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> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this i

> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this is ideal is 4chan /pol/. It's not backed by any major corporation (unlike HN which is backed by Y Combinator), it's not partly owned by Tencent/China (unlike Reddit), and so on. There's no algorithm, there's no karma, there's no blue badge, it barely scrapes by using shady NSFW ads. That's the closest to the libertarian anarchy ideal we had in 90s. There's of course alphabet agencies mining data and pushing narratives, but that's fine.

ar-nelson 4y ago
I don't see how an unmoderated, anarchic space like 4chan is close to what I described; the entire point of what I had in mind is a very specific kind of moderation: stories are only published if (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it. For example, if the readership of this news service was entirely US-based, then it would only publish a single article on the Ukraine war---when it started---and then might only ever mention it again if it has a direct practical effect on US residents, like travel restrictions.
- t12hrow 4y ago
  > (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it. That's the entire point. Who are you to decide that? How can you quantify 'likelyhood to be materially affected'? How can you empirically determine if 'someone can do something about X'? Your opinion is worth the same as the next guy's. Anarchy and no moderation whatsoever, in this context, is always better no matter how you try to rationalize it. The only problem is that it makes is harder to tell the signal from the noise (noise being fake stuff, tangential topics, hearsay, bullshit, etc.). But the opposite is much much worse.
  - ar-nelson 4y ago
    I get the sense that you think I'm saying more here than I actually am. I'm not proposing that this is the only kind of news that should exist, only that it would be nice if it existed for the kind of people that want to read (only) this kind of news. And I'm generally in agreement that most attempts to quantify 'truth' in media are hopelessly dependent on personal bias---but this mostly shows up in category #2 in my list. In things where you'd never know the difference if it were true or not, because it would never affect you either way. The reason I thought a news service like this would work better as a government service than a private entity is because a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws. "Likely to materially affect people" is something that you could reasonably argue about in a courtroom, just as much as other fuzzily-defined legal concepts like libel or false advertising. I'm imagining a news agency whose legal responsibilities were defined in such a way that it could be sued if one of the following happened: 1. It reports something that no reasonable person would believe meets the criteria. 2. Readers experience some kind of material harm that could have been avoided if they had read news reported in another outlet but not this one. And this harm is not the result of the reader being in some very small minority of readers (say, <1%), because after a certain point this will always be true for things that affect a very small number of people.
    - t12hrow 4y ago
      I understand what you're saying, and it would definitely make for an interesting experiment. If every news piece meets that criteria, it would be a very specific subset of news, but valuable nonetheless.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      > …a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws. The problem is whoever controls the government and controls the news is also the one enforcing the laws. You want to see suppression of “fake news”, aka anything that makes the ruling party look bad, then look no further than government run media services. I think they thought long and hard before they add freedom of the press to the bill of rights. NPR does a half-assed good job of providing unbiased news (they unironically claim that title) as long as it isn’t some hot button issue like Roe v Wade. In those cases they go into full on partisan politics propaganda machine mode. My absolute favorite, as I enjoy the absurd, was trotting out some kids who grew up in foster care with the implication that they would have been better off if their mother had had an abortion. Just an example, not a statement of purpose.
- zztop44 4y ago
  But of course, that misses the nuance. Lots of US-based readers come from Ukraine, have friends or family in Ukraine, or friends or family in Russia or another neighbouring country. Of course, that might be fine if your media hypothetical outlet is just one of many. But then people will probably just still end up the ones with categories #2 and #3 regardless.
suzumer 4y ago
I wouldn't describe 4chan as karmaless. While the site bemoans the idea of upvotes (updoots), they'll also be the first to tell you how much they crave replies (which they call "you"s). We can see how much this affects the forum, with many people posting content, not because they think it is the best thing to post, but because they think it will get a reaction.
- t12hrow 4y ago
  Yes, I've thought about that. In my opinion, the difference is that "you(s)" often reward controversial/contrarian takes. 4chan is already contrarian so what I mean here is going the opposite way. That is, you can go and post something that's completely against the culture of the forum and you'll get plenty of reactions. Even if it's just insults or slurs. In a funny way, this incentivises swiming against the current, so there's never a consensus. Karma on the other hand only creates a chilling effect, beacuse you're either banned or shadowbanned or somehow silenced. Take HN for example, if you post something controversial here not only it doesn't get more visibility, but it's grey-ed out and thrown to the bottom.
wil421 4y ago
4chan is a sick community where mental illness is coveted. You are correct about the 90s and finding true niche communities you could hang with, sharing ideas and ideology like the BBS days. Today is very different and the amount of brain washing put forth by anti-America bots and propaganda/make a buck machines is ridiculous. The reality these places are pushing, including HN, is out of touch with society. Even the European stuff is so out of touch I get crazy looks and responses when I’ve asked people (Europeans) about them.
hot_gril 4y ago
4chan only (sorta) works at a small scale, which it is. It's a niche. "No normies!"
- t12hrow 4y ago
  I don't know if I consider it small scale, it has around 45M views a month according to similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview. Of course, it's still small scale in relation to behemoths like Twitter, FB, Insta, TikTok.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Some qualification: It's small enough that each board has a global chrono view of posts, same with replies on posts. You can reply back and forth and still understand what's going on despite the other noise.
  - jonasdegendt 4y ago
    Given that there’s basically no way to interact besides posting or replying, I’m willing to bet most of that traffic is just lurkers. And another large chunk of that traffic probably congregates on boards like /a/ and /g/. Some boards are incredibly slow given the popularity of the site as a whole, threads on boards like /n/ can stay up for weeks with barely any replies.

ar-nelson 4y ago

I don't see how an unmoderated, anarchic space like 4chan is close to what I described; the entire point of what I had in mind is a very specific kind of moderation: stories are only published if (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it. For example, if the readership of this news service was entirely US-based, then it would only publish a single article on the Ukraine war---when it started---and then might only ever mention it again if it has a direct practical effect on US residents, like travel restrictions.

t12hrow 4y ago
> (a) they're reasonably likely to materially affect some significant portion of readers sometime in the next 6 months, and (b) there's something they can do about it or in response to it. That's the entire point. Who are you to decide that? How can you quantify 'likelyhood to be materially affected'? How can you empirically determine if 'someone can do something about X'? Your opinion is worth the same as the next guy's. Anarchy and no moderation whatsoever, in this context, is always better no matter how you try to rationalize it. The only problem is that it makes is harder to tell the signal from the noise (noise being fake stuff, tangential topics, hearsay, bullshit, etc.). But the opposite is much much worse.
- ar-nelson 4y ago
  I get the sense that you think I'm saying more here than I actually am. I'm not proposing that this is the only kind of news that should exist, only that it would be nice if it existed for the kind of people that want to read (only) this kind of news. And I'm generally in agreement that most attempts to quantify 'truth' in media are hopelessly dependent on personal bias---but this mostly shows up in category #2 in my list. In things where you'd never know the difference if it were true or not, because it would never affect you either way. The reason I thought a news service like this would work better as a government service than a private entity is because a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws. "Likely to materially affect people" is something that you could reasonably argue about in a courtroom, just as much as other fuzzily-defined legal concepts like libel or false advertising. I'm imagining a news agency whose legal responsibilities were defined in such a way that it could be sued if one of the following happened: 1. It reports something that no reasonable person would believe meets the criteria. 2. Readers experience some kind of material harm that could have been avoided if they had read news reported in another outlet but not this one. And this harm is not the result of the reader being in some very small minority of readers (say, <1%), because after a certain point this will always be true for things that affect a very small number of people.
  - t12hrow 4y ago
    I understand what you're saying, and it would definitely make for an interesting experiment. If every news piece meets that criteria, it would be a very specific subset of news, but valuable nonetheless.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    > …a government news service's commitment to the principles I listed could be defined by enforceable laws. The problem is whoever controls the government and controls the news is also the one enforcing the laws. You want to see suppression of “fake news”, aka anything that makes the ruling party look bad, then look no further than government run media services. I think they thought long and hard before they add freedom of the press to the bill of rights. NPR does a half-assed good job of providing unbiased news (they unironically claim that title) as long as it isn’t some hot button issue like Roe v Wade. In those cases they go into full on partisan politics propaganda machine mode. My absolute favorite, as I enjoy the absurd, was trotting out some kids who grew up in foster care with the implication that they would have been better off if their mother had had an abortion. Just an example, not a statement of purpose.
zztop44 4y ago
But of course, that misses the nuance. Lots of US-based readers come from Ukraine, have friends or family in Ukraine, or friends or family in Russia or another neighbouring country. Of course, that might be fine if your media hypothetical outlet is just one of many. But then people will probably just still end up the ones with categories #2 and #3 regardless.

suzumer 4y ago

I wouldn't describe 4chan as karmaless. While the site bemoans the idea of upvotes (updoots), they'll also be the first to tell you how much they crave replies (which they call "you"s). We can see how much this affects the forum, with many people posting content, not because they think it is the best thing to post, but because they think it will get a reaction.

t12hrow 4y ago
Yes, I've thought about that. In my opinion, the difference is that "you(s)" often reward controversial/contrarian takes. 4chan is already contrarian so what I mean here is going the opposite way. That is, you can go and post something that's completely against the culture of the forum and you'll get plenty of reactions. Even if it's just insults or slurs. In a funny way, this incentivises swiming against the current, so there's never a consensus. Karma on the other hand only creates a chilling effect, beacuse you're either banned or shadowbanned or somehow silenced. Take HN for example, if you post something controversial here not only it doesn't get more visibility, but it's grey-ed out and thrown to the bottom.

wil421 4y ago

4chan is a sick community where mental illness is coveted. You are correct about the 90s and finding true niche communities you could hang with, sharing ideas and ideology like the BBS days. Today is very different and the amount of brain washing put forth by anti-America bots and propaganda/make a buck machines is ridiculous. The reality these places are pushing, including HN, is out of touch with society. Even the European stuff is so out of touch I get crazy looks and responses when I’ve asked people (Europeans) about them.

hot_gril 4y ago

4chan only (sorta) works at a small scale, which it is. It's a niche. "No normies!"

t12hrow 4y ago
I don't know if I consider it small scale, it has around 45M views a month according to similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview https://www.similarweb.com/website/4chan.org/#overview. Of course, it's still small scale in relation to behemoths like Twitter, FB, Insta, TikTok.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Some qualification: It's small enough that each board has a global chrono view of posts, same with replies on posts. You can reply back and forth and still understand what's going on despite the other noise.
- jonasdegendt 4y ago
  Given that there’s basically no way to interact besides posting or replying, I’m willing to bet most of that traffic is just lurkers. And another large chunk of that traffic probably congregates on boards like /a/ and /g/. Some boards are incredibly slow given the popularity of the site as a whole, threads on boards like /n/ can stay up for weeks with barely any replies.