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I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
(www.theguardian.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I empathize but what does she want? People are assholes. They're assholes on social media and they're assholes everywhere else.
If only we could hold social media's billionaires accountable or something. Unfortunately, that is impossible, and we can and should never imagine a better world.
(It's kind of interesting that in a thread about Flock surveillance, people are talking about destroying the nodes. While in a thread about a girl getting abused online, there's a whole lot more defeatism all around.)
I generally want to make billionaires pay, just as a general rule.
But I don't see this one specific instance being their fault.
We used to burn women alive if they knew how to do math. Since that time, things have gotten a little bit better. But not much.
People are assholes. All around you are assholes. These assholes go online and continue to be assholes.
There's a little thing called "free speech". Govt doesn't have the power to regulate speech.
Sorry what? Tech billionaires don't have to enable the free speech of sexually harassing a child online.
And if your argument is that sexually harassing a child online is "free speech" - and that's the best argument you have - that's not a good argument.
My argument is that it's illegal for the govt to regulate such speech.
What kind of accountability were you referring to? Were you expecting tech billionaires to hold themselves accountable?
The article is from a UK newspaper. What is and isn't legal for them to regulate is decided by their Parliament and nobody else. No Kings, and all that.
Meanwhile, you should know that the "free speech" lectures are getting pretty old from the country that checks social media history at the border to make sure you didn't say anything bad about the Dear Leader, which shuts down TV shows it doesn't like, and generally ensures the media toes the party line.
(See also - lectures on why kids shooting up schools is a necessary price to pay for that well regulated militia that will be along to save you from tyrants, well, real soon now...)
That's also illegal. A rational person would argue to prevent that. An irrational person would suggest that it means we should move deeper into anarchy.
Go yell "fire" in a crowded theater, or "i have a bomb" on an airplane and see just how quickly the government regulates your speech.
Common misconception. That's not illegal. Nor is it what's happening.
Well, uh... I think she wants people to get better. Like all of us.
Best we can do is find new ways to be assholes.
sigh
unzips
Platforms could moderate their content. They choose not to.
Moderation? All mainstream social media has done away with it and blatantly allows that stuff to happen.