violence would be caused by it
Show threadChristopher NeugebauerFeb 20
@glyph May I suggest building a judiciary that relaxes the standards for civil liability?
Show threadGlyph
@chrisjrn Not a bad starting place!
Feb 20 at 6:15pmWeb
Show threadAnnieFeb 23

@glyph @chrisjrn

Hadn't read this Rick Webb essay before. I know, I know, "never read the comments," but very close to the top was one that sums our problems up rather well:

"I’ll let you ponder my age and prescience, but rest assured that at no time did I kid myself that the net would be rainbows and unicorns. Any circulatory system is also a disease pathway. The best way to look at the internet is as a water supply; how do you protect your clean drinking water? First, enclose it so animals don’t crap in it; second don’t let thieves divert it for exclusivity; third, be prepared to kill to keep those thwarted thieves from crapping in it." - Karl Hase/Dec 26, 2017.

Currently, we have a Freedom to Crap law that keeps us from passing any other laws to ensure public health benefits, (like, oh I don't know, avoiding cholera), or explicitly guaranteeing our right to clean water. Nothing can supersede the Freedom to Crap.

Show threadGlyphFeb 23
@anne @chrisjrn don't give RFK Jr any ideas