The problem comes from the fact that us-version capitalism had been corrupted to no end.
On the one hand, drugs and their benefits have been privatized, even when research was publicly funded. Which should be tagged as socialism, according to some so-called "capitalists".
On the other hand, the government has tied its own hands by passing a law stating that it's barred from negotiating drug prices. Not "setting" mind you. "Negotiating". That's the base of free market economics, according to right-wingers themselves... when they speak about non-government entities.
Seems like an extreme case of double standards, with greed as the all-too-obvious motive.
First, I didn't say it was "acceptable", only that it's "legal". When your speech is legal but unacceptable, you still risk paying a social cost, just not a legal one.
Second, the line defined by law can be moved. It must be done very carefully though, lest you give too much power to the government to suppress speech it doesn't like.
As for examples of acceptable violent rhetoric, lots of jokes fall in that category, like threatening to throw a certain judge in a woodchipper. How do you differentiate humor from actual threats? That is one fine line to draw. Be careful of wishes for strict enforcement of the law.
Actually, I'd give a point to the previous AC on these:
calling for followers to hurt a specific person is illegal, but saying that an ethnic group needs to be exterminated is fine;
Well, more like half a point here. It is indeed legal to wish some degree of violence on a vaguely defined group of people at some undetermined time in the future, as long as it's not a direct call for imminent action. It's bad, but it's difficult to draw a fine line that wouldn't outlaw certain acceptable speech. So it's been drawn at "call to imminent illegal action". I'm not sure about Stengel, but Trump for example should really be glad about this status quo, since he actually called for violence several times during his rallies. (Personally, I think he even blatantly crossed that line a few times, his targets only being saved by the crowd being - barely - more reasonable than him.)
giving more than a certain dollar value to a politician to spend on their campaign is illegal, but giving that same money to a PAC to spend on that politician's behalf is fine)
As you say, there is indeed call for reform here. However, that is indeed the law of the land at the moment, at changing it is difficult because those who can change it are the same ones who benefit from it.
As an example: Richard Stengel’s opinions on free speech make me plenty pissed off. But he should absolutely have the right to express them (...) without government interference.
... though that doesn't mean he is entitled to a space on any specific platform either.
If nobody likes his ideas and everybody kick him out for being despicable, that's not a First Amendment issue.
I'm not sure this "profit motive requirement" is in the law, can you cite it to be sure.
There is a specific board that meets once every three years to decide which specific exceptions can apply. I don't remember anything said about profit in these meetings. In particular, an exception for "security research" has been requested - and denied - multiple times, despite the lack of profit motive in most cases.
Anti-circumvention law is an aberration by itself. It consecrates that the protection layer is protected by law instead of the protected software - which is already protected by copyright law. It's like passing a law stating that I can't break the don't-murder law in order to assassinate someone. There is already a law against murdering someone, so adding a law against breaking the law against murder is ridiculous.
True. I didn't say people want Facebook to choose which stance to take. :D I agree that most critical want consistency... their way, not FB's.
Also, I tend to disagree with extreme positions, though I do find FB's stance to be even worse. It's inconsistent, which is the worse kind of moderation, and their public response to critics is a big fat lie which doesn't help either.
Anyone who thinks Facebook should decide which claims by politicians are acceptable might ask themselves this question: Why do you want us to have so much power?
Amusing to see how they misrepresent the position of their critics.
The main critic I've heard is not about "making them judge the truth of ads", it's about making them act consistently.
Either they fact-check all ads. Why put an exception specifically on one of the most impactful type of ad ever?
Or don't fact-check at all, let people make their own judgement.
And then, it went one step further as Facebook started judging who is "a politician" or not.
Let's summarize Adriel Hampton's action for a minute to show how FB reacted:
He submitted an obviously lying "political ad" to Facebook. Facebook pretended until then that they didn't fact-check political ads at all. They fact-checked and rejected this one... pretending that what they excluded was "politicians' ads", not "political ads".
Adriel then registered to run for governor, making him an official politician. He then resubmitted his ad, and it was rejected again... under the pretense that they don't recognize a politician that is not running in an ongoing election or something like this. Now, this is getting subjective.
The FB team also mentioned that they wouldn't allow an ad that was previously debunked... which is also a new twist.
It's worse than "we let politician lie", it's "we let some politician lie"... and they decide who is or isn't allowed to lie.
So, the problem is not so much "we don't fact-check political ads", but a much more vague "we don't check the political ads we want to let through." They are legally allowed to do that, but they should understand that they open themselves to critic with such a flawed and subjective policy as they knowingly let some lies through and not others.
They also tried the debunked "tv channels are forced to let political ads through", which is really a "tv channels are not required to validate political ads".
Their defense crumbles all the way, so they should either own their policy or change it.
False positives and false negatives on the same topic do make for catchy headlines.
Although I agree that the subject is critical and it's deplorable that the vaccination campaign got taken down (was it restored since?), this is indeed just a sign that no moderation will be perfect. Going by numbers, there will always be something worth pointing out as a "failure of moderation". Even big cases like this one will keep popping up here and there all the time.
So what now? Should we abandon moderation? Obviously not.
We can just keep moving forward, find examples of failures and research ways to refine the filters. Perfection can't be achieved, but we can try to get better over time.
The lesson to remember is just not to berate those who at least try to improve. It's difficult enough as it is, let's not provide incentive to give up in frustration.
I'm also curious about the take on this issue by organization like the republican party and the NRA.
They keep saying, among other excuses, that people have the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. What is more tyrannical than the police raiding your home without announcing themselves, sometimes admitting themselves that it's in an illegal procedure, all guns drawn and ready to kill the moment something moves?
I am so shocked not to hear a word from them in such cases.
From the beginning, the whole concept of "official channel for whistleblowers" bring the image of asking chickens to report issues within the hen-house to the fox in charge.
That's not a win. That's dragging down the system with you as you (still) lose.
You can find satisfaction in that, but it just multiplies the cost to tax payers as you drag the process in court.
Please only contest in good faith, not just as a way to "beat the system", which is more about "upping the cost of the system". Then again, please do contest when it's in good faith. We don't want to encourage local governments to setup alternate revenue streams this way.
This goes back to the Betamax, and likely before that.
To quote the entertainment industries over the past century or so...
On the audio side:
Phonograms will kill the live concerts.
Radio will kill the phonogram.
Tapes will kill the radio.
On the video side:
Cinema will kill the theaters.
TV will kill the cinema.
Tapes will kill TV.
DVD will kill tapes. (Well, that one is pretty much true.)
And now...
Internet will kill all the above. (Well, this is partially true: physical media went near extinct.)
Those industries have complained about each and every new technology, but have slowly adapted to each of them... except Internet. They somehow managed to get politicians on their side on this one, thanks to both heavy lobbying and a shared fear of a technology that enables anyone to bypass their exclusive communication channels.
Re: You're falsifying by leaving out words again, Maz.
And you purposefully didn't emphasize "useful" arts.
Which at that time meant craftsmanship more than our modern use of the word art. So that was more about parents than copyright.
And then you try to pretend that a lifetime plus 70 years counts as "limited times", which is contrary to the intent and expectations of the founders.
Nice try, but you won't convince anyone who really reads the text and knows a bit of the context.
Also, this is a case of "we had to do something; this is something".
It doesn't matter that it messes the situation worse than it already was. They were supposed to act, so they did the first they could think of instead of studying and understanding the situation first, then crafting a reasonable solution.
The appearance of action is what matters nowadays, not actually providing solutions.
On the post: GAO Report: TSA Has No Idea How Effective Its Suspicionless Surveillance Program Is
Re: A reminder of how BS the TSA’s “behavioral detection”
Given the atmosphere in the US, that might be the most suspicious behavior in the whole list.
(To /s or not to /s. I'm not sure.)
On the post: Pharma Giant Fails To Mention -- For 18 Years -- That US Government Helped Fund A Key Patent Used In Drug That Has Generated $53 Billion In Sales So Far
The problem comes from the fact that us-version capitalism had been corrupted to no end.
On the one hand, drugs and their benefits have been privatized, even when research was publicly funded. Which should be tagged as socialism, according to some so-called "capitalists".
On the other hand, the government has tied its own hands by passing a law stating that it's barred from negotiating drug prices. Not "setting" mind you. "Negotiating". That's the base of free market economics, according to right-wingers themselves... when they speak about non-government entities.
Seems like an extreme case of double standards, with greed as the all-too-obvious motive.
On the post: Former Journalist Decides There's Too Much Free Speech These Days
Re: Re: Re: Re:
First, I didn't say it was "acceptable", only that it's "legal". When your speech is legal but unacceptable, you still risk paying a social cost, just not a legal one.
Second, the line defined by law can be moved. It must be done very carefully though, lest you give too much power to the government to suppress speech it doesn't like.
As for examples of acceptable violent rhetoric, lots of jokes fall in that category, like threatening to throw a certain judge in a woodchipper. How do you differentiate humor from actual threats? That is one fine line to draw. Be careful of wishes for strict enforcement of the law.
On the post: Former Journalist Decides There's Too Much Free Speech These Days
Re: Re:
Actually, I'd give a point to the previous AC on these:
Well, more like half a point here. It is indeed legal to wish some degree of violence on a vaguely defined group of people at some undetermined time in the future, as long as it's not a direct call for imminent action. It's bad, but it's difficult to draw a fine line that wouldn't outlaw certain acceptable speech. So it's been drawn at "call to imminent illegal action". I'm not sure about Stengel, but Trump for example should really be glad about this status quo, since he actually called for violence several times during his rallies. (Personally, I think he even blatantly crossed that line a few times, his targets only being saved by the crowd being - barely - more reasonable than him.)
As you say, there is indeed call for reform here. However, that is indeed the law of the land at the moment, at changing it is difficult because those who can change it are the same ones who benefit from it.
On the post: Former Journalist Decides There's Too Much Free Speech These Days
Re:
... though that doesn't mean he is entitled to a space on any specific platform either.
If nobody likes his ideas and everybody kick him out for being despicable, that's not a First Amendment issue.
That's just people showing you the door.
On the post: Totally In-Touch NH Lawmaker Blocks Device Repair Bill, Tells Constituents To Just Buy New $1k Phones
Re:
On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully
Re: Re: Second amendment?
Yes, that was the joke.
On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, some of them are.
And they can stay in detention for weeks.
On the post: Sometimes The Cost Of Revenue Is Too High: Twitter Bans Political Ads As Facebook Deals With Ongoing Shitshow
Re: Re:
True. I didn't say people want Facebook to choose which stance to take. :D I agree that most critical want consistency... their way, not FB's.
Also, I tend to disagree with extreme positions, though I do find FB's stance to be even worse. It's inconsistent, which is the worse kind of moderation, and their public response to critics is a big fat lie which doesn't help either.
On the post: Retrospective: As Sony Clearly Wins This Generation's Console Wars, Let's Recall How It All Began
On the post: Australia's Idiotic War On Porn Returns, This Time Using Facial Recognition
How to make the government drop the idea after implementation:
On the post: Sometimes The Cost Of Revenue Is Too High: Twitter Bans Political Ads As Facebook Deals With Ongoing Shitshow
Amusing to see how they misrepresent the position of their critics.
The main critic I've heard is not about "making them judge the truth of ads", it's about making them act consistently.
And then, it went one step further as Facebook started judging who is "a politician" or not.
Let's summarize Adriel Hampton's action for a minute to show how FB reacted:
It's worse than "we let politician lie", it's "we let some politician lie"... and they decide who is or isn't allowed to lie.
So, the problem is not so much "we don't fact-check political ads", but a much more vague "we don't check the political ads we want to let through." They are legally allowed to do that, but they should understand that they open themselves to critic with such a flawed and subjective policy as they knowingly let some lies through and not others.
They also tried the debunked "tv channels are forced to let political ads through", which is really a "tv channels are not required to validate political ads".
Their defense crumbles all the way, so they should either own their policy or change it.
On the post: Content Moderation At Scale Remains Impossible: Vaccines Edition
False positives and false negatives on the same topic do make for catchy headlines.
Although I agree that the subject is critical and it's deplorable that the vaccination campaign got taken down (was it restored since?), this is indeed just a sign that no moderation will be perfect. Going by numbers, there will always be something worth pointing out as a "failure of moderation". Even big cases like this one will keep popping up here and there all the time.
So what now? Should we abandon moderation? Obviously not.
We can just keep moving forward, find examples of failures and research ways to refine the filters. Perfection can't be achieved, but we can try to get better over time.
The lesson to remember is just not to berate those who at least try to improve. It's difficult enough as it is, let's not provide incentive to give up in frustration.
On the post: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully
Second amendment?
I'm also curious about the take on this issue by organization like the republican party and the NRA.
They keep saying, among other excuses, that people have the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. What is more tyrannical than the police raiding your home without announcing themselves, sometimes admitting themselves that it's in an illegal procedure, all guns drawn and ready to kill the moment something moves?
I am so shocked not to hear a word from them in such cases.
On the post: VA's Whistleblower Office Retaliated Against Whistleblowers And Buried Complaints
From the beginning, the whole concept of "official channel for whistleblowers" bring the image of asking chickens to report issues within the hen-house to the fox in charge.
On the post: The Guy The State Of Oregon Said Wasn't A Real Engineer Just Helped Convince The Government To Extend Yellow Light Intervals
Re: fight... every... ticket...
That's not a win. That's dragging down the system with you as you (still) lose.
You can find satisfaction in that, but it just multiplies the cost to tax payers as you drag the process in court.
Please only contest in good faith, not just as a way to "beat the system", which is more about "upping the cost of the system". Then again, please do contest when it's in good faith. We don't want to encourage local governments to setup alternate revenue streams this way.
On the post: TV Network Declares IPTV Tool Copyright Infringing, Even Though It's Just A Tool
On the audio side:
On the video side:
And now...
Those industries have complained about each and every new technology, but have slowly adapted to each of them... except Internet. They somehow managed to get politicians on their side on this one, thanks to both heavy lobbying and a shared fear of a technology that enables anyone to bypass their exclusive communication channels.
On the post: House Overwhelmingly Votes To Empower Copyright Trolls And To Bankrupt Americans For Sharing Photos
Re: Re: You're falsifying by leaving out words again, Maz.
(sorry: read "patents" instead of "parents")
On the post: House Overwhelmingly Votes To Empower Copyright Trolls And To Bankrupt Americans For Sharing Photos
Re: You're falsifying by leaving out words again, Maz.
And you purposefully didn't emphasize "useful" arts.
Which at that time meant craftsmanship more than our modern use of the word art. So that was more about parents than copyright.
And then you try to pretend that a lifetime plus 70 years counts as "limited times", which is contrary to the intent and expectations of the founders.
Nice try, but you won't convince anyone who really reads the text and knows a bit of the context.
On the post: Bad Laws And The Best Of Intentions: Law Designed To 'Protect' Gig Workers May Destroy Journalism Freelancers
Re: Re: why?
Also, this is a case of "we had to do something; this is something".
It doesn't matter that it messes the situation worse than it already was. They were supposed to act, so they did the first they could think of instead of studying and understanding the situation first, then crafting a reasonable solution.
The appearance of action is what matters nowadays, not actually providing solutions.
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