luiscleto's comments

However, the fact that there is a problem, does not legitimize doing something regardless of what the something is.

I haven't seen any support for the articles which actually shows the effects of the policy will be good, rather than arguments saying "it's meant to be good". Which is a fallacy that affects many politics which later end up having adverse effects.

But ultimately bureaucrats are happy whenever there is an excuse to increase bureaucratic power.

Edit: spelling

Further edit:

For the particular point you're putting out, to justify the EU policy you have to at least show that 1) those media outlets would receive all that traffic that those FB posts generated if the FB posts didn't exist in the first place, 2) that this outweighs costs from abusing that policy (claims over fair use, e.g. youtube copyright system) and content that simply will not get reshared, even if fair use and linking to the source material, out of fear of triggering the safeguards mechanism

> How does that nullify any changes?

The impact on society won't come from the number of crowdfunding platforms, but from the number of campaigns and their reach. My point with 1) and 2) was that neither is necessarily affected by this.

> likely when you remove them from huge platforms with massive market share, like YouTube

It's really super hard to fully remove an idea from social media platforms. It's like playing whack-a-mole. They tend to find more ways of spreading the information.

If the discourse itself is moved to another platform, my concern is that it might be a much more hospitable environment for such ideas to fester. And I'm not certain we will significantly reduce the spreading of these platforms.

Context: I work in Trust and Safety and am genuinely concerned with how to best address these issues, which I fear has fallen to the same pitfalls as many political discussions (i.e. get the favorable public opinion to stay in power for the mandate even if it means sweeping the dust under the carpet and let it build up)

I completely agree. That's why I was trying to distance my argument from the perspective of whether GoFundMe made a good or bad decision.

I just wanted to bring up the point from a societal perspective, since it's society as a whole who often calls for actions like this from big companies (making it a "good" decision for them even if just for the PR). Are we going to see a positive change in society from this, is it just irrelevant in the end, or could we even be making the issue harder to fight in the long run?

I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on what the answer to that question is, it's just genuinely a question.

Starting this with a few disclaimers:

1) I unequivocally believe all anti-vaxxers are wrong, 2) I absolutely support efforts to fight their misinformation, 3) I don't even necessarily think it was a bad decision by gofundme to do this;

Now, what I'd like to question is the effectiveness of taking down those campaigns. My points:

1) I doubt that an average user scrolling through gofundme would see and decide to support such a campaign, I'd imagine most of the funding comes from the links being directly shared

2) The above makes me think such campaigns will simply move to a GoFundMe competitor and be equally (un?)successful, effectively nullifying any changes

3) Gives more attention + victim points to anti vaxxers

4) If their discourse is further pushed out of mainstream platforms, does it actually reduce the spread of their ideas or just limit their exposure to counter-arguments and public condemnation?

Edit: formatting

Yes, it's a good thing for sites and apps to be accessible.

No, it's not an obligation of any kind (nor should it be).

For companies that have grown enough to be providing services to (and profiting off of) a large enough part of the population, it would make sense to expect them to put resources into this. For someone working for free, trying to get an idea off the ground, or servicing a very niche subset of the population (i.e. a very restricted market) this blanket statement makes no sense and the costs it would add to make it an obligation would likely only cause a decrease in quantity of what is available (which, if deemed valuable, can be made more accessible later on) rather than an increase in quality of what's available.

I noticed the [1] in your comment but it seems to be missing the actual link? I'd be interested in reading about it.

Reminds me a bit of the observations by Michael Shellenberger who went from https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/It-s-the-oi... to https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

Like many other topics today, discussions around energy and renewables has become so ideologically driven that it's hard to find any actual decent discussions.

1) Unless the people who sign the petition had not voted (or voted for brexit, in which case you could even see it as a x2 effect) you can't "make the difference" using these numbers as they doesn't necessarily show any sway.

2) Why would there need to be a pro-brexit petition if brexit won the vote? That is unless cancelling brexit suddenly becomes the way that decision-makers want to go for (and note that there are pro hard brexit petitions)

Disclaimer: I do not reside in the UK, and I no longer click on every article in the ever-flowing torrent of brexit-related news, so my knowledge of the ongoings may be outdated

Can Gamers really be boiled down to such a homogeneous group though? I think many of the younger fortnite console gamers already have very different views from your average young/middle aged adult on steam.

Stadia doesn't have to steal all of steam's userbase to be able to reach critical mass for their own userbase and videogame streaming seems like a logical next step (like music and video streaming were) if a good UX can be provided (and I think they're aware of latency concerns and would not enter this market if they thought it unfeasible to provide a good gaming experience).

Disclaimer: I work for Google but am otherwise unaffiliated with the Stadia project

By that logic if every individual in the 16,141,241 signed the petition it would suddenly make it 32,282,482 vs 17,410,742?

I'm not trying to downplay the significance of the petition or its size, but I don't believe math works that way.

The problem is defining those limits. And if you give a regulatory agency the power to do it, odds are they will push too far.

It starts with fringe sites that most people would agree on, but the existence of those regulators depends on there being more things to censor. It's in their own interest to expand the scope of the censoring, and the people attracted to those positions and that "power" will be the ones who have things they wish to silence.

In addition to this, as the scope creeps you risk forcing the later groups into the same channels as the ones first banned (e.g. people who enjoy dark humor being shoved into the same platforms as people who unironically spread hate and violent messages). It seems to me this will be facilitating radicalization rather than help prevent it - an analogy could be made with people arrested for petty crimes being radicalized or made into full blown criminals in prisons.

Before thinking about whether it's actually right or wrong to block access to "problematic opinions" online, I'd like to see satisfying research that government censorship actually works and mitigates these problems, rather than just sweep the mess under the carpet while it keeps building up to an eventual serious problem.

I wonder if remote work opportunities could become significant enough to slow this trend and make more people prefer smaller/quieter towns to the big city life while still holding jobs for big industries.

Does anyone happen to know if this effect is/can be a thing or do remote workers still flock to big cities anyway? I imagine this could eventually lead to lower rents in cities (but also lower salaries due to increased competition in cheaper places)

They shouldn't unless it becomes an economic advantage to do so. That's the point of the free market. I don't think it's the government's place to force it in either direction.

Adding costs doesn't mean it is more expensive to you specifically. Just for the economy in general. There are advantages to having cashless payments only. One that comes to mind would be for places in dangerous neighborhoods (which affect low income households more)

I also take issue with the third party in the middle. But in the end, if everyone wants to go that way, and you're adding extra costs by not doing so, why should everyone else have to pay for it? Ultimately there could be less cash-accepting places and driving higher costs than their cashless counterparts. You would still be able to use cash, but you'd be the one paying for it to exist, and not everyone else who has opted for cashless. Which seems fairer to me.

Unless we collectively decide to take action against giving payment providers that much power and private data, but I don't think that was the driving force behind this policy.

> With energy transition it's obvious

Is it obvious though? I find it's more ideological than an actual well thought out plan: https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th...

Which to me seems to be the case for most scenarios where government adds regulations on the market for the "greater good". In general I favor letting the market decide where things should head.

I'm not against government intervention to help those affected by changes catch up and adapt (even though I often disagree with the policies put in place to achieve this). But I do tend to oppose when the government tries to force the market's direction instead. If people drive the market to want to go cashless, the effort should be in helping everyone do so.

> Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless

But if places are forced to accept cash, people who haven't adhered to cashless forms of payments have no incentive to swap. If it is a significant part of the market, then cash-accepting places should still out-compete cashless. If being cashless is such an advantage that the reverse is true, then people should be given incentives to change. This feels to me like a government action that goes against economic interests (whether or not it should still be done is another question, but I'd personally vote against this regulation if given the option).

I find a more interesting argument against this to be the fact that cashless payments actually depend on a corporation or third party entity doing the payment for you. Which, lacking appropriate regulation, would give them the power to ban certain people or business from doing transactions altogether (think China social credit systems).

edit: Regarding the first point, I just mean the government seems to be taking action in the wrong area just for appearances, when the issue would be investigating why people don't have cashless payment options and promoting change there

That sounds incredibly utopic. Anyone at any time can have a completely new disability which renders any product unusable to them. It is not reasonable to expect companies to have a moral obligation to accommodate every single human being on the planet. Nor would it be economically viable for many products.

(disclaimer: that this does not mean I think an effort should not even be made. But there will always be outliers as that is the painful reality we live in. I do think OP is justified in their complaint and wanting more accessibility. But I don't think it is their "right" to expect that demand to be met)