Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 11:21:50 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

   Sometimes I'm a bit confused by the discourse around #SocialMedia in the West. On the one hand they rail against censorship and decry countries like China who practice it. On the other hand, they demand for moderation, which, well, means censorship of certain content. (It's just a nicer way of saying it lol.)

   I've come to believe that unbridled "freedom" on social media is damaging and "censorship" is a necessary evil. This is based on my experience as a Malaysian used to "cybertroopers" who are used to sway public opinion in Malaysia, sometimes dangerously. In our last election, teenagers were recruited as cybertroopers to incite people to attack minorities after the election. The platform refused to take down the content for weeks. There was a lot of fear that racial riots would happen.

   Even in China, where there's lots of censorship, social media like Weibo is rife with terrible content that spread rumours, destroy people's lives and cause violence. What I'm saying is, I feel that social media is tearing apart society's fabric in some way, and there's still no good solution to this.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 11:51:54 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @liztai Censorship is suppression of political (or wrongfully politicized) information or opinions that are deemed a threat to the state, by the state or state affiliated actors.

     Moderation is suppression of opinions that are deemed harmful to the participants/community.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 11:56:09 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @liztai Fascism tries to equate them by its take on the relationship between the state and the ingroup and outgroups. But that's an artifact of fascism not inherent.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 12:00:15 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias one person's moderation is another person's censorship 🤷

   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 12:13:28 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     @dalias @liztai Specially as I'd tend to put things like this: Censorship is making access or spread of information illegal something only state/governments can do, while moderation is merely choosing to not platform information further.
     
     Of course fascists would try to equate the two because it's how they've successfully been platformed for ages.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 12:45:44 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @liztai I'm not going to argue that these (or any) are objective, mechanically evaluatable categories.

     But there are clear conditions by which human judgement can distinguish the two, informed by context of power relationships, patterns of harm and risk, who the state is and who its enemies are, etc. by which reasonable people should usually come to the same conclusion whether something is censorship or moderation (by the above definitions), regardless of whether they agree with it being done.

   • Embed this notice
     Andy (ely_peddler@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 17:10:59 JST Andy

     in reply to

     @liztai I'd say your confusion is caused by treating Europe and the US as the single homogeneous entity "the west". Europe and the US have been divulging on this and other issues for quite a while now, it seems that divergence is about to become a rift.
     Europe wants moderation and digital privacy controls, the US (and particularly their tech companies) don't and so brand it censorship.

   • Embed this notice
     Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 17:51:23 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

     in reply to

     • Andy

     @ely_peddler nah I have called it the west because I am including Europe in this. This is of course applicable to the more free speech sabre rattling folks

   • Embed this notice
     Andy (ely_peddler@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 18:17:12 JST Andy

     in reply to

     @liztai The US and Europe are very different places, if you lump them together you will find contradictions.

   • Embed this notice
     Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 19:10:55 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

     in reply to

     • Katztronaut

     @Katztronaut yea and it needs to be done by individual countries according to their cultures and norms. I was actually surprised that Australia recently passed some kind of regulation limiting social media to teenagers. It was the last country I thought would do this.
     Malaysia also required social media platforms to apply for licenses or be banned. Uh, I wonder if X bothered 😅

     Ps: I didn't like this law tho 😑

   • Embed this notice
     Katztronaut (katztronaut@treehouse.technopagans.de)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 19:11:00 JST Katztronaut

     in reply to

     @liztai I think the definition of censorship that makes the most sense to me is that censorship is moderation used not to avert harm from people, but from a power system. Hence, what some western billionaires are doing on their platforms when they are attacked is censorship, too, what they are not doing to protect vulnerable groups is missing moderation.
     I definitely agree with you, that we need better social media rules and regulations, and they have to be designed to avert harm from people first and foremost.

   • Embed this notice
     Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 19:11:37 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

     in reply to

     • Paul (Tex) Hewson

     @texhewson same, same. I have given up talking about this on left leaning social media tbh. I am expected to be called Nazi anytime soon 😆

   • Embed this notice
     Paul (Tex) Hewson (texhewson@datasci.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 19:11:38 JST Paul (Tex) Hewson

     in reply to

     @liztai I think we are incapable of a nuanced discussion in the West about Free Speech. And I think the detail and the nuance is what matters. We have interesting libel laws in the UK, which restrict what you can say; even the threat of court action can prevent a poor person saying things about a rich person. But some people don't mind that, they mind the state trying to define "hate speech". I can't completely follow all the arguments, but I hear a lot of ignorant sound bites all the time

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 21:46:01 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     to me, the effects of censorship and moderation may feel about the same to a sender (speaker, writer), namely stopping the sender's expression from reaching (some for moderation, most for censorship) others, but the most valuable and most relevant differences in this context seem to be for receivers (listeners, readers). it's moderation when receivers get to tune into the signals they wish to receive, while what they deem noise is filtered out; it's censorship when someone else imposes on the receiver values and restrictions that the receiver would rather not be subjected to, and can't reasonably bypass.
     
     centralized social media with "moderation" ends up being censorship, because it is the platform's values that get imposed over all users, there's no choice. on decentralized platforms, each community (instance) defines its own standards, and it's possibly and relatively easy to move from one instance to another, or even to start one's own, so it's harder for me to regard this sort of moderation as censorship.
     
     I'd still like platforms, both centralized and decentralized, to give users control about how they wish their feeds to be filtered, dynamically selecting others' filtering lists to apply to their own feeds, instead of being subjected to inflexible platforms' values. I picture it more like joining multiple moderation providers, that one can add, check, remove and override when desired, than like joining a network (or an instance thereof) and getting subjected and tied to a provider's unaccountable choices (= too much power)
     翠星石, Taylan (Now 18% More Deranged) and Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Zergling_man (zergling_man@sacred.harpy.faith)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 22:09:51 JST Zergling_man

     in reply to

     • Alexandre Oliva
     @lxo @liztai https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/
     Specifically: https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/revolver-kickoff.html
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 06:24:05 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • LisPi
     @lispi314 @dalias @liztai Yeah, when it comes to ISPs I think routing should be neutral, exception being for precise DDoS mitigations and legal requirements, quite like if they would have a public service obligation.
     
     VPS on the other hand… they are hosters and hold much more responsibilities, makes sense for them to show the door to customers at their discretion.
   • Embed this notice
     LisPi (lispi314@udongein.xyz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 06:24:06 JST LisPi

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
     • Rich Felker
     @lanodan @liztai @dalias There is a fuzzy line with online speech, when ISPs or VPS providers start to prevent one from hosting one's own site instead.
     
     Due to how bungled up the design & architecture of the Internet works, that is tantamount to censorship because there remains no way to self-publish (online samizdat requires the routing infrastructure not to discriminate). It becomes not a community moderation matter, but active silencing even away from external communities (especially in places with ISP monopolies, which sometimes try to prevent hosting *any* website).
     
     The issue is rather specific to clearnet routing.
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 06:39:14 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • LisPi
     @lispi314 @dalias @liztai By legal requirements I mean stuff like court orders, not ISP acting like police, they have no rights to.
   • Embed this notice
     LisPi (lispi314@udongein.xyz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 06:39:16 JST LisPi

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
     • Rich Felker
     @lanodan @liztai @dalias Without legal action being undertaken by the government (not very reliable that), a lot of the USA is stuck having no choice other than VPSes.
     
     A "you might be able to publish by yourself in a few decades or if you move" is far too long or impractical.
     
     > Yeah, when it comes to ISPs I think routing should be neutral, exception being for precise DDoS mitigations
     
     Indeed.
     
     > and legal requirements
     
     I'd disagree. I prefer full application of the “I write myself, edit myself, censor myself, publish myself, distribute myself, go to jail for it myself” samizdat pattern.
     
     Illegal data should still not be interfered with by the ISPs. That is not and should not be their remit. Dumb pipes all the way.
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 07:04:53 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • LisPi
     @lispi314 @dalias @liztai I don't think that one is really preferable, specially when you consider how countries tend to force laws on each others.
     
     It's a hard question though but pretty sure I'd prefer to have stuff blocked in some countries (where then actual people can use Tor, VPNs, mirrors, …) than those countries trying to get people in other countries jailed.
     At least it quite reminds me of the shit Hollywood pulled against ThePirateBay main ~members.
   • Embed this notice
     LisPi (lispi314@udongein.xyz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 07:04:54 JST LisPi

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
     • Rich Felker
     @lanodan @liztai @dalias Eh, even then I'd prefer if it required arrest/physical takedown of the actual host instead.
     
     Otherwise one gets the kind of bullshit the Roskomnadzor does and that isn't okay.
   • Embed this notice
     Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾 (liztai@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 12:34:10 JST Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

     in reply to

     • Clare Hooley
     • Paul (Tex) Hewson

     @texhewson yeah I avoid their topics like the plague. Fortunately we have filters on Mastodon!

     @clare_hooley

   • Embed this notice
     Paul (Tex) Hewson (texhewson@datasci.social)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 12:34:12 JST Paul (Tex) Hewson

     in reply to

     • Clare Hooley

     @clare_hooley @liztai yes, that's a whole other issue; who gets to decide what's in today's headlines. For myself, I've no more interest in what Musk or Drump post on social media but we all pretty much chose to pay attention.

   • Embed this notice
     Clare Hooley (clare_hooley@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 12:34:14 JST Clare Hooley

     in reply to

     • Paul (Tex) Hewson

     @texhewson @liztai the ORG (UK activist group) just came out with a blog. I quote “what content is promoted and why is just as important as what is removed“. Yep, being promoted content for engagement, perhaps by fake people is a def. problem too. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/musk-and-zuck-engineering-free-speech/