LibertyLizard

joined 1 year ago
[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Frankly, I was mostly mouthing off here, not trying to voice deep moral reasoning but I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I’m actually not sure that fundamental human rights do exist—at least not in all circumstances. As you point out, they sometimes conflict and we need to adjudicate whose rights are more fundamental in a given situation.

You have a good point and I generally agree that there does exist a tension here. I think where it breaks down is when a platform becomes so large and dominant that there isn’t really any significant alternative. I think morally, this shifts my reasoning away from just a collection of individuals deciding what they want on their platform towards an almost state-like entity. And with that power dynamic I am much more skeptical of their unilateral authority to control what is or isn’t posted on their platform. Given the size and structure of YouTube, it makes more sense to think of it as space that belongs to and should be managed by the community and with respect for individual rights of expression. And I feel strongly that non-sexual nudity is not only not harmful, but that it is very harmful to repress, as we see in this specific example.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 28 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (36 children)

I’m not talking about the US constitution here. I’m saying it is a fundamental human right regardless of the law. What clothing to wear (or not) is part of that freedom.

Private companies should also not restrict fundamental freedoms. I’m aware they’re allowed to currently.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 42 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (41 children)

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. Fuck the censors.

Edit: this pithy response doesn’t reflect my full understanding of the related nuances here, though it does sum up my feelings on this particular example. See below for further discussion.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 10 points 3 months ago

I’m not sure I agree. For comparison, here’s a recent article on Gaza from Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/blinken-warns-israel-hamas-best-last-chance-end-gaza-war-2024-08-19/

Yes, it’s written from a western perspective, but there’s a clear attempt to include opposing perspectives including Hamas and ordinary Gazans. You see no such attempts from the Cradle’s reporting.

It’s true that all media is biased but that does not mean it’s equally biased. There is a big difference between the unavoidable bias of your own unconscious views on a topic and actively spreading misinformation. I am not very familiar with the cradle beyond these few articles but they appear to fit the latter category while Reuters and similar publications fit into the former.

Overall I think the assessment by the bias ranking seems fair, and the post removal even encouraged you to post another source on the same topic, so it’s not saying that this issue cannot be discussed. While I don’t necessarily agree with the mod’s action, it doesn’t seem like it’s an attempt to silence Palestinian voices either.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Here’s one: https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-president-assures-russia-of-unwavering-support

I dunno, seems pretty biased to me. Even if it’s mostly quoting politicians, uncritically repeating their propaganda without any caveats is questionable at best.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago

Not a bad idea. I lack the skills myself but if anyone is interested in such a thing, let me know. I’d be happy to support in any way I can.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Yes, the complexity is certainly one of the downsides to what I’m proposing, which is one reason why I was curious if people thought the complexity would be manageable. Sounds like you think not?

Just to clarify, my thought is to leave this up to users/admins to choose their own algorithm, which would transparently describe how things are weighted. For me, I would like to weigh factual information most highly, then kindness, with raw popularity at the bottom. But others might feel differently, especially if there were even more types of reactions than the three main categories I described.

For new users or those who don’t understand the system, it would be fine to have a default sort, maybe configurable by your instance. It could be as simple as just adding up the positive and negative votes, which would make it identical to the current system, or we could just guess at some different weights. Let me people try them out—not everyone will engage but I hope enough would to help iron out the wrinkles and see what works best.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The reason I included the negative reactions is to help distinguish between unpopular but constructive content, which I believe is very valuable in disrupting the echo-chamber effect, and content that is actually just bad, rude, insulting etc. and not contributing to anything.

Often, when there are guidelines on how to vote in platforms or communities they instruct people not to downvote for mere disagreement but people do it anyway. So by separating the disagree downvote from the “this is just objectively bad” vote, I think this can help curate a more positive environment. The goal is that if a comment or post is getting more than a few of those reactions, it should be hidden or maybe even flagged for moderation. But posts that are merely unpopular can stay as long as they are factual and polite.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Interesting that you say that, because I was imagining that each type of vote could be represented by a different emoji. I think people would get it if we picked the right ones. But care would be needed to avoid those that could have multiple meanings.

Maybe something like this:

Agree - 👍

Disagree - 👎

Friendly/kind (not sure the best word) - 🫂

Hostile/rude - 🤬

Factual or insightful -💡

Incorrect - ❌

You could add others but those seem like the most common and useful signals I would want to send while voting.

Another idea would be to just open it up and let people use any emoji to react. Some platforms already do this but it can get more confusing in terms of how to interpret and incorporate all of that information into ranking algorithms.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 22 points 3 months ago (10 children)

When I first joined Lemmy, I made a really big effort to make my interactions more positive than they were on Reddit. But the problem is that this required effort, and I am afraid over time my resolve might have eroded as the fediverse became just another online space instead of something new and distinct. This is a good reminder, but I wonder if this solution of just trying to be better is really sustainable for me or others? I’ll keep trying but we may need a more concrete change to get where we want to go.

I am curious if it’s time to evolve user engagement beyond up and downvotes. While they were relatively innovative at the time they were introduced, it’s been some years and we’re still here using the same system.

The biggest problem with voting as content curation is that people vote to communicate very different ideas and reactions in different circumstances. So people are sending the same signal to a well-researched, respectful but dissident perspective and to content that is rude, violent, hateful, incorrect etc.

This could be solved by allowing more diverse reactions. People will always want an agree or disagree button, so give them that. But we could also vote on how factual a post is, how polite a post is, how uplifting a post is, etc. We could then build algorithms that prioritize quality content instead of just the current popularity contest. Ideally I’d like multiple transparent algorithms that the user can choose from (or leave a default chosen by their instance) so that users can choose what kind of content is most valuable to them.

One concern is whether this would be too complicated for people to understand or engage with properly. I’d be curious to hear what others think: would this just devolve into upvotes and downvotes again or could this be a better system?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I’m surprised they haven’t re-federated by now. I kind of got the impression it would be temporary during the main Reddit migration but I guess not. I really like the beehaw community but it definitely seems inconvenient to not be able to access all of those bigger communities on world and shjw.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I still don’t get how to actually use peertube beyond links that other people post here on Lemmy.

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