TaleWorlds News: New News Necessary for the OT Neophytes
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Yes.
Nega-Brutus
The questionS ''can you''; ''to what extent can you''; and ''how'' are incredibly relevant and not as obvious as your hindsight makes it out to be. + there are no implications as to whether we should or not in that post, if that was your read.
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Maybe I was accidentally right, but there was never a shadow of doubt in my mind about the information power of Twitter, Facebook and Google, especially combined. And it scares me more than all Trump's and whichever alt-right e-celeb tweets combined.
Yeah the choir migrated to Gab or the other one, where they can circle jerk till the cows come home, but there are no new people to convert there. They all stay on the mainstream platforms. This has already been apparent the past two or so years when the YT purges started and the purged migrated to *****ute, but their audience overwhelmingly stayed on YT. Channels that had tens of thousands or even more views per video languish there in low thousands or even mere hundreds.
Yeah the choir migrated to Gab or the other one, where they can circle jerk till the cows come home, but there are no new people to convert there. They all stay on the mainstream platforms. This has already been apparent the past two or so years when the YT purges started and the purged migrated to *****ute, but their audience overwhelmingly stayed on YT. Channels that had tens of thousands or even more views per video languish there in low thousands or even mere hundreds.
Nega-Brutus
I don't know if I'm short-sighted, ignorant, or dumb, but I don't understand the fear behind the control of information. We've been controlling it before the internet. Everything you saw, heard, and read on TV, radio, papers, books, etc. was already heavily regulated (e.g., no violence in kid's cartoons, no Hitlers using public platforms). And we weren't fash doing it, we were less fash, arguably.
I don't want the power to be with Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. I'd like it to be with a body that can be scrutinized, held accountable, and changed if necessary. That being, with the government, or at least to an appropriate degree (where they draft the framework which companies have to implement, or something like the US FCC, as an example). But I understand the US in particular is in an awkward situation with its constitutional protection of speech and all.
I don't want the power to be with Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. I'd like it to be with a body that can be scrutinized, held accountable, and changed if necessary. That being, with the government, or at least to an appropriate degree (where they draft the framework which companies have to implement, or something like the US FCC, as an example). But I understand the US in particular is in an awkward situation with its constitutional protection of speech and all.
I don't share your enthusiasm about the olden days when 5 newspapers, 4 tv networks and 6 publishing houses effectively controlled 99% of information circulation. It wasn't a disaster, but still, the more the better. Just like the olden days were an improvement over the really olden days when all printed information needed the local bishop's approval.
Yes, there's going to be some crazy stuff there too, but banning speech or entire people only because it is was Fact-Checked or Debunked or contrary to I ****ing Love Science And The Experts! is even crazier than claiming there was a bambillion illegal votes for Democrats in Georgia or whatever.
Anyway, the position of internet media platforms has more in common with a printing press than a newspaper or with a tv factory than a tv channel.
There is generally no right to be published in any given newspaper or on a channel. This makes sense economically and physcially - the old media are exclusive economic goods. There is a finite physical space in the newspaper issue and finite amount of time on a channel and they don't want to waste on some rando's schizoid ramblings. But this is not true for internet media, which are effectively infinite (especially the ones as rich as FB etc). The existence of my account and my posts don't take up anybody's spot.
It also makes sense because a newspaper or a channel is a business. They sell their predefined and targeted "content" (hate that word). If they allowed anyone to write in or walk in, it would probably ruin it. In this they are functionally more like an individual FB or Twitter account than the whole of FB or Twitter. The point of these social media / platforms was from day one something else.
Accordingly, a newspaper or a tv channel are also legally responsible for what they print or broadcast, while internet platforms are responsible for jack****. It's not their speech, they are not responsible for it, they are just a printing press, so shut up print my flyer the way I want to. There is no need for them to regulate anything, there is also no need for any new public authority to oversee social media. We already have free speech laws and law enforcement and courts to prosecute those who incite violence etc. If somebody is really so scarred about any individual tweet or fb post, go get a preliminary injunction.
Yes, there's going to be some crazy stuff there too, but banning speech or entire people only because it is was Fact-Checked or Debunked or contrary to I ****ing Love Science And The Experts! is even crazier than claiming there was a bambillion illegal votes for Democrats in Georgia or whatever.
Anyway, the position of internet media platforms has more in common with a printing press than a newspaper or with a tv factory than a tv channel.
There is generally no right to be published in any given newspaper or on a channel. This makes sense economically and physcially - the old media are exclusive economic goods. There is a finite physical space in the newspaper issue and finite amount of time on a channel and they don't want to waste on some rando's schizoid ramblings. But this is not true for internet media, which are effectively infinite (especially the ones as rich as FB etc). The existence of my account and my posts don't take up anybody's spot.
It also makes sense because a newspaper or a channel is a business. They sell their predefined and targeted "content" (hate that word). If they allowed anyone to write in or walk in, it would probably ruin it. In this they are functionally more like an individual FB or Twitter account than the whole of FB or Twitter. The point of these social media / platforms was from day one something else.
Accordingly, a newspaper or a tv channel are also legally responsible for what they print or broadcast, while internet platforms are responsible for jack****. It's not their speech, they are not responsible for it, they are just a printing press, so shut up print my flyer the way I want to. There is no need for them to regulate anything, there is also no need for any new public authority to oversee social media. We already have free speech laws and law enforcement and courts to prosecute those who incite violence etc. If somebody is really so scarred about any individual tweet or fb post, go get a preliminary injunction.
Nega-Brutus
Yeah, but I don't think controlling information implies fewer outlets. It just suggests that we can responsibly regulate information without being fash.
Why
It's novel. Old school communication was either single-to-single or single-to-many. Social media is many-to-many, which we just don't know how to address the undesirable effects of.
What is the value of laws and rules which are not effectively enforceable?
I don't understand why people are feeling so claustrophobic. It makes me wonder if people are hiding stuff. Which they can, of course. But the rage and fear feel so disingenuous so far (but I'm open to being proven wrong). Like, nothing in life will change for anyone unless you're advocating for the destruction of society on a consistent basis.
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This is a slippery slope - you can also claim that living in China and getting a social score from the state is no big deal if you are not up to some kind of trouble. Or having your emails and posts read by the NSA is not problematic if you are not up to something criminal. I think the problem here are the possible abuses and how they are handled by such systems. You need at least the courts overseeing the censorship mechanism and the complaints, not a private company. So my answer would be more state regulation to prevent abuse.
Anyway, back to "just who would oppose Trump's ban"? I can see two profiles of people:
1. People who want their hate speech protected, and I feel these are the majority. (I used to follow alt-right forums and the racists were always up in arms about "free speech".)
2.. Young adults rebelling against authority on principle ("don't tell me what to say"). This is psychological and temporary. When they get their parents out of their head and become real adults, they'll feel less driven to oppose big bad tech and other sources of authority.
3. Professional contrarians. A very small, but very vocal minority. It really is a mental handicap.
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I would be generally speaking inclined to agree with @kurczak's position on keeping things free, but in the particular case of social media I think that some regulation is needed. Although I definitely don't think that it should be left to tech companies to decide, and I am not sure how it could be done concretely. The reason why I say that is this (specifically the Facebook study that it cites):
journals.sagepub.com
Right now Facebook and other social media have access to technology that is so effective at manipulating people that it pretty much amounts to soft mind control. And they offer it for sale to whoever has the money to pay for it. I am not comfortable with that.
I think that we most find a way to distinguish between people that share content in good faith and people who are trying to game the system and use it to spread plain lies to manipulate others. I really don't know how one would go about doing that though. The only way I can think of is a moderation system similar to what forums have, but I don't know how feasible it would be for something on that scale.
Edit: just another example of why we just can't keep social media deregulated. There's evidence that non US actors have tried to influence US veterans before the election by posing as an official American entity.
SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals
Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
Right now Facebook and other social media have access to technology that is so effective at manipulating people that it pretty much amounts to soft mind control. And they offer it for sale to whoever has the money to pay for it. I am not comfortable with that.
I think that we most find a way to distinguish between people that share content in good faith and people who are trying to game the system and use it to spread plain lies to manipulate others. I really don't know how one would go about doing that though. The only way I can think of is a moderation system similar to what forums have, but I don't know how feasible it would be for something on that scale.
Edit: just another example of why we just can't keep social media deregulated. There's evidence that non US actors have tried to influence US veterans before the election by posing as an official American entity.
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Nega-Brutus
US accuses China of 'genocide' of Uyghurs and minority groups in Xinjiang | CNN
The US has officially determined that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and ethnic and religious minority groups who live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
edition.cnn.com
About time.
That word again. It doesn't mean much when Pompeo is saying it as a parting shot, although Blinken apparently agreed and the Biden admin is likely going to go with it.
I think they really mean culturocide (although occasional forced sterilizations are kind of genocidal) or you'll start calling a lot of nations that suppress their minorities genocidal. The human rights organizations are much less hysterical and more precise, calling it a "campaign of repression" and such.
Anyway, it's just the US using it as a blunt instrument to bash China as part of their policy to isolate it, the US has hardly any moral capital left to tell countries they are being evil.
I think they really mean culturocide (although occasional forced sterilizations are kind of genocidal) or you'll start calling a lot of nations that suppress their minorities genocidal. The human rights organizations are much less hysterical and more precise, calling it a "campaign of repression" and such.
Anyway, it's just the US using it as a blunt instrument to bash China as part of their policy to isolate it, the US has hardly any moral capital left to tell countries they are being evil.
Nega-Brutus
Yeah but the US is such a cultural leader. Just by virtue of disapproving of something, it triggers something, and hopefully has a material effect, eventually.
I took some human rights classes during my bachelor's and I'm pretty sure the genocide definition is:
1. with intent;
2. destroying;
3. in part or in whole;
4. an ethnic group.
There's no reason why forced sterilization shouldn't be genocide. And this criteria needs to be stringently applied because criminals think of novel ways to do genocide. Otherwise, things like the Serbs intending to mass rape Bosnian women so they'd have Serbian children would escape the definition.
Maybe @BenKenobi has a take on China and genocide.
I took some human rights classes during my bachelor's and I'm pretty sure the genocide definition is:
1. with intent;
2. destroying;
3. in part or in whole;
4. an ethnic group.
There's no reason why forced sterilization shouldn't be genocide. And this criteria needs to be stringently applied because criminals think of novel ways to do genocide. Otherwise, things like the Serbs intending to mass rape Bosnian women so they'd have Serbian children would escape the definition.
Maybe @BenKenobi has a take on China and genocide.
That's excellent data. As far as I understand, the Chinese are targetting mostly women that had their quota of children already (and introducing birth control to the population in general), so the birth rate would be in line with the rest of China - which this graph can't show.
Nega-Brutus
China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization
The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.
apnews.com
I think it's very ethnic driven, not to mention the reduction camps and...
China is reportedly sending men to sleep in the same beds as Uighur Muslim women while their husbands are in prison camps
China is waging a hardline campaign against the Uighur ethnic minority that has seen more than 1 million people detained in prison camps.
www.businessinsider.nl
Actually **** China, man.
Yes, the take is: China is literally Nazi Germany.
I think it would be hard to argue that targeting reproductionary ability of a nation group is not genocide, since imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group is literally stated there. Does it fall under international law notion of genocide according to the genocide treaty in that all the other criterias are fulfilled? I am not sure, but I think yes. Is China bad? Yes, it is.
I think such discussions (as long as they are not part of a particular proceedings before the ICJ or some such) and search for accurate legal shelf into which to put it are more or less useless and maybe even dangerous.
Like, is for example cultural genocide a genocide? Well, it probably won't fall under the scope of the genocide treaty, yet it 1) effectively achieves genocide in that the group is not existing anymore; 2) even while not-being genocide legally, it infringes various rights of the minority itself and of the indivials of that minority as well. On the other hand, the treaty was drafted and pushed onto others by colonial nations still in possession of their colonies and is more than 80 years old. By saying cultural genocide is not, technically speaking, genocide, you don't help anyone except the genocider in that he can then claim hey, we don't do genocide here.
It is kind of similar to the distinction between torture and inhuman treatment. Who cares what is what, both is simply wrong.
That juicy headline about Chinese being forced onto Uighur women has a nice source, Radio Free Asia, the US run propaganda outlet for Asia.
I've already seen pure propaganda that originated from RFA being diseminated through right-wing anti-Chinese sites. So I would be wary, especially if the headline is an emotion-inducing clickbait.
Always know who paid for the information you are consuming.
For the record, I'm not pro-Chinese, but strictly anti-propaganda. And there's a large anti-Chinese propaganda effort for some time now, from US state agencies to (mostly Republican) politicians who spread it to their many followers. This bothers me as I don't want to be told lies.
I've already seen pure propaganda that originated from RFA being diseminated through right-wing anti-Chinese sites. So I would be wary, especially if the headline is an emotion-inducing clickbait.
Always know who paid for the information you are consuming.
For the record, I'm not pro-Chinese, but strictly anti-propaganda. And there's a large anti-Chinese propaganda effort for some time now, from US state agencies to (mostly Republican) politicians who spread it to their many followers. This bothers me as I don't want to be told lies.
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Biden is busily removing the Trump appointees running the RFA and other American radio networks so the rhetoric they put out should be toned down a lot very shortly. I'm not saying Biden won't have his own rhetoric but it will be a lot closer to the actual truth.
I'm afraid the current public mood in US politics is to compete who is toughest on China. Trump started this, of course, and it will take some time to tone down the rhetoric.
Even then, the US-China rivalry will be the main foreign policy preoccupation of any US administration, but it should consist of both cooperation on global issues and strategic competition.
Even then, the US-China rivalry will be the main foreign policy preoccupation of any US administration, but it should consist of both cooperation on global issues and strategic competition.
Nega-Brutus
>study 4 yours to attain an international law bachelor's degree
>involve an associate professor of human rights
>get told that China isn't committing a genocide
feels
>involve an associate professor of human rights
>get told that China isn't committing a genocide
feels
Of course China is committing a genocide, and of course nobody will do a ****ing thing about it. Such is life.
