given that it's happening simultaneously with the war on E2EE and general purpose computing, their goals are as transparent as it gets. the West is at this point only a decade behind China.
next up: an automatic visit from your friendly neighborhood policemen to install a camera in every room of your home. we already know what the world looks like when millions of "adults" are allowed to "do whatever they want" in the privacy of their homes.
previous generations of neurotics objected to many current (at the time) things we don't bat an eye about. when was the last time you saw anyone campaign against satanic music, violent video games, or hardcore pornography?
Consuming social media doesn't have an inescapable negative impact on other people, unlike burning leaded fuel. In the same way that eating junk food doesn't. Should we ban junk food? What else do you want to ban from others just because it has a risk profile you personally don't feel comfortable with?
> Consuming social media doesn't have an inescapable negative impact on other people
You don't think large portions an entire generation(s) getting cooked by social media doesn't have negative externalities that impact society as a whole?
I don't think anybody has the moral authority to regulate such second-order effects.
Should unhealthy food be banned because of the second-order effects of obesity? What about mandatory church / religious service? After all, I judge that atheism has negative second-order effects on the world. Where would I get this moral authority from?
> You aren’t allowed to put up booze and cigarette stores near schools.
Huh? Where? In many countries grocery and convenience stores sell both. When I was in school I could have gone across the street to get both. Everywhere I've travelled it's been even more accessible. The only place I've seen these restrictions are in very religious places, which are not analogous to morality in any way.
Lets play a little though experiment: Is it okay for me and my friend to send each other messages over the internet? Can we send images and videos? What about a group chat with all of our friends? What if our neighbourhood joins in? What if our city joins in? What if our country joins in?
Can you identify the precise step in which this becomes unallowable? Can you articulate a logical reason why it's unallowable, but the previous steps are fine?
Can you do this without it becoming a subjective question about your personal moral values?
This is the problem with laws and mandates. They can't just be based on your own subjective feelings. And as humans, we have very different thoughts and feelings on what is good and bad, what should be allowed an unallowed. Furthermore, many things are perfectly legal despite causing harm. If I reject someone's advances and they suffer negative mental consequences, have I violated their rights? They've suffered harm after all. To whom are their obligations for?
There can be claimed "fuzzy second order effects" to every single human action. Authoritarians believe they are smarter than everyone else and have the right to enforce their subjective and often incorrect opinions on everyone else. In another country, on another topic, this would be about something else - maybe religion. This does not form a solid legal basis for anything.
I posted above that social media related issues are a problem, and then a bunch of posts accused me of wanting to make it illegal. I never suggested that and I actually don't support censorship, I just wish some people I know didn't spend so much of their time bummed out about social media.
I'm not suggesting that it should be illegal, I'm just seeing this monetization of bad vibes and wondering how we can have less bad vibes. Pump the brakes a little.
at this point, every corporation in the world has AI slop in their software. any attempt to outlaw it would attract enough funding from the oligarchs for the opposition to dethrone any party. no attempts will be made in the next three years, obviously, and then it will be even more late than it is now.
and while particularly diehard believers in democracy may insist that if they kvetch hard enough they can get things they don't like regulated out of existence, they pointedly ignore the elephant in the room. they could succeed beyond their wildest dreams - get the West to implement a moratorium on AI, dismantle every FAGMAN, Mossad every researcher, send Yudkowskyjugend death squads to knock down doors to seize fully semiautomatic assault GPUs, and none of it will make any fucking difference, because China doesn't give a fuck.
I agree with what you are saying here, but social media is pretty sterile. It's heavily censored as it is. YouTube comments is awful for it, with hiding comments and all the rest.*
I find it next to useless. Faecebook has told me about birthdays and people's bereavements weeks after they've happened. It looks awful if I reply to those late.
_
* I'm often confused by why. YouTube hid a thread in which someone pointed out the A Team had reused a Blues Brother joke.
Reputation system and elected or at least transparent moderation is what's needed to curb any bad actors. In fact, identity verification would make it easier for spammers, just buy stolen identities in bulk in darknet for a few dollars and fire away. Facebook supposedly leans very hard into real identities and the end result is a dead wasteland of bots talking to bots. And on the other hand, there are plenty of regular forums with not a sign of bad actors, because they were collectively exterminated and the newcomers are vetted.
"If identity verification is what it takes to curb russian trolls, then be it."
It's far from being just Russian. China (wumao/50 centers) and the west have armies of them. The latter was out in force during the Covid business making sure everyone agreed.
In all three cases, we are talking about government agents (human or otherwise) who are the least likely to be affected by identity verification. They can come in by the back door.
That's just throwing the baby out with the bath water. In my experience, the best kind of online interactions are those where people don't have to be limited by what their offline ID is.
Why would anyone want any kind of non-politician-approved interaction? Are you a traitor or a paedophile? In fact give me all your chat history and let's go through it, because I have no idea what we'd even approve.
Oh and all your private photos too. Think of the children! (and let's NOT discuss that when it comes to child abuse in Europe BY FAR the biggest culprits are European government employees. School teachers, and people in youth services. That's >90% of all child abusers in the EU. The youth services part of that would be the EXACT individuals screaming about thinking of the children. Don't worry. They've put rules in the Chat Control legislation protecting themselves from ... well the law)
i fully expect most users of eurosky will not experience any censorship. this is just such a ridiculous over-dramatization, that is so preposterously lopsided.
please man. this sounds like the tin foil hat wearing nutcase shit that is ruining the US and the world right now. there's ways to debate & talk about these things, but this isn't starting conversation, it's just being smug. you are 100% on one side, totally polarized into spot, and it's clear nothing is going to budge you: that's not a very hackerly spirit, and being so closed to possibility should be disqualifying.
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