Justice system is probably going down the pan anyway. Judges and jurors will be harassed by online mobs.

Harassment is bad, but judges and jurors already face harassment from offline mobs, including many within living memory who actively wanted to murder them. The system's generally robust against that kind of thing.

There's no need to go to war with a country if you can plant the seeds of a toxic mindset, and then watch them tear themselves apart instead.

That's how US destroyed USSR.

Can you help me understand how USSR collapses because of “toxic mindset”?

That's how US destroyed USSR.

Your arrow of causation is pointing in the wrong direction.

At the time, intellectuals in the US believed (and many still believe) that Communism(or whatever you call the economic system that was practiced in the USSR) is the superior economic system.

The USSR rotted from within due to fundamental economic problems like the principal agent problem[1] and the economic calculation problem[2].

The US didn't really have much to do with it, with the possible exception of "forcing" the USSR to spend a lot of resources it didn't have on weapons and space flight.

___

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

They seemed to have been destroyed by more external forces like a failed economy, mass starvation and political strife.

How is any of that external?

Compared to an internal "mindset"?

The previous comment said something to the affect of how the US destroyed the USSR but the problems you mentioned are all problems that are "internal" to a nation. I don't see where the jump was made to talking about individuals vs the internal problems that plagued the USSR.

If people want to understand this phenomenon better, there is no better reference I could recommend than Rory Miller's Meditations on Violence[1] - specifically what he calls the "group monkey dance"[2].

The simplified explanation is this: the target of the attack by the group is no longer a person, but merely a target. Group members demonstrate their loyalty to the group by gradually escalating the violence they do to the target.

___

1. http://amazon.com/dp/1594391181

2. https://ymaa.com/articles/violence-dynamics

In general, the victim of a struggle session was forced to admit various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed. Struggle sessions were often held at the workplace of the accused, but they were sometimes conducted in sports stadiums where large crowds would gather if the target was well-known.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

It can destroy guilty lives, too. I.e. the punishment can far outweigh the crime.

It reminds one of the story of the Dazexiang uprising.

There were army units ordered to report to another location. On the way there they were delayed by flooding. The penalty for being late was death. This was no different than the penalty for insurrection, so guess what they did then.

Proportionality is important.

Technically, any justice administered by a mob is targetting innocents. At least, it used to be that things like fair trials were a requirement to establish guilt. Now is just seems like internet bullies can just bypass democratic processes and do anything they want to shout down, browbeat, hound, or destroy the people/companies they don't like. And they can get away with it as long as it has a thin veneer of the current moral issue...

Pretty much. I've started seeing a lot of people saying "innocent until proven guilty only applies to courts" as an excuse for mob justice. It's mostly the same people who say "freedom of speech only applies to government censorship".

So what, people don't get freedom of association unless they file for a court order?

People should absolutely be free to stop associating with others for bad reasons. That doesn't mean we can't encourage people not to, or talk about the badness of the reasons.

But there's tons of reasons why someone might find their behavior abhorrent that don't and shouldn't pass the bar for illegality, and want to inform their employer that the employee's behavior reflects negatively enough on the employer that they would stop doing business with them. There's all sorts of acts that are never going to be proven guilty, because they're not illegal in the first place. Generally because making it illegal would conflict with the first amendment.

I disagree. I think there are very few actions so abhorrent that you should be fired for doing them in your personal life, and the vast majority of Twitter firings I've seen aren't over the line. Society isn't going to work under a standard where people who do bad things can't have jobs anymore.

I disagree. I think there are very few actions so abhorrent that you should be fired for doing them in your personal life, and the vast majority of Twitter firings I've seen aren't over the line.

That's cool for you, but others obviously disagree with you.

Society isn't going to work under a standard where people who do bad things can't have jobs anymore.

Or people will change their actions since they want to keep being members of society.

I don't understand why you keep returning to people disagreeing with me as though it's a counterpoint. I know people disagree! That's why I'm posting; I hope to convince them that they're wrong.

Society is double not going to work under a standard where we don't consider bad people members of society anymore.

You'll notice that this is people on both sides - only when it benefits them.

It's mostly the same people who say "freedom of speech only applies to government censorship".

This is a different issue and is a lot trickier logically. But it essentially is true.

I mean, those are both really important to remember - while society needs to find its balance and have respectful, intelligent conversation about tough issues, there is no obligation to give clearly bad people the benefit of the doubt within the community, nor is there an obligation to give objectively horrible people a social media platform with which to spread hate.

It never ceases to flabbergast me that American civics has failed so utterly, for decades, to produce nominally functional adults that can somehow think that "clearly bad" and "objectively horrible" are Real Things That Exist and then say in the next breath, without a shred of self-awareness, things like True Objectivity Doesn't Exist or All Things Are Political.

Is everyone in America so ignorant that they don't know what happens when informal social standards become justifications for political suppression based on who the "public" and not the law deems to be "clearly bad" and "objectively horrible" people? You get lynchings and pogroms. You get informal show trials and massacres. You carve the stick that the next batch of self-righteous authoritarians stick up their ass to justify being inhuman, indecent, monsters.

I can already hear the response forming: "But we know that these people exist, are evil, and are harming people now! We have evidence!"

Yeah. That's what they always say.

I could list every group targeted throughout by self-righteous authoritarians through just Western history--Christians, Jews, Manicheans, heretics, lepers, Catholics, Protestants, witches, blacks, anarchists, communists, thugs, Muslims--and always find a justification that began with some variant of "But we have evidence that they were Clearly Bad People!"

All those other Devils were ridiculous, made-up nonsense. But not yours. Your Devil is real.

So, you're bitching about my perception of "clearly bad". And you are correct! I say "clearly bad" and also know that it is my perception. I think I am right, and people who think "all atheists/jews/muslims are bad" are wrong. I hope that my view is the zeitgeist, and theirs is not.

You take my position and move it forward ten slots toward authoritarianism, without any evidence or defense of your position.

You say that "as soon as the public has a collective moral standard to which they hold the community, you get lynchings". What the fuck? So, we should not have any collective moral standard? We should not have some shared sense of what is right and wrong?

My line, the line that keeps your nightmare from occurring, is very clear: We can have our shared sense of right and wrong, and yes, even shun or be angry at those who don't fit that standard - but those people are defended by the law, and the law grants equal protection to all. Vigilante justice against people is not permitted under the law, and violators will be prosecuted.

Before you tear up my analysis, please give an "affirmative" - that is, give a vision of society and government that fits your worldview without putting it in terms of what I have written.

In the interest of good faith, here's my affirmative. In short, it can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations.^0

Articles in particular:

2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion (emphasis mine), national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

29. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Whether this dialogue can progress further depends on whether we can agree that, despite having no official jurisdiction, a social media mob attacking an individual constitutes being charged with a criminal and penal offense worthy of legal protections as illuminated by the above. If you believe that it not being formal prosecution that such protections don't extend to the accused, then there's no point in progressing further and I reiterate my original post.

---

0 https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

I'll have to chew on it for a while. I would imagine, not being a scholar in it, that the UDHR applies more stringently to government action and use of force, rather than to a group of people without use of force or detainment.

Your definition of "mob", "attack" both would need examples. In a real world analogy: If someone on my street waves a Nazi flag and says God hates Fags, and our entire community were to shun him, refuse to interact with him, or at times, warn others of his beliefs - do you believe that is a violation of his fundamental human rights? That no person can be shunned or disliked for their beliefs?

Or there's a whole host of reasons why you may not want to associate with, or associate with the employer of someone who doesn't break any crimes but who's behavior is still abhorrent.

If it is abhorrent, we must make a law to make it illegal. Otherwise, anyone that think that you make something that is abhorrent can pressure your employer to fire you.

Technically, any justice administered by a mob is targetting innocents. At least, it used to be that things like fair trials were a requirement to establish guilt.

No, people have never, as a general rule, been protected from social consequences of actual or perceived wrongdoing until proven guilty in a trial, only (and this mostly recently, historically, and adhering to far-from-universal principals of restraint) from certain (generally not all) government-imposed consequences.

Well the internet has certainly made far easier than it was before to inflict "social consequences" onto total strangers. Before, if you were a enough of a jerk, the townspeople would boycott your shop. Now, if you said the wrong thing in the past decade (or voted for the wrong candidate, or supported/didn't support the wrong/right bill/proposition/amendment), a mob composed of thousands of people from various locations thousands of miles away will call for your company to be boycotted, for you to be fired, etc. or else.

Standard retort: if a boss suspects a minimum wage worker of underperforming for the capitalist machine, he can just fire her, no questions asked. Having our burgers flipped correctly is important enough to us that we accept collateral damage there. Now when her boss is accused of being a sexist pig, we suddenly have to be 100% sure. Why? Are women less important to us than burgers? Or is "due process" just a concern troll that powerful people throw around to protect each other? Either way, bad look.

I don't think this is right, but countering it takes some thought.

I think the only solution here is strict enforcement of anti harrassment laws. Sending threats, harrassing someone's employer, doxxing someone, etc, should result in a permanent ban on the relevant platform and possibly jail time.

This should also apply if the press and media do it, which they do routinely.

Why is informing someone's employer that their behavior is so abhorrent it makes you not want to associate with the employer anymore so bad as to be a bannable offence?

OP says "harassing someones employer". Presumably that's more than writing a message on a feedback form.

Is the purpose to cause harm to the individual? That is the common question behind anti harrassment laws. Even if a person has a legit grievance, intent to cause physical or psychological harm is still illegal.

If it is difficult to separate that question for someone who has political abhorrent views, imagine a neighbor who acts abhorrent. Their dog is barking all the time, leaves dog shits on your lawn, their car is blocking you, they play loud music late at night, and so on. Are you allowed to call their employer and try get them fired for being an awful person? If the answer is no because that would be harassment then the answer doesn't change when their abhorrent behavior is political rather than being an abhorrent neighbor.

I'd imagine if you called their employer to tell them your examples, the employer would laugh in your face.

There's a difference between 'their dog barks too much' and 'they're marching through the streets advocating for genocide'.

I think you should find some better way to spend your time.

not want to associate with the employer anymore

How many of the people contacting an employer demanding someone be fired (a) actually have any association with that employer (e.g. Amy Cooper being fired from Franklin Templeton), or (b) have any intent of actually changing their behavior if the employee is not fired (stop using Google, stop going to Starbucks, etc.)?

Apparently enough that the employer takes the complaint seriously.

I mean, in your Amy Cooper example, she was a VP. Part of her job was literally to represent the values and ethics of the company. They obviously took the opinion that being associated with her was worse than what she could bring to the table.

Internet mob unleashed by Oklahoma police officer breaks into home, rapes wrong woman.

https://kfor-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/kfor.com/news/norman...

Is there such a thing as raping the right woman?

This is very strange logic. You would think someone who is capable of rape would want less police so they would get away with it. Sounds like this guy just made up an excuse to rape someone. You don't just wake up one day and decide that rape is an option.

Unless they feel like their actions are sanctioned by the police, as is probably the case here. Then they can rape without intervention.

as is probably the case here

That would be pretty ludicrous, if true. You sure you're ready to say that? I mean, even if they were being totally cynical about it, it would be in their interests to find the culprit.

https://www.news9.com/story/5efe6166c993e811aef887a0/norman-...

The police intentionally leaked the councilwomen's address online in retribution. Maybe they didn't expect a rape, but I bet the assaulter thought they wouldn't mind.

The police almost never prosecute rape, as a crime. When they do, it is an incredible ordeal for the victim, who is forced to replay the incident multiple times to convince the appropriate authorities it actually happened.

If you believe "the police" are a major obstacle to rape, then I encourage you to actually read the accounts of victims and see if that reflects their experience.

I wrote about this here:

https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/

Social media is effectively amplifying the smallest segment of society. An extreme left and extreme right, neither of whom really represent the vast majority of people. Worse, I don’t think companies or representatives realize how few even a few thousand retweets really are...

Further exasperating the issue is the fact we deplatform people with opposing opinions. Now Reddit is even removing people who upvote stories or comments differ from their ideology.

It’s getting real scary. That’s why my post linked above is called “on committing suicide”. It’s a dual meaning, I think the country is murdering itself and I’m also risking my entire career to say so.

Worse, I don’t think companies or representatives realize how few even a few thousand retweets really are...

1k retweets could mean as little as someone spent $30[0], think about that you could ruin someones life for $30 and you don't even have to get out of bed to do it.

[0]https://www.redsocial.net/buy-twitter-retweets/

Further exasperating the issue is the fact we deplatform people with opposing opinions. Now Reddit is even removing people who upvote stories or comments differ from their ideology.

What are the opposing opinions and the differing ideologies that you're worried about being silenced?

It actually doesn't matter. "Opposing opinions and differing ideologies" must be protected regardless of what they are. It's pointless to cherry-pick.

Actually it does matter, if we want to be honest about why we're even having this conversation.

Deplatforming and banning doesn't happen because of some abstract whim, so defending it in abstract terms sans context seems like it's overlooking a large chunk of the conversation.

No. It doesn't. We're having this conversation because angry mobs are unjustly destroying peoples lives. If you think that's okay then we're at an impasse.

Abstract freedom of expression is a prerequisite for preventing oppression by majority rule. It's fundamental to our core as citizens in the United States.

To be clear, are you saying that if I don't agree with preserving the abstract freedom of expression on private social spaces, I am pro angry mob destroying peoples lives?

Not directly, of course. I am saying that the concession that we need to moderate "dirty" behavior is, in and of itself, the rhetoric that validates the mob behavior we're seeing. And there's a difference between dirty and illegal. We do not disagree that unlawful content can responsibly be remove by citizens from the internet. The extrajudicial removal of miscreant expression is what we're talking about.

I am saying that the concession that we need to moderate "dirty" behavior is, in and of itself, the rhetoric that validates the mob behavior we're seeing.

I think that's a stretch.

The problem with Twitter isn't the moderation or the "leaning", it's the sheer size of the thing. Any sort of decent moderation is completely impossible at the scales of Twitter, and I voted with my feet a long long time ago and frankly don't feel like I'm missing anything.

On the other hand, there are plenty of smaller social spaces out there that are well moderated, do not treat all viewpoints equally, but at the same time somehow manage to prevent their users from anti-social mob justice.

What if that ideology encourages violence against a certain class of people? Must that be protected?

Exactly. Because once everything isn't protected, someone gets to choose. So what we need are systems where content can't be removed, and users can't be banned, by design.

And yeah, we also need usable and effective filtering, so everyone can choose what to see.

Exactly. Because once everything isn't protected, someone gets to choose. So what we need are systems where content can't be removed, and users can't be banned, by design.

This is naive at best. I know of no social space on the internet that has light moderation, no moderation, or primarily user-driven moderation that isn't also a dumpster fire.

This is the internet. There are uncountable social spaces on it, and the fantastic thing is that the owners of each social space are free to enforce rules as they see fit. If you are unhappy with the moderation of a social space, or if you get booted, find another one. Or, you could even create your own.

Heck, because this is the internet, you are likely keeping up with many of the people you know from a social space through multiple other platforms, and if you want to peace out from one, you can coordinate a migration.

So build accountability into interactions with the internet. For example, I believe for most purposes people should use government-issued access to the internet with an identity that ties to their physical self. Anonymity should cost extra and there should be an implicit lack of trust, credibility, etc. from anything anonymous until it can be thoroughly vetted. I like the urbit model for this where short memorable addresses convey value and social reputation whilst fully anonymous entities are allowed but implicitly untrusted.

You and like-minded peers could have that, for sure. I can see the value for professional networks. Otherwise it'd arguably be far too dangerous.

I'd love to discuss this in some other context somewhere sometime (: I believe the internet is facing a type of identity crisis, so to speak and there's got to be a middle ground between a giant mass of anons and a polite dinner table gathering. But I'm not sure what the right balance is or the exact mechanisms we're lacking.

I don't think this fixes anything. Alex Jones already isn't anonymous.

Real name requirements deter dissidents and vulnerable people, not populist bullies. They even make it worse, because you can be more easily targeted by populist bullies who have your legal name than if everyone is using pseudonyms.

If anything we should make it harder to associate internet users with real people to deter this type of in-person harassment from spilling over from the internet.

It's less the real name aspect and more the fact that identity shouldn't be disposable. Anonymity is not a universal fundamental human right at least as understood historically. Perhaps today many would be interested in making it one. I, however, am more interested in preserving things like freedom of expression, formally, than suggesting that we achieve it by way of universal access to anonymity. It's one of my less popular opinions, but I think it's an important topic to discuss especially light of the whole privacy debate, and certainly in light of dismantling internet mobs.

There's also the element of making the reputation war bi-directional. If somebody can trash my reputation without staking theirs, that's pretty harmful and toxic, except in exceptional cases. I think a structure where people steak their reputations when attacking others by virtue of reputation not being a commodity would help "keep things real". On the flip side, a vulnerable person shouldn't be protected just because they're vulnerable. If they're being oppressed then they may steak their reputation or find someone else to do it for them, but they don't get an easy out just because they're perceived as vulnerable.

When people build their own platforms, the censorship minded mobs go after their upstream providers, like aws and visa. So this "you can always build your own" is not 100% true.

Also, mobs do go after you for your online speech, so the possibility of a platform that keeps your speech up does not preclude the possibility (and fact) of censorship

And yeah, we also need usable and effective filtering, so everyone can choose what to see.

I'd be careful about mentioning filtering.

I just remembered that there was a Reddit Masstagger that helped folks with that filtering, but people got really upset about how it infringed on free speech and might have even gotten Google or Mozilla to remove it from the extension store.

I think there might have also been some for Twitter, which I imagine would have elicited a similar reaction.

How can filtering infringe free speech? People can say whatever they want, but why should I have to hear them?

Also, any software tool that can be removed by someone else is broken by design. But yeah, maybe that's why there aren't any useful tools for using Twitter :(

How can filtering infringe free speech? People can say whatever they want, but why should I have to hear them?

Simple. There's people agitating for free speech on idealistic terms, and then there's people agitating for free speech because they have an agenda and want a captive audience.

You can even see it in this comment thread. Take a look around and see if you can find any greyed-out comments that are arguing against the pro free-speech crowd. Down-voting is censorship via mob rule, so that should be twice as distasteful, but yet you see greyed out comments. The folks doing that are the latter, and not the former.

Hold on, "down-voting is censorship"? Since when? The content remains. No disciplinary action is taken against anyone who's comment starts to turn grey. It's simply a feedback mechanism members of this forum use to signal to each other the quality of the content being posted. The analog would be if people here started mass down-vote campaigns against a person because they posted something off-beat, or if we all started petitioning mods to remove content we found uncomfortable.

You generally gravitate towards down-voting unhelpful, out-of-place, or in some way inaccurate content not simply content you don't agree with, BTW. More often than not I see comments start to turn grey because they miss the point and/or aren't really useful contributions to the discussion. Good points, despite the position being argued, tend to remain opaque.

It isn't all right wing stuff. The recent banwave took out probably the largest leftist community on the internet after a long period of banning users who upvoted opinions there, such as:

* Slaveowners deserved to die

* John Brown is an American hero

* Police & large-corporate property constitue legitimate political targets during protests

etc.

Essentially reddit wants to restrict the scope of permissible discourse to the same region allowed on mainstream news websites: support of neoliberal capitalism with debate focused on how overtly racist the system should be.

And? What did people expect would happen? You cannot trust large corporations with those kinds of discussions.

The thing is, I don't think the solution is to force Reddit to host those kinds of subreddits - the solution it to find or create a different social space. Alternatives to those spaces exist, you just have to look for them.

"Now Reddit is even removing people who upvote stories or comments differ from their ideology."

Could you provide some examples please? Assertions are all very well.

(BTW "the country" is not HN. I'm a Brit)

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2...

First of all, Newsbusters is crap.

Secondly, that story does not say what you say it does. What Reddit is doing is actually warning people that they are interacting with the site in the manner of coordinated bots. Certainly you aren't suggesting they should just banhammer at first blush, isn't a warning a nicety?

Whether or not these are botnet operators complaining that the site has developed defenses against them is a questoin for the reader, but the fact remains that something gets posted, something gets flagged, and if that happens to be coincidentally the only (or most of) the stuff you upvote, then the defenses start falling into place to your detriment.

How would you deal with the problem as I've stated it (accounts that only upvote stuff that winds up getting removed)?

With all those words you typed you could have done a whole lot of googling to find a source befitting your standards. Reddit sends you warnings, several of them, before banning your account if you upvote things it doesn't like. I know because it happened to me.

This is exactly what's happening. Hyper-partisan extremist perspectives that are built up by a frenzy of social engagement turning people into blind attackers of whatever they deem "wrong".

We just aren't built for this addiction to a constant global stimulus by faceless anonymous accounts sharing hot takes that can't be verified but elicit a deeply emotional reaction. We're losing our minds.

There are many examples featuring extremists from all around the political landscape, but the one I find simultaneously the most fascinating and terrifying is the Qanon cult. Look into it a bit if you want to see just how deep the folie-a-deux social media rabbit hole goes.

Someone should do a STTNG universe spinoff on the origin of the Borg, kind of like Caprica. "We are Borg. You will be pilled. Resistance is futile. #borg #assimilate #wwg1wga" "Borg" could start off as a fringe cult that goes viral, then someone invents direct neural connections (Neuralink?) and the members of the cult become a superintelligence and take over the whole society. They are the ones who become the first real collective intelligence because they live online and already have this cult identity that submerges the individual.

Once the cult turned superintelligence takes over, it starts venturing out to "red pill" the entire universe.

I mean what do you think is happening in all those cells on those ships? All the anons are meme-ing each other.

The right elected someone who is on the extreme compared to more moderate candidates in 2016. The left nominated a moderate in 2016 and 2020. I can’t help but to conclude that the extreme right is the majority of the Republican Party.

Sanders was rejected twice.

Donald Trump is extreme. But he is not "extreme right."

If he isn’t extreme right - what positions would be to the right of his?

A more right-wing politician would be:

* Fiscally conservative

* Against tariffs

* Actually protective of gun rights

* More interventionist in foreign affairs

* Strong law and order approach to drug policy

* Unsupportive of gay marriage

* Actually religious

It's a pretty commonly held view that Trump is more populist and "not a real conservative" even among his opponents.

When has there ever been a seriously fiscally conservative Presidential Candidate?

Buchanan was considered one of the most right wing candidates in modern politics and he was very much pro tariffs.

Trump is also very friendly with the NRA. Reagan was all about gun control - at least when Black folks were exercising their rights (the Muliford Act)

He might support gay marriage but he also tried to remove health care from the transgender.

All Republican candidates pander to the religious right without being actually religious.

he also tried to remove health care from the transgender.

How on earth could that be possible? Exclude them from the free government health care that other people get? Prohibit them from paying for their own healthcare? That's far too extreme to be true. I don't believe you unless it was just one of his random tweets that he doesn't really mean.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/8680730...

This is a pretty poor argument. It's not really coherent.

When has there ever been a seriously fiscally conservative Presidential Candidate?

All Republican candidates pander to the religious right without being actually religious.

These aren't relevant to whether or not Trump is "extreme right." A politician who is more in line with them (like a Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan) would be more right-wing.

Buchanan was considered one of the most right wing candidates in modern politics and he was very much pro tariffs.

Trump is also very friendly with the NRA. Reagan was all about gun control - at least when Black folks were exercising their rights (the Muliford Act)

These are just very cherry-picked examples of other politicians whose policies were also not 100% right-wing. That doesn't change the fact that tariffs and gun control (e.g. banning bump stocks) are not right wing positions.

He might support gay marriage but he also tried to remove health care from the transgender.

He wanted to repeal Obamacare completely, but yes, that would include coverage for transgender people.

I guess to me words still have meaning. If Trump is "extreme right", then "extreme right" doesn't mean anything except "I'm on the left and I don't like this guy." But I suppose that's the norm in 2020.

Basically any republican since Reagan.

I mean, it's not like there's a reliable permanent definition of “right wing”, but Donald Trump was the first President to support gay marriage during his campaign, and his platform in large part reads like Bill Clinton's (especially on illegal immigration), minus the AWB and belief that China would liberalize.

He “supported gay marriage” but then tried to take away rights from the transgender.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/8680730...

Clinton never campaigned on an outright ban legal immigration for all Muslims. This was far to the right of all of the Republican candidates who actually disagreed with him.

He “supported gay marriage” but then tried to take away rights from the transgender.

What rights do you think he took away, or attempted to take away, from transgender people?

P.S. why is that in quotes? It's literally true. And twenty years ago, when the Supreme Court was tasked to decide whether an incidence of workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was legal, he proposed legislation to make it explicitly illegal. Furthermore, during the heyday of DADT and DOMA, Donald Trump was (consistent with today) not for them at a time when they were popular among Democrats, in 1999 saying “that's not something that would disturb me” when asked about gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces.

Actually being seen by provider? Before the recent Supreme Court decision, a hospital could refuse treatment if they thought being transgender was a “sin”.

I linked the article in the comment you replied to.

An intresting blog post, but a few comments...

Switzerland has conscription which is conceptually very different from the 2nd amendment in both purpose and implementation. The US had conscription in the past but forcing people against their will to mandatory service is something which individualistic culture tend to dislike.

The effect of conscription on homicide rates is also a complex and difficult topic. There is definitive people who argue that forcing young adults into a pre-determined future is a good thing to shape young women and men into productive citizens. Others argue that robbing peoples right to choose their own destiny is very harmful to anyone who does not fit the mold.

Even with the possible benefits if, on the average, forcing young people into pre-determined destinies would produce more law abiding citizen, I would not personally be in favor of it. As someone who live in an other country with conscription, it is not worth it.

Conscription isn’t related to the second amendment at all.

The US still has conscription. We haven’t called up a draft since the Vietnam war - but every adult male has to register, and there are consequences for failing to do so.

In fact, even non-citizen residents have to register (except those who are on non-immigrant visas), and can be drafted if the draft is reactivated.

This includes undocumented immigrants, regardless of whether they ever had a visa or not.

I'm a Canuck, but it is no secret how close our two countries, our peoples are.

Some of us point and scoff, but these are the same sort which laugh when someone stubs their toe. Buffoons, they are.

The lion's share of us watch, concerned. Not just for ourselves, and of what might come from utter chaos to the south.

We are legitimatley concerned for what we view as family. I personally feel as if I am watching a beloved sibling, mess up their life for incomprehensible reasons.

You want to help, you want to intervene, stop the pain.. but you feel that it may only make things worse.

After all, how can you help, when you can't even understand?

I agree with what you said, the media is broken. I can think of some fixes, like a constant "this is not news, but an opinion piece" banner or some such, but I doubt that will really help.

It does seem to me, that a tiny, tiny percentage of the population is causing a HUGE disruption for almost everyone else. I mean tiny, a core of 0.001%, with all sorts of others "hanging on".

While the issues raised have some legitimacy, the media has thrown gas on the fire, and in a way which reduces chances for either side to resolve things.

Instead, we get, as you elude to, absurd, useless theatre.

Humans love mobs. It makes them feel empowered, and gives them greater "authority" than they would otherwise have. We have seen mobs throughout human history cause all sorts of horrible incidents. But the difference between a physical mob and an internet mob, is that in a physical mob you can be identified, you are still risking some of your own safety, and you can usually immediately see the consequences of your own actions.

In an internet mob you can remain anonymous, you don't need to actually carry out any of the threats you make (others may do it for you, eg calling for somebody to be fired), and you aren't risk any of your own reputation.

I absolutely loath seeing mainstream media write about what happens on twitter/social media. It magnifies the mob far beyond reason. "Twttier in an outrage", "Internet blows up" it's just insane. Not only does it give the impression that vast majority of users on a platform are on the same side (they're not), it gives them pseudo-credibility. And unfortunately, the next step is for corporations to take them seriously.

The more I see these stories and see how social media has shaped and is shaping the 21st century, the more I wish it was never created. It was fun at first. But the dark side of humanity has been given a power it should never have had.

Companies already take them seriously to avoid the shit storm that comes after. See the VS code "santa gate" where microsoft removed the santa hat on christmas because one person opened a issue saying the santa hat was as offensive as a swastika to them.

Wow I was not aware of this. The original github issue:

The Santa Hat on vscode insiders and pushing of religion is very offensive to me, additionally xmas has cost millions of Jews their lives over the centuries, yet even if that was not the case, pushing religious symbols as part of a product update is completely unacceptable. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268

I didn't know that Santa Claus was a religious symbol, I celebrate with Santa and I do not affiliate with any religion. But the status quo is to accommodate every single person. People believe they are entitled to it: "Make it your top priority" -- OK boss! There needs to be a balance. Complete stubbornness is not good. Bending over to every single request, regardless of its merit, is not good either.

As I recall, the guy said it was a troll. The PC Police are enough to make people take shitposting seriously. Further examples include stuff like the "okay sign" being a hate symbol.

The user's first name was "Christian". He claimed to be Jewish. Most people ignored this bit of cognitive dissonance, and joined the mob. People only hear what they want to hear.

I didn't know that Santa Claus was a religious symbol

Really? That's a bit surprising to me. I mean, Santa Claus is specifically part of a celebration of a Christian holiday, how could it not be a religious symbol?

(This is kind of assuming we're talking about the American-style conception of Santa Claus, I believe other regions use really do use it in a non-religious way, so that could totally be the disconnect.)

Note: the original ticket is ridiculous, or at least the way it is framed. And it seems that it's a troll in the first place, which makes sense.

The tradition of Santa Claus comes from a whole host of pre-Christian Nordic, north-western European and Slavic traditions with different mythical figures which got distilled into St. Nicholas in the Netherlands and taken to the new world by Dutch settlers. There Sinterklaas - as he's called in Dutch - got bastardised into Santa Claus, mixed up with some more Nordic folklore including possibly Odin's 8-legged horse Sleipnir who got transformed into flying reindeer. While the Dutch version of St. Nicholas rides a horse which can walk over rooftops, Santa Claus rides a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer. That sleigh is also found with the Nordic 'Jultomte' (a 'tomte' can be a brownie or gnome but in this case he's usually portrayed as a human-sized long-bearded man-like figure, sometimes it is pulled by a goat ('Julbocken' or the Yule Goat) for another link towards Nordic mythology.

So, is Santa Claus a religious figure? In as much as traditions, myths and customs often have relations to religion he might be but that is taking the term 'religious figure' too far. The modern-day Santa Claus generally appears at Christmas but even that does not link him to a single religion since the Christmas holiday itself comes from the Germanic Yule - in Swedish Christmas is called 'Jul' and still retains several links to the older Yuletide.

In short, calling Santa Claus 'a religious figure' is incorrect, he is a mythological figure who was assimilated into different traditions over the span of centuries. The American version of Santa Claus - the jolly fat man in red - is more of a commercial figure than anything else.

santa hat was as offensive as a swastika to them.

I've thought for a while that non-religiousneess is becoming a religion in its own right.

Certain people on the Internet keep trying to convince me I am right :-)

There are good arguments in favor of taking away section 230 immunity and probably better arguments against it, but the best possible argument for getting rid of the immunity is to get rid of social media forever regardless of the other consequences.

You'd still have social media but then they couldn't moderate it at all and you'd have all the same problems plus 500,000% more spam.

Which means the discourse dies and the media is no longer social.

It only dies if it's out-competed by something else. When you make a change to the law that everybody has to follow, you can end up just turning everything to shit because nobody is allowed to do better.

It also dies if nobody uses it anymore. If all of social media was like 4chan, usage would drop by at least 90%.

Once again, people only stop using it if there is some better alternative. It's not as if people are going to stop communicating with each other.

Right now peoples twitter feeds are[0] 49% spam, 49% rage-bait, and 2% legitimate content. If that changes to[1] 99.98% spam, 0.02% rage-bait, and 8.16e-4% legitimate content, most people will probably stop using twitter, thus contributing to the goal of:

to get rid of social media forever regardless of the other consequences

0: 103% of statistics on the internet are made up.

1: 2+49+245049.

I'm surprised there hasn't been much mention (at least for US-based folks) of at-will employment. People are getting fired for old social media posts, but people get fired for all sorts of other stupid reasons: the boss was in a bad mood, you missed work to go vote (again, US-specific because elections days aren't holidays here), the bus was late.

Meanwhile, the EU has much stricter regulations regarding employment and the conditions under which employees can be let go.

It's because at-will employment isn't the problem unless your boss is unreasonable, and if your boss is unreasonable then you should celebrate the opportunity to collect unemployment while you find a new job instead of having to quit or continue working there in the meantime.

But canceling everybody is problematically increasing the number of unreasonable bosses.

I don't understand why mobs don't form against the employers who fire people because of internet mobs. They often have a lot of supporters if it's a partisan political issue. The employers are the ones doing the actual harm while everyone else is just saying words.

It certainly depends on employee's financial and social circumstances and the industry specifics, but it still begs a question if it's worth working for an arrogant asshole that could fire someone for a over a bad mood. Even if there's a law that says that they can't, one must be in quite dire circumstances to cling to a job where they are mistreated.

This said, I totally recognize I'm quite privileged in regard that the industry I'm working in, where business tend to generally value people and such senseless human resource management is typically misaligned with both employee and employers goals (putting it simple, being an asshole doesn't bring any profits). In such circumstances, my personal perception of at-will employment is positive - it makes sense to me that we (employee and employer) cooperate because we like each other, and there's nothing that binds us but our will for a mutually beneficial relationship.

Yet, unfortunately, I know this is not the case for many people but I have no idea what could to be done to fix this. But I suspect that legal protections that prevent firing people at-will are not helping the core issue here.

Meanwhile, the EU has much stricter regulations regarding employment and the conditions under which employees can be let go.

Also much stricter regulations and norms around when you can leave. In the US, two weeks notice is customary but not legally required in the EU its often a three month contractual obligation. I can't help but think that may contribute to the generally lower salaries in the EU vs the US.

in the EU its often a three month contractual obligation

In which country is this? In most places I worked at it's been 4 weeks (and even this is often waived).

France is strictly three months, though it can be negotiated.

"Humans love mobs."

I am a human and I don't love mobs. This article is all about incorrect assumptions. If I am not mistaken, the parent comment just made another one.

The part about the media amplifying what is on social media I absolutely agree with. I have always thought there is some strange irony in news outlets writing about something that is, at least in the case of newspapers, killing their own business.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbus-statue-in-baltimore-to...

why does a mob that tries to defame nazis, do nazi style tactics?!

What are "nazi style tactics"? I don't see these people out killing all their political rivals in a night of long knives.

Yeah you don't see them rounding people up in camps either. There are other Nazi-style tactics in the ol' Nazi toolbag. For example, taking a complex problem for which nobody is truly able to attribute a simple cause, and saying, But _I_ know why it's happening, I know who's responsible... AND THERE THEY ARE / THERE'S ONE OF 'EM NOW! That's a Nazi tactic.

Why can’t Twitter and Facebook auto moderate the most basic harassment comments? They have defined terms of service but rely on user reports where the damage is already done. Why am I even able to make such comments? Maybe it is a hard problem but even at a basic level there should be no reason certain phrases are even possible to post.

What about all the "mob justice" that the internet has prevented? People have been forming ad hoc possies to dish out street justice for thousands of years. In the past, local authorities controlled all the information. Any civil or religious leader could leverage this control to whip up a local mob and do some real damage. Book burnings, witch trials, lynchings, pogroms... they all involve low-information people being enticed by a higher-information leader with a bone to pick.

Sure, some internet-based conspiracies have lead to mob violence (5G, pizzagate etc). But how many crazy theories have been put down now that we can all check basic facts on our phones? Mayan end of the word? An asteroid on its way? Satanic cults murdering children in daycares. Orson Wells would have a much more difficult time convincing people that aliens have landed now that radio isn't the only form of real time information. At lease it is now possible to fact check the radio. While conspiracies are now more national in scope and more easily witnessed thanks to the internet, the net result imho is that fewer people are coming to actual physical harm.

But how many crazy theories have been put down now that we can all check basic facts on our phones?

Probably close to none.

Mayan end of the word?

Plenty of people believed in that. Hell, one of the conspiracy theories around the Mandela Effect is that 2012 happened and everyone got pushed into the current universe when it did. Oh yeah, and the Mandela Effect itself. The only reason that blew up is because of an internet meme, and the internet's ability to create reality bubbles around people is the only reason it's as big as it is. The internet is the reason millions of people literally believe their false memories are the result of interdimensional leakage.

An asteroid on its way?

We never even notice those until it's too late, so the ones we know about get reported on in the news, but speaking of that, plenty of people still think Oumuamua was a spaceship.

Orsen Wells would have a much more difficult time convincing people that aliens have landed now that radio isn't the only form of real time information.

Far, far more people believe aliens have landed, now, than did in Wells' time. They believe reptoids wearing human skinsuits control the world. They believe the universe is a computer simulation and that most of the people around them are NPCs. They believe grey fetus-monsters suck people up into spaceships with orange beams and mess with their genitals. They believe the world is flat and all of the airlines secretly know about it, and they project holograms outside of the windows to fool passengers. They believe we never went to the moon, because obviously we'd hit the crystal spheres if we tried. They believe COVID-19 is a globalist population-control experiment, and that Madonna spilled the beans on the plan last year in Illuminati code.

You think it's hard to convince people of stupid things nowadays? Calls to poison control centers spiked after the President of the United States suggested (jokingly, allegedly) that injecting disinfectants might be a cure for coronavirus. People heard that and immediately started drinking bleach.

While conspiracies are now more national in scope and more easily witnessed thanks to the internet, the net result imho is that fewer people are coming to actual physical harm.

Give it time. That guy who stormed the pizza parlor armed to free the nonexistent child sex slaves in the nonexistent basement comes to mind. True, no one came to physical harm in that case, but that was only by luck. Reddit and /pol/ are inspiring mass shooters. COVID denialists are threatening people in the streets at gunpoint. If anything, conspiracy-inspired violence seems on a slow upward curve.

If someone (who wasn't a writer or someone noteworthy enough to write about) believed a crazy thing before the internet, how would we know?

These industries are spurned by growth-hacking companies that receive a lot of VC funding to do just that: prove out "user value" which is code for "get as many users as possible".

Twitter, Reddit, FB, Instagram all thrive on mediocrity amplified by the loudest voices. And then these investors and founders brag about user engagement, customer acquisition, retention and such meaningless numbers. None of it maps to user value. Because this drives advertisements to their sites.

Unless there companies actively reduce this nonsense, things will never change.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but sometimes the evidence is just overwhelming. If you are doing something wrong on camera, and it is very easy to positively identify you and what you are doing, you are very likely to be guilty.

However:

1) Mobs are not perfect at positively identifying people. And once an identification mistake happens, it propagates quickly.

2) Mobs jump to conclusions very fast. If you see a bruised person claiming to have been beaten, people take for granted that it happened, and that is the wrong mindset.

I am not a MAGA person but a clear example of this was the January 2019 Lincoln Memorial Confrontation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_...) where things were taken out of context to a ridiculous extent, and there were mobs on every social network trying to dox the kid that was literally doing nothing.

Yes. The first 20 years of internet was a mob that kept me from ever commenting and the misogyny I encountered - art videos stolen and shared on boards, attacks on my work - shaped my behavior forever. I do not believe in the concept "innocent lives" - but without placing this discussion about cancel culture in context we just reproduce unequal relationships of power. A better framework would be to do what I had to do to cope - do the inner work.

I'd be interested to hear more about the inner work you had to do, if you'd care to share.

That's the reason why we should never ever ever ever give "power to the people", but rather to enlightened few who would do their best to understand common people needs and take decisions accordingly. Giving today power to the people plain and simple means we'll have light poles holding hanged people at every street by next week.

There's a wonderful quote by Henry Ford regarding innovation which says "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have replied faster horses". I find it very appropriate in this context too. People would definitely know there's something wrong somewhere, but only knowledgeable ones would find how to act, where to act and how to do that without producing collateral damages.

And how does one determine this enlightened few and how do they get out into power? It seems like you're advocating for what would quickly become an aristocracy,

People can work together, but an effective system of organization needs to be in place which allows for check and balances. The internet has bypassed many of our former checks and balances, so it's time to rework things.

I don't think it's actually that hard to choose a set of benevolent caretakers willing to understand the needs to the common folk especially if you divide the aristocracy up into a few different branches and put checks and balances on the power the aristocracy has between each branch and preserve a core set of individual liberties upon which the aristocracy shall not tread. But we've seen that fall apart so at this point I'm more interested in a Neo-monarchist experiment myself.

Is the hierarchy in your hypothetical situation hereditary? Are there benefits to being the caretakers that the rest of society doesn't share? Obviously power is one by definition, what prevents the caretakers from beginning in benevolence but then turning to selflessness?

Sounds a lot like feudalism, doesn’t it?

Elevating one group over another never ends well. And that includes our current political system.

Ok, so the HN consensus is that mob justice is bad. Great, excellent affirmation of a nearly tautological statement. Mob justice can never actually be just, except by accident.

What's more interesting to me, and a problem more befitting the intellectual horsepower of folks here, is: what are the sociological causes of this behavior? And what realistic mechanisms or release valves could we put in place so people either didn't feel the need to do this, or when they did, the ways in which we could ensure justice apart and aside from online bandwagoning?

This is a broad and complex topic. I don't claim to have any answers. But I think there are some interesting questions:

1. To what extent does this dynamic align with the political spectrum? If it doesn't align with the obvious left/right dynamic, is another way we can identify those who think it's acceptable vs. those who don't, so we can pursue appropriate policies?

2. To what extent is online outrage driven by systemic factors that prevent injustice from being addressed by other means? Arguably, the impetus behind the #metoo or #blacklivesmatter movements is the fact that the status quo systems are inherently weighted in favor of bad actors. The online bandwagon angle would likely not exist if victims felt they had any other meaningful recourse. Indeed, that's the whole point.

3. Free association is also A Thing. Shouldn't we be free to disassociate ourselves from those whose views we find distasteful, and (due to freedom of speech) encourage others to do the same? And how is this different (or the same) than an internet bandwagon?

4. Is there a difference between bandwagon driven by a (misguided or not) desire for justice, and pure spiteful trolling? Undoubtedly, both exist. But can we make a distinction without making a value judgement between various sociopolitical positions?

5. Where does online behavior "cross the line"? Is near-universal criticism and reprobation itself problematic? Or does it only become a problem when it becomes targeted harassment? Or when the harassment begins to extend from the internet to the real world (doxxing) or involve actual crimes (swatting)? What happens when a concerned entity (e.g) an employer take entirely legitimate action (firing a racist employee), but which they would not have otherwise taken?

It's not enough to rail against the dynamic. We need to seriously grapple with all the individual factors that go into it. Because (hopefully) the internet and freedom of speech on the internet is here to stay. Reductive approaches only serve you to shove you into one camp or the other. How can we try and figure out how to make this very new informational landscape both sustainable and just?

Media have also been doing similar for a long time in search of sensationalist stories that drum up outrage.

For example, the story a few days ago about the white couple in Lake Orion who pointed guns at a black family. The couple were vilified in the press and implications of racism were made.

The couple has been charged and in my opinion (and presumably of the law) they were too quick to pull their (legally carried) guns out, and they will have to answer for this and the man was fired from his job. However watching the full video tells a very different story then the headlines implied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZhdMcrBuDU&feature=emb_...

The thing about “the internet mob” is that it doesn’t affect you if you aren’t paying attention to it. I’m not on twitter or facebook or reddit or any of these social media places. Consequently, nobody there has any influence over me. There could be someone flaming me on Twitter right now and I’d have no idea and it would have no effect on my day tomorrow. I wonder how much of these Social Media generated problems we have brought onto ourselves merely by participating?