Social media censorship roundup
 

I'll put it all here so you can ignore it if you don't care.

Yesterday, alternative site Gab, which says it will not censor anything unless the government says it cannot be published, prohibited all porn from its site (which is not unusual) and published many tweets saying they did it because porn is bad for you.

Today, Twitter suspended several journalists for linking to the Pensacola shooter's manifesto.

Oh dear! We cannot offend anyone.

this thread has been incarcerated for it's own protection

it's election season?

It appears now it's always election season.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that

"Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard."

Excellent and forward-thinking.

"Like Mastodon, except we own it."

Nerds. Social media according to Garp? More separation?
If the teacher makes them play nice in school there'll be hell to pay on the playground.

Instagram is applying fact-checking censorship to memes and jokes.

http://cellar.org/img/instagramjokes.jpg

http://cellar.org/img/instagramjokes2.jpg

http://cellar.org/img/instagramjokes3.jpg

Instagram and its parent company Facebook are removing posts that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business.

Reddit's /r/worldnews mods removed a top rated, multi-awarded comment that translated the Iranian protesters slogans... and then half a day later, re-approved it.

Wait. How do opinions violate sanctions?

They don't. So why is Facebook suppressing opinions? I'll tell ya....

I liked this part of the story:

Critical reading: "removing accounts run by or on behalf of sanctioned people and organizations" = required

"[removing] posts that commend the actions of sanctioned parties and individuals" = not required, but they do it "also".

Why?

Here's a real world example from 2019. 1) YouTube gets bad press because stories say it has Nazis. 2) YouTube advertisers panic. 3) YouTube modifies its algorithm to demonetize, and never recommend, all videos that contain the word "Nazi". 4) All history-teaching and anti-Nazi videos that mention the word are demonetized and never recommended.

Worst possible outcome. But Youtube can't algorithmically detect which videos are Nazi and which are anti-Nazi. Way easier to just shadowban them all.

If anyone is interested, here is a very stylish and entertaining video that details the Youtube approach to keywords. They have thousands of keywords! The investigators found, for example, that a video title with the words "gay" and "homosexual" would be automatically demonetized, but "straight" and "heterosexual" were fine.

OUR DISCOURSE IS NOW CONTROLLED BY SHITTY ALGORITHMS. This is a disaster.

After Soleimani’s death, Instagram shuts down Iranian accounts

But did it affect just the official Iranian news agencies? Of course not!

Troubling. Good lord.

YouTube has now censored the very anti-Nazi 1943 Frank Capra documentary "Prelude to War".

It was financed by the US Gov, shown to all soldiers.

The uploader was well-known internet archivist Carl Malamud.

It's important historical material.

The automatic ban survived a manual appeals process, which means it was reviewed by a human reviewer and judged to be in Violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines.

History, deny it, it never happened.

Read books (before the Firemen come).

It would appear, we are fucking this up.

It's a byproduct of AI's one-algorithm-fits-all solutions. Them's the rules, baby, no exceptions, no borderline cases, black of white, live or die. Law & order has no room for justice.

The Nerd City video worked out that the algorithms are being trained by offshore workers in third world countries.

Such as this one, I'm betting:

The automatic ban survived a manual appeals process, which means it was reviewed by a human reviewer and judged to be in Violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines.

Once the ban is human-reviewed, it's more permanent and will be used by the algorithm going forward.

So some human says, yup, has the word Nazi, ban it.

Some human, possibly ESL, from a different culture...

ESL = English as a Second Language, had to Google it, too many abbreviations and acronyms. :rollanim:

So maybe the free market isn't as free as it sounds.

What 'free market'?
 

😕

A free market has never existed and cannot exist, for the exact same reason that communism doesn't work in practice.

This social media weirdness is a prime example of this.

Luce, you got some splainin' to do.
 

*Why?

**Why?

Because the first guy to come up with a workable, economic solution dominates their end of the market, and competition is at best desultory.

So you have stand alone BBSs. Some generate revenue, some do not.

Then Facebook comes along. Facebook generates revenue while charging its users nothing at all. (Myspace was an earlier, failed attempt at this) Then they own an entire sector of human behavior, which they analyze and sell to outside interests.

Then MeWe came along, had a better platform, promised to stop the abuses and censorship, but there wasn't enough market share left for them to do much of anything at all...They lacked the financial muscle to compete with Facebook. Nobody on the planet has the financial muscle to compete with Facebook.

This has now been proven to be true, so Facebook does whatever they please, knowing that folks like MeWe will not unseat them in the foreseeable future. You have no realistic choice in the market, as a consumer.

Youtube has the exact same monopoly, for the exact same reasons.

And they're not going to come up with actual solutions to blindly censoring entire topics, because there is no market pressure for them to do so.

There are numerous offline examples of the same problem.

So the market is an aristocracy in fact, and a meritocracy only in theory.

Also worth mentioning: If a free market as described were possible then, by definition, that's what we would have, because any attempt to dislodge it would be derailed by market forces.

Actually most people demand censorship from their social media. (The advertisers definitely do.)

There is very little anger over the things I've pointed out here.

Most people will viciously squash anything that moves out of their comfort zone. This is hardly news.

"Because the first guy to come up with a workable, economic solution dominates their end of the market, and competition is at best desultory."

As long as the monopoly isn't fostered, supported, or protected (or opposed) by the the big stick of government, why is this a problem? And how is this a negation of the free market? Fortune favors the bold.

#

"Then Facebook comes along. Facebook generates revenue while charging its users nothing at all. (Myspace was an earlier, failed attempt at this) Then they own an entire sector of human behavior, which they analyze and sell to outside interests."

I think they successfully cater to to what folks want.

If folks don't want their info sold, they can choose to not participate (don't use facebook).

If facebook doesn't lie to their customers, then what's the problem?

If they do lie: hold them to account, or stop associating with 'em.

#

"Then MeWe came along, had a better platform, promised to stop the abuses and censorship, but there wasn't enough market share left for them to do much of anything at all...They lacked the financial muscle to compete with Facebook. Nobody on the planet has the financial muscle to compete with Facebook."

It wasn't a lack of an infinitely fluid market (share), it was a lack of successful marketing. They didn't advertise themselves well or enough. If they had, and if indeed they had a better service, then they shoulda succeeded.

This is how free competition works. The fairness is in the ability to start the business, not in some guarantee of success. That is: the ant isn't prohibited from goin' up against the anteater, but his success or failure is entirely on him.

#

"This has now been proven to be true, so Facebook does whatever they please, knowing that folks like MeWe will not unseat them in the foreseeable future. You have no realistic choice in the market, as a consumer."

If customers are satisfied, or are not entirely displeased, with the service, and if no one else is steppin' up with a better product and successful marketing, then where's the complaint? How has the free market been short circuited?

#

"And they're not going to come up with actual solutions to blindly censoring entire topics, because there is no market pressure for them to do so."

Exactly. If the bulk of customers aren't particularly bothered by bias or advertising or censoring (which it really isn't), facebook won't change a thing. Why should they?

#

"So the market is an aristocracy in fact, and a meritocracy only in theory."

A free market is nuthin' but folks transactin' freely (aristocracy and meritocracy have nuthin' to do with it).

Reality is: we don't have a free market (except on the local level, sometimes) cuz our employees favor some and restrict others. They monkey around with supply and demand.

I just heard about MeWe this morning.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeWe_(social_media)

Me, I never heard of 'em before Luce's mention of them up-thread.

I take wiki with a grain, but, if the piece is accurate, they don't seem so down & out as Luce portrayed 'em.

Why does it matter how it's foster, supported, or protected?

They cater to what people will put up with in exchange for pictures of cats.

They did have a better service. Their attempts at advertising were buried alive, as they lacked the financial muscle to saturate non-social media outlets enough to penetrate the market.

Yes. The first past the post has effectively a permanent monopoly. That's an aristocracy.

It hasn't. It's just not a free market.


You have one choice. Choose freely.

They've been around for 9 years.

As a result of low/no traffic, they are effectively dark web.

ie, the people that go there now go there because they want to talk about things without being seen doing it.

"Why does it matter how it's foster, supported, or protected?"

Cuz free and managed are not synonymous.

#

"They cater to what people will put up with in exchange for pictures of cats."

And if the bulk or folks are satisfied with tradin' off info for cat videos, where's the problem?

#

"They did have a better service. Their attempts at advertising were buried alive, as they lacked the financial muscle to saturate non-social media outlets enough to penetrate the market."

Well, the wiki link paints a somewhat less bleak picture. As i say, though, i take wiki with a grain. Anyway, an uphill climb is not the same as 'no, you aren't allowed on the hill'.

#

"The first past the post has effectively a permanent monopoly. That's an aristocracy."

Ain't nuthin' permanent about a natural monopoly. It may last for generations but one innovation can topple it. And, no, you're misusing aristocracy. It's easier to lambaste 'em when you can paint them as privileged, but we both know that ain't the case.

Powerful? Yep. Protected? Mebbe. Aristocratic? No.

#

"It's just not a free market."

It's not, but not for the reasons you state.

#

"Choose freely."

And wisely.

Just so we're clear, you only object to government interference in the market?

When the big stick of gov is levied against, or used to to protect, someone in the economy (even with the best of intentions), this is rank interference that short circuits the market. Let buyers and sellers, in their endless, on-goin', transactions punish and reward. Take offenders to court, if you must, as last resort (let those decisions inform similar matters down the road [and keep the goddamned legislators under heel and away from the marketplace).

My standard is simple: Do not knowingly, willingly, without just cause, deprive, in part or whole, the other guy of his life, liberty, or property, and you can do as you like (in the bedroom, in the church, in business).

Sell whatever you like, as you like, be honest about what it is you're sellin', make a million (if you can).

So is that a yes or a no?

I would take that as a yes.

👍🏻

But in our model (hell, in every model), there isn't any such thing as government interference, for the same reason privately-maintained monopolies don't matter.

By which I mean, the government is an intrinsic part of the market.

The US government is not really involved in the social media censorship question.

But if it were widely involved, it would make the problem far worse, by applying more ridiculous censorship, in more ham-handed ways.

We know this already. Social media just gets rid of everything with "Nazi" in it; an otherwise reasonable UK government goes a huge step further, and fines a pug owner 800 pounds for making a joke about Nazis. Sends police around to question the nature of tweets. Sometimes arrests joking tweeters and charges them.

I think they know that. They DID try to get involved (Communications Decency Act), but found it to be unenforceable.

Wait. What?

The UK government has never been reasonable. Incidentally, this probably didn't help the man's case:

As opposed to all the other governments we like so well. If we threw a dart at a globe, chances are the government it landed on would be actively limiting what sites people can visit and pawing through their searches, as much as possible.

If that had an effect on the outcome it is just that much more shameful.

The UK has always liked to listen in on phones and the internet.


If you are arguing in court that the Nazi comments were taken out of context, or were a joke, then having Tommy Robinson show up isn't the best thing that could happen to you.

If gov is an intrinsic part of the market (as regulator, for example [which is interference to my mind]) then the market is managed, not free.

And: I didn't say diddly about privately-maintained monopolies. I mentioned, in passing, natural monopolies

Would you like to know about natural monopolies and why they're superior to the artificial monopolies you get with managed markets?

I'll be glad to rant about it (I haven't had a good libertarian rant in a coon's age, so I'm well-primed).

To imagine that the outcome of a public trial would be affected by whom is in favor of the different sides is...



...a pretty solid argument for keeping government out of managing any social media, in any way

The government is not only a regulator, but a participant in the market.


Sorry, I've heard it before.

I'm not disagreeing.

"The government is not only a regulator, but a participant in the market."

Yeah, it interferes up and down the line: as regulator, standard-setter, participant; as enforcer, as restrictor, as thief.

And the one thing it should be doin' (contract arbitration) it does poorly cuz it's mixed up in all the other nonsense I list above.

This is like saying a fish interferes with the ocean.

Technically true, but meaningless.

No, it's like sayin' a kid fucks around with an ant farm, instead of just leavin' 'em be.

It's worse though, cuz humans aren't ants to be farmed (but those folks who are supposed to be our employees often treat us, and our interactions, as such).

Has anyone told employers this?

The employers (the private citizens) know the employees (the elected folk) are fuckin' around. Some care, many don't.

Domestication.