gambler (u/gambler) - Readit News

gambler commented on Protocols, not platforms allenbrunson.com/posts/pr... · Posted by u/allenbrunson

i host, like, maybe two percent of my code on github. what's there is just for show. and i am no great fan of linkedin, that is for sure. same with facebook. but i am not quite such a big deal that i can afford to ignore all of those big bad platforms. i am not quite ready to go live in a cabin in the woods, in other words.

gambler · 3 years ago

So, in essence, you don't have anything meaningful to respond with. You're perfectly fine with using centralized platforms when it's convenient and their ownership aligns with your ideology. You might say you don't like them, but you like them well enough to put links to them on your personal website.

gambler commented on Protocols, not platforms allenbrunson.com/posts/pr... · Posted by u/allenbrunson

gambler · 3 years ago

When your revolution against "platforms" is led by people who host all their code on GitHub and have a public LinkedIn profile, you're not paying attention to your surroundings and will inevitably be taken advantage of.

gambler commented on We should have Markdown-rendered websites ipfs.io/ipfs/bafybeid7lt7... · Posted by u/timdaub

ElevenLathe · 3 years ago

I get this, but OTOH it is IMO best to distribute digital artifacts in the format that is most useful for editing or creating derivative works. This is the free software philosophy but also a societal good. Many of us learned HTML and web technologies by reading the source code of websites, and we've closed that door behind us with all of the build steps that turn our actual code into a computer-readable-only mess which we send out for consumption by normal users' browsers. It would be nice if "view source" showed you something like what the author actually wrote in their text editor.

gambler · 3 years ago

>Many of us learned HTML and web technologies by reading the source code of websites

HTML is an extensible language. Markdown is not.

gambler commented on Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation twitter.com/yishan/status... · Posted by u/kenferry

AhmedF · 3 years ago

> it's trivial to demonstrate that YouTube and Twitter (easy examples) primarily target conservatives with their "moderation".

Terrible take.

Actual data analysis shows that at worst conservatives are moderated equally, and at best, less than non-conservatives.

Here's something to chew on: https://forward.com/fast-forward/423238/twitter-white-nation...

gambler · 3 years ago

You didn't link to data, you linked to an opinion from Vice laundered through another outlet.

Here is some actual data, which (predictably) shows that conservatives are targeted significantly more for suspensions:

https://archive.ph/SDo33

But that's besides the point, because it's much simpler than that. You don't need elaborate analysis to see that people tired of Twitter "moderation" filled 4 other platforms: Gab, Parler, Minds and Truth Social. Literally all of them are characterized as right-wing by the same left-wing media outlets that claim that Twitter is impartial in moderation.

I'm tired of gaslighting around this issue. Just within replies to my above comment I've gotten two contradictory statements. One, that there is no bias in Twitter moderation, because conservatives are actually targeted less. Two, that there is no bias because conservatives are more likely to break rules, so they should be banned more often. We have two diametrically opposite descriptions of reality that nevertheless converge on the same conclusion. This is ideology-driven reasoning at its worst.

gambler commented on Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation twitter.com/yishan/status... · Posted by u/kenferry

blfr · 3 years ago

> Because it is not TOPICS that are censored. It is BEHAVIOR.

> (This is why people on the left and people on the right both think they are being targeted)

An enticing idea but simply not the case for any popular existing social network. And it's triply not true on yishan's reddit which both through administrative measures and moderation culture targets any and all communities that do not share the favoured new-left politics.

gambler · 3 years ago

He is half-correct, but not in a good way. When people on the left say something that goes against new-left agenda, they get suppressed too. That is not a redeeming quality of the system or an indicator of fairness. It simply shows that the ideology driving moderation is even more narrow-minded and intolerant of dissent than most observers assume at first sight.

At the same time, it's trivial to demonstrate that YouTube and Twitter (easy examples) primarily target conservatives with their "moderation". Just look at who primarily uses major alternative platforms.

gambler commented on Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation twitter.com/yishan/status... · Posted by u/kenferry

gambler · 3 years ago

>No one argues that speech must have value to be allowed (c.f. shitposting).

>Hereʻs the answer everyone knows: there IS no principled reason for banning spam.

The whole threads seems like it revolves around this line of reasoning, which strawmans what free speech advocates are actually arguing for. I've never heard of any of them, no matter how principled, fighting for the "right" of spammers to spam.

There is an obvious difference between spam moderation and content suppression. No recipient of spam wants to receive spam. On the other hand, labels like "harmful content" are most often used to stop communication between willing participants by a 3d party who doesn't like the conversation. They are fundamentally different scenarios, regardless of how much you agree or disagree with specific moderation decisions.

By ignoring the fact that communication always has two parties you construct a broken mental model of the whole problem space. The model will then lead you stray in analyzing a variety of scenarios.

In fact, this is a very old trick of pro-censorship activists. Focus on the speaker, ignore the listeners. This way when you ban, say, someone with millions of subscribers on YouTube you can disingenuously pretend that it's an action affecting only one person. You can then draw false equivalency between someone who actually has a million subscribers and a spammer who sent a message to million email addresses.

gambler commented on Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation twitter.com/yishan/status... · Posted by u/kenferry

jameskilton · 3 years ago

Every single social media platform that has ever existed makes the same fundamental mistake. They believe that they just have to remove or block the bad actors and bad content and that will make the platform good.

The reality is everyone, myself included, can be and will be a bad actor.

How do you build and run a "social media" product when the very act of letting anyone respond to anyone with anything is itself the fundamental problem?

gambler · 3 years ago

It's not a mistake. It's a PR strategy. Social media companies are training people to blame content and each other for the effects that are produced by design, algorithms and moderation. This reassigns blame away from things that those companies control (but don't want to change) to things that aren't considered "their fault".

gambler commented on Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022 twitter.com/techemails/st... · Posted by u/boulos

memish · 3 years ago

Some other noteworthy texts.

Musk: I interface way better with engineers who are able to do hardcore programming than with program manager / MBA types of people

Agrawal: In our next convo- treat me like an engineer instead of CEO and lets see where we get to.

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Musk: I basically following your advice!

Dorsey: I know and I appreciate you. This is the right and only path. I’ll continue to do whatever it takes to make it work.

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Marc Benioff: Happy to talk about it if this is interesting: Twitter conversational OS- the townsquare for your digital life

Musk: Well I down own it yet

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Satya Nadella: Thx for the chat. Will stay in touch. And will for sure follow-up on Teams feedback!

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Musk: Please send me anyone who actually writes good software

Steve Jurvetson: Ok, no management good coders, got it.

gambler · 3 years ago

Crazy conspiracy theories, eh? People running those companies routinely talk to one another. When it seems they act together, it's often because they actually do act together.