HN user
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I don't think he's really in control.
Jack's world would be decentralized Twitter, Signal and Bitcoin. That's what he's pushing for and putting resources into.
Here's how much the cost to ship a container has changed over time:
Anyone know why they didn't just use an existing cryptocurrency?
Think Amazon will adopt an approach like this? Why or why not?
I think it's just changing form. Old religions being replaced by new religions. Old priests with new priests. Old gods with new gods.
Terribly. But that's a good example of countries agreeing to ban something.
I think they will see that possibility, though. So the US, Europe and others could agree to ban it at the same time.
Not all countries would need to sign on to essentially send it back to the stone age.
Even without shutting off the internet, couldn't governments crush crypto by making it illegal to buy or transfer? Countries could do this simultaneously.
That would effectively stop ~99% of the affected populations from using it, no?
What's the counterargument to this possibility? It seems to hinge on getting too big to ban.
Congrats, and thanks for sharing!
Based on that, they use Google, Apple, Twilio and AWS in the backend. All who have shown they are willing to deplatform with little notice as the result of kneejerk public pressure.
How easily can Signal replace those dependencies if this comes for them?
"Extremists move to secret online channels": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/extremists-move-se...
The next time they tell you that, ask if you can visit and film their factory farms.
How do you know that's the reason and not that they legitimately wanted to have a vineyard? They don't tend to it and harvest from it? All the ones I've seen looked to be in use, but don't know for sure.
It also doesn't make sense because terrorists would obviously be using encrypted channels primarily, not some shabby public plain text forum. And most organization would be on Facebook, with orders of magnitude more users and better tools.
The whole thing is such a terrible, short-sighted justification. The logic being used is setting a precedent to ban or backdoor any encrypted non-moderated form of communication. e.g., Signal and Telegram.
Thoughtful response! Thanks.
Do you think there's a problem with the way technology has enabled the scale and precision of disinformation campaigns? If so, do you have any ideas what we can do about it?
Better education. Especially with regard to critical thinking skills.
Even if we removed the Internet, there would still be disinformation and propaganda that the population would have to contend with. Be it from the media, politicians, governments, books, friends, family, etc. Just as there always has been.
So I think the more comprehensive and sustainable approach would be to upgrade brains. Teach critical thinking and philosophy from a young age.
Do you think there should be any moderation whatsoever? In other words, should people be allowed to incite, advocate, and organize violence in public forums? If not, where is the line? If so, what's remedies do we have as a society to the subsequent violence?
I'm absolutely for moderation on public forums. They are better for it. And by default they have to remove illegal content at least. Beyond that, it's up to them what the moderation policies are. HN is an example where I think moderation is really well done.
This gets a lot harder for platforms that are the de-facto town square like FB and Twitter. I don't know how we should handle that yet. But I think they should mostly stick with removing illegal content and act like a common carrier. If that's a problem due to the nature of social media, then maybe we should revisit the laws of the land. The fundamental issue here is having a few tech giants with a high level of control over the nation's discourse and who optimize for engagement (e.g., outrage, anger, bias confirmation). Which is fueling a lot of hate in the first place. They're not optimizing for thoughtful conversation and interaction. Not even remotely.
I'd also explore some other kinds of governance. Maybe an external non-partisan committee or a crypto governance approach. Not sure, but something external from these platform holders is key I think.
It's a tiny fraction, but they punch far above their weight. The discourse from there bubbles up to the news media and the entire culture.
Really interesting article. It's like a rollercoaster.
Inversions are happening faster than ever. The red and blue tribes swap their positions in sync at this point.
Not saying it is or will be the same. It isn't and won't be.
This is about a TOOL. You don't have to use a tool the same way every time.
Check back when Bernie (or the next Bernie, if he doesn't run again) is deplatformed, and we'll see who was confused.
Just remember back to how the media and establishment pulled together to stop Bernie during the primaries. Think this new tool won't be used the next time they're in danger of losing power to an outsider?
It's mostly that the loudest, angriest voices tend to drown out everyone else.
No, just extrapolating from here. It could be used against the next Bernie too. Any populist candidate, whether from the left or right.
If a sitting President can be deplatformed from the Internet, then wouldn't a Presidential Candidate be? Would said candidate be able to run a successful campaign without it?
but it turns out they do have extensive moderation [1] that they use to ensure ideological conformity
Am I missing something? What are you referring to exactly? The mod tools screenshot doesn't support that assertion.
They played a large role in selling the war to the public (manufacturing consent).
It's even more risky now
How so? The bigger it gets and the longer it lasts, the more it's derisked. It was more risky 10 years ago (i.e., odds of going to 0, finding a critical problem, lack of adoption, would've been easier for governments to ban it).
That's pretty close to how Twitter is often described.
Said the church to the scientist. Said the mob to the witch.
Be careful about where this goes. This one doesn't affect you and I, but the next one might. It certainly will when it gets to HN or Signal. But then it'll be too late.
First they came for...
It's increasingly difficult to tell what's sarcasm and parody.
They could ban Signal too.
Edit: Signal is now #1 on the app store. Speech that was removed will obviously just migrate and be encrypted. Though not as public, the actual speech is still going to be communicated between people and groups. So why wouldn't Signal be next?