6 ms·

> Applying filters hides the symptoms without treating the underlying illness, which is a society that is infested with sexism. This doesn't follow from the sy

> Applying filters hides the symptoms without treating the underlying illness, which is a society that is infested with sexism. This doesn't follow from the symptoms being cited, which is that a small subset of people say incredibly offensive and inappropriate things online. If a million people see a video, and 1% of the people respond, and 3% of the people responding are crazy, that's 300 crazy people responding. If each crazy person sends 15 emails before finding a new thing to obsess about, that's 4,500 threatening or otherwise crazy emails in response - which certainly seems like a flood to the person being responded to - but doesn't actually tell us anything about the population watching the video, at large, except that it has a similar percentage of crazy people to society at large. Continuing the hypothetical: if you assume a normal person only sends 2 emails, then you only have 19000 normal emails to 4500 crazy ones, because crazy people are more talkative. At 1.2 emails for a normal person, It's 11000 to 4500, which makes crazy emails over a quarter of all messages received in response - a vastly disproportionate number considering they were 3% of respondents. One thing that automated filters can provide is sentiment analysis and looking at related messages, to pull out the underlying distribution of people responding (and hence seeing it's just people being people), rather than just seeing the surface level "We have 25% crazy emails!" I would have to see a much more detailed analysis of the emails, responses, and distribution of them to conclude that it's a widespread problem, rather than a small crazy contingent being amplified above their importance by just posting a lot.

cyorir 12y ago
My apologies, I phrased things poorly. I don't want to say a majority of society is bad. I just think that even a small contingent, if loud enough, can make society seem more toxic than it needs to be.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  Wouldn't making it harder for that small toxic contingent to be heard improve the situation?
  - georgiapeach 12y ago
    How would you feel if a government agency or ISP or some other adversary used such technology to censor all your online communications -- so you couldn't ever contact anyone, through any protocol -- because it considered you to be undesirable/objectionable/dangerous for its own reasons?
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      That would be both terrible and dramatically different from what I was talking about. The context here is private websites filtering comments. If you are in a private restaurant expressing some horribly offensive opinion it is appropriate for the owner to ask you to leave. It would not be appropriate for the police to come in and gag you.
      - georgiapeach 12y ago
        There is no difference whatsoever. All your censored communications would be attempted -- and rejected -- through private websites, too. So how would you feel about it? How would you feel about the oppression you're looking to subject others to, being applied to you?
        seanflyon 12y ago
        How would I feel if every website on the internet decided that I was so toxic that they banned me? It's hard to say considering that has happened to a total of 0 people ever. You have the right to free speech, but you do not have the right to be listened to. If you are on private property the owner can ask you to leave. If I wrote a script to send you an obnoxious email every 5 minutes I imagine you would set up a filter so you would not have to read them or even be aware of their existence. You don't have the right to make other people read your (hypothetically) obnoxious comments any more than I have the right to make you read my obnoxious emails.
        georgiapeach 12y ago

cyorir 12y ago

My apologies, I phrased things poorly. I don't want to say a majority of society is bad. I just think that even a small contingent, if loud enough, can make society seem more toxic than it needs to be.

seanflyon 12y ago
Wouldn't making it harder for that small toxic contingent to be heard improve the situation?
- georgiapeach 12y ago
  How would you feel if a government agency or ISP or some other adversary used such technology to censor all your online communications -- so you couldn't ever contact anyone, through any protocol -- because it considered you to be undesirable/objectionable/dangerous for its own reasons?
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    That would be both terrible and dramatically different from what I was talking about. The context here is private websites filtering comments. If you are in a private restaurant expressing some horribly offensive opinion it is appropriate for the owner to ask you to leave. It would not be appropriate for the police to come in and gag you.
    - georgiapeach 12y ago
      There is no difference whatsoever. All your censored communications would be attempted -- and rejected -- through private websites, too. So how would you feel about it? How would you feel about the oppression you're looking to subject others to, being applied to you?
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        How would I feel if every website on the internet decided that I was so toxic that they banned me? It's hard to say considering that has happened to a total of 0 people ever. You have the right to free speech, but you do not have the right to be listened to. If you are on private property the owner can ask you to leave. If I wrote a script to send you an obnoxious email every 5 minutes I imagine you would set up a filter so you would not have to read them or even be aware of their existence. You don't have the right to make other people read your (hypothetically) obnoxious comments any more than I have the right to make you read my obnoxious emails.
        georgiapeach 12y ago