Social media sites should have 'reverse' Parental Controls; where adult children can block their boomer/senior parents' accounts from viewing conspiracy and radicalizing content.
He only watched Tagesschau, but no matter what we did with his phone to make it secure, he'd manage to fuck it up and get to places he shouldn't get to and change settings he shouldn't have been able to get at. His PC was also a barrel of fun.
my grandpa with dementia installed OVER 40 solitaire apps because he would go to the app store and install one every time instead of opening the ones he "couldn't find"
now he has parental controls blocking app downloading
Thats all good for kids since they dont know any better to begin with. Parents will bitch and complain they can no longer watch Fox news to enough people, and 'the problem' will get fixed.
My mom mentioned that my dad has been watching some concerning (in her words, "annoying") YouTube content lately. Last time she said that it was America's Got Talent, but this time it's white men arguing with cops. I visited and asked if he would show me. He jokingly said "are you gonna violate my rights?" And I very seriously said "yes. I need to make sure it's not Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan or someone even worse". He got a little bit offended and said "you know me better than that, I'm smarter than that". But the thing is, you start by watching something innocuous like some idiot sovcit arguing with cops and the algorithm pipeline feeds you nazi shit from there and you don't even know it.
For context, my parents are the kind of leftists that don't know what leftists are. My mom calls herself a bleeding heart liberal, and my dad sees the media say things like "radical liberals" and jumps up off the couch screaming "you bet your ass im a radical liberal!" But they're left of liberal, they just don't have the language for it.
I'm not worried that my dad is gonna seek out nazi propaganda, im worried it's gonna find him anyway and I want to throw his phone in a lake.
Maybe shower thoughts wasn't the right community for me to have my existential crisis. But I wish i could block "sovcit" on my dad's phone and "trad-anything" on my mom's phone, not because I think they're dumb (okay maybe a little) but because this shit is so toxic and intrinsic and scary and my parents are so dumb.
I was interested in Diablo IV when it was released which, after a few videos, led YouTube to recommend Asmondgold. I watched one or two of his videos and the next thing I know my feed is full of maga and manosphere trash. Most of it had innocuous titles and thumbnails but a few minutes in I was being bombarded with lies, bad faith arguments, logical fallacies. Don't even get me started with where funny Garand Thumb videos will lead. All I could think of was how Al Queda and ISIS recruited people with videos posted online.
EDIT: For the most part, I liked Asmondgold, but the algorithm leads from him to very dark places.
Imo Asmongold is good to mid, until he starts getting political, then it plummets into awful. Also yeah I think the garand thumb to far right pipeline is very real, the guy is actually quite extreme iirc.
I remember watching Grand Thumb's video on actual grand thumb, because I had never known it was a thing (I'm not huge on guns and I like history, but not that much) and thought it was interesting. A couple years later and there's a video of him shooting guns with a couple other guntubers out in the bush, and iirc there wasn't anything explicitly said or stated in the video, but I just got an overwhelming vibe of "good ol' boys shootin and drinkin and talkin trash" which rubbed me the wrong way.
Asmon is fucking disgusting human trash who wallows in his own filth, thinking it's normal to do. Like letting rats decompose into the carpet right next to where he sleeps, or not cleaning up his vomit "because he liked the smell"
I don't usually feed the trolls, but I'm going to engage w you as if you were being genuine.
I used to watch Joe Rogan w my ex. My ex was a Bernie Bro. It turned into Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate. Now he dates women 10 years younger than him and I live with a roommate and am paying off his luxury car that I co-signed for him that has since been repossessed. He kicked me out of the apartment that I paid for because "he couldn't stand to share his bed with me anymore" because Andrew tate told him he could do better than me. Look, people break up for lots of reasons. We weren't a good match from the start. But the idea that he's some high value alpha and I'm a used up ho is just so fucking silly, it was the stupidest most embarrassing way for my 7 year relationship to have ended.
It's important to hear the opinions of people who disagree with you if they are being genuine. Joe Rogan and the rest are not good faith people. They are promoting disinformation and hate. And I think you are too.
I watched my dad end a lifelong friendship because the friend got sucked down the right wing garbage chute. He has not rebounded from his loss, but he can't tolerate that friendship and just "not talk abt politics" around the guy.
Calling bad faith. The Rogan-stans tend to hide behind "he let's anyone on his show regardless of his feelings", while failing to acknowledge that he's platforming some heinously evil and/or stupid people (apparently Andrew fucking Tate is lined up to be on there soon) and just signs off on whatever crazy they spout (looks at Jordan Peterson). He's abdicated all responsibility for giving some awful people a platform and good PR.
It's not about disagreement, it's about responsibility for who uses your platform. If he grilled them like an investigative journalist or meaningfully debated them in any way, we could talk. But this fucker would have Andrew Wakefield on and just be like "oh yeah, vaccines are evil".
Any time you hear Republicans argue 18 year olds shouldn't be able to vote, and they want to increase the age to 21/25, tell them "OK - then anybody over 65 isn't allowed to vote either."
I'm not talking about just the president. I don't think we need anyone older than 60 deciding the future. I'm less than a decade from 60 but have been ruled by people much older than me my whole life. It isn't any better and in some ways worse than it was when I was in my twenties.
I constantly refer to my parents and in-laws as children. Why? Because they behave exactly like my 11 year old. They have no critical reasoning skills, no emotional intelligence, are easily offended, and can not be reliability left on their own without screwing something up.
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.
Unfortunately I think that's just our parents and not all old people. My parents are the same way, but it seems to me more that maturing is a choice and active process that requires effort, and many people are unwilling to put in the work and vigilance required and it leads to the above
I don't think they're children, I think they're selfish lazy assholes, but the result that they need to be treated like children is the same
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children
I haven’t seen that happen to everyone I know around that age. Many still have their wits about them and see the current state of affairs as a clown show. Some are even out here on the streets protesting.
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children
I know someone who works in a elderly care home, she says roughly the same: "Ouderen verkindsen" (elderly turn into children)
Your cognitive abilities really do seem to diminish after a certain point, no matter where.
It's annoying they think they're adults and demand respect...
My great grandmother (meemaw) had severe dementia, and one time in a moment of clarity she said I believe that you're a child twice, at the beginning and the end.
She lived to 96. Luckily my grandparents that I loved, her daughter (mamaw) and her daughter's husband (papaw), died relatively sooner once dementia set it. Unfortunately my grandpa lived with it for about ten years but it was only a couple years for my grandma. In great grandma's case, she was falling into dementia around the time I was born.
I just keep their Facebook accounts logged in on my phone. Every few months, I will go onto their profiles and unlike pages like "Wear your poppy with pride" and deradicalize their algorithm. Poppies for British boomers on Facebook are like Elsa and Spiderman on YouTube for babies.
They are where you'll find the deeply ignorant, xenophobic, Daily Mail readers frothing at the mouth and red in the face with anger over how "forriners" are lazy criminals that come here to claim benefits for them and their 16 kids, while simultaneously stealing all the jobs and homes from "hard working British families" (read: "British benefit claimants out of work and living in grothole housing owned by a local slumlord").
It's also silly that people get upset at a bunch of Asian countries who still use the swastika. But a lot of people outside the cultures instantly think of Nazis.
Very good idea there. I'm starting to have to keep track of my parents passwords (because they don't) and removing spam/disinformation from their Facebook/email/YouTube regularly might resolve many issues.
Like someone mentioned, shoveling the shit. Can't stopped it from getting there, but I can remove it.
You'd have to cut off VPN, SSH, and proxies, too, and to stop a really slippery network person from getting around that, you'd have to inspect protocol, not just block ports.
Solid password of what? The router admin panel? On the router that is physically in his home? He can just factory reset that router, and presto... Password is gone.
On the surface it looks just like Fox. * Fox eases you into the bullshit, They choose what they want to cover newswise and just kind of let that tell their story. They let the real propaganda jump in and special events and with their opinion people. If you already have the right mindset and lack the ability to sniff out propaganda you would easily confuse Fox News for being just regular news.
OAN anchors come right straight out with the propaganda. When Biden was getting inaugurated they were freaking out with all the fences around the Capitol, when it was their own people that caused that to need to be there. They're not covering the news to make the narrative they're making the narrative and just fitting in whatever pictures they can to tell their story.
One America News. They used to be a fringe right-wing conspiracy website. Now they have a "news" broadcast on cable TV and a presidential administration that boosts them. It's basically your drunk Qanon uncle rambling about lizard people, but with professional production.
Simpler still: disenfranchise senile boomers. Of course you don't target boomers specifically, any old person with very little time left to live and severe disconnect from reality shouldn't be allowed to vote on what affects the rest of the world long after they are dead.
Something about that doesn't sit right with me. Seeing how far the definition of an "illegal alien" is being stretched for deportation, I have a feeling people with autism, ADHD, depression, etc, would all be added to the list of people who are "disconnected from reality"
Not to mention some people are dumb enough to argue being trans is a mental illness aswell. (dysphoria is NVM it's a diagnosis, being trans is not)
The better solution imo is to inform people about what's going on around them and how to watch out for pipelines.
I have lived all my life around retirees, people 50+ years old. I can tell you from that experience, you can inform them all you want, they're not likely to change their opinions about anything.
Neuroplasticity goes to hell after 40, faster when you drink and/or smoke.
This is the one thing I hoped for out of crypto/blockchain.
You, commenter, don't need to know that I'm "Brian Brianson, a citizen living at 123 Abenue Avenue". But, it's good to know that the person commenting is a real person who has been seen and verified by someone, as a simple true/false flag. If there were good ways of verifying basic conditions of people you interact with online, without exposing personal details, then it could curb botnet opinionation as well as be useful for a lot of things.
If there were good ways of verifying basic conditions of people you interact with online, without exposing personal details
The problem there is: seen and verified by who? What's your "chain of trust" behind that blue checkmark or whatever signifies a "verified person"?
Even an "anonymous identity" if it runs long enough eventually gives away the person doing the writing under the pseudonym. They may refer to experiences indirectly, unconsciously even, and those narrow down the subset of who they could be, until eventually there can be only one person on the whole planet who fits all the available clues.
To an extent, the world needs to grow up and realize that anyone determined enough can hunt you down through your online footprint unless you're being super careful with your identity creation, what you say, and how long you use that identity. They also need to realize that among the 8 billion+ of us, they just aren't very interesting unless they seem gullible enough to authorize a transfer of funds...
I’m imagining something like being able to go to a lawyer, or journalist’s office - somewhere they’d have established notaries, and show them a driver’s license or other notable documentation. They wouldn’t be granted rights to record that information permanently, but would grant a cryptographic signature sourced from their office to express that their office has seen them.
This would rely on professional trust - that the people you show your info to will not record it; and, that if they for some reason have to, they won’t turn it over to warrants. By the same token, they’d be trusted that they’re not inventing people from thin air.
You’re right that someone engaging online long enough could be exposed. That would then rely on any effective “Right to be forgotten” laws to erase unnecessary data.
That would then rely on any effective “Right to be forgotten” laws to erase unnecessary data.
Laws != effective, in my experience.
If you are attempting to deal anonymously, you need to go "burner phone" on a regular basis - throw the identity away and get a new one, or three. How often you do that depends on how valuable your anonymity is to you.
I think the main thing we need to teach the youth of today is: how to maintain a long term undeniable identity that they can live with their whole lives. Meaning: silly pictures with school friends -> anonymous. Master's Thesis -> certified identity. In-between? That's where the judgement calls come in.
People doing serious stuff are going to need to start depending on certified identity sources, and openly disclosing when they don't really know the credibility or even identity of their sources.
As for "credible fake names" - like shell corporations? I think those are a bad idea altogether.
We had some land on a river. Somebody bought the neighboring piece of land through a shell corporation, county public records didn't give any real names in connection with the sale and transfer of the deed. In 5 minutes on the internet I looked up the owner of that corporation in Nevada and found that it was beneficially owned by a has-been rock star. 5 more minutes and I found a newspaper article from the nearby town with has-been rock star quoted as saying "we bought 11 acres out on the river..." It's really that easy, and for the people who "do it better" there are forensic accountants who "untangle it better" and the whole game is mostly a waste of time for everybody except the lawyers and accountants charging billable hours, unless you're covering up something that most people probably don't want hidden anyway - like money laundering or worse.
they’d be trusted that they’re not inventing people from thin air.
And that trust would be verified how?
a lawyer, or journalist’s office - somewhere they’d have established notaries, and show them a driver’s license or other notable documentation ... would grant a cryptographic signature sourced from their office to express that their office has seen them.
So, Russian Troll goes on vacation in Amerika, visit 1000 notaries and obtain 1000 different cryptographic signatures sourced from their offices expressing that they have seen Russian Troll who borrowed U.S. identity card and swapped photo. Very nice.
A "cryptographic identity" is only as valuable as the material signed by it, and then only as long as the secret portion of the identity (you know, those bitcoin keys that guy is buying a landfill to try to find...) is known only to the person(s) controlling the identity.
They can work very well in blockchain form which makes it impossible to alter past records, again only so long as long as the true owner of the identity has control of the secret that signed the last block in the chain. "Right to be Forgotten" is actually somewhat compatible with blockchain, you don't have to show all the photographs that were placed in the chain throughout history in order to validate the chain, only the cryptographic hashes of those photos. But... if anyone ever finds the bit for bit exact photograph that was in the chain, it becomes irrefutable that the photograph was signed by the chain owner as part of the chain...
This kind of logic should be being made interesting to fourth graders, implemented in practice by 8th graders, and practiced as easily as phone numbers and e-mail addresses by 12th graders. Maybe after kids educated with that kind of knowledge and awareness grow up, they can get a handle on this mess where: "people just trust me, dumb fucks."
Jokes apart, how would you prevent trolls and shills from trolling and shilling?
We already have a problem where real accounts get stolen because they have a history so it's harder to be flagged as bots. And one person can open multiple accounts in multiple networks. Hell, Facebook forces people to have phone numbers and there's still so many bots and shills there.
I don't want this to sound like a straw man, I think there's so many ways for bots to happen that it's like playing wack a mole.
You don't prevent trolls and shills, you block them - whitelist style. Communicate with people who have established a good reputation with you, or one or two or three degrees removed from you. Spend time with anonymous when you feel like it, maybe turn some of those identities into trusted friends, but always communicate with some kind of secure ID- even if that ID only lasts for a 10 minute back and forth exchange.
A major not completely solved problem with cryptographically secure anything is: key management. Ultimately you might carry some kind of switchable RFID key with you, switched off until you're ready to authenticate for some reason.
one person can open multiple accounts in multiple networks.
No problem with that, unless you're expecting to count heads accurately. If one person is creating the content of ten using ten accounts, is that a problem?
Facebook forces people to have phone numbers and there’s still so many bots and shills there.
I don't remember giving FB my phone number... with burner phones that seems to be an intentionally lame approach.
I think there’s so many ways for bots to happen that it’s like playing wack a mole.
I don't think you ever stop them, you just ignore them like junk mail in your physical mail box, except with secure IDs you can automatically filter them without even a glance.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think we should kill large amounts of people just because they follow a different political ideology than us. 🙄 We have to be better than these extremists to truly show them a better way...
educate and build a compassionate society is obviously the correct answer, but we can't do that because there is a portion of society that will never let that happen. remove the roadblocks. anything less is being complicit in prolonged suffering.
"We can build our utopia, we just have to kill everyone who doesn't agree with us" doesn't sound very right in my ears. It sounds like something where one should ask "are we the baddies?"
one of these days, maybe, you'll come to realize that there is no objective morality. there is only the winners that decide how everyone else will live. we all get a choice in who those people are.
i choose to live in a world where rational thought dedicated to furthering humanity and ending suffering reigns supreme. the benefits of that world far outweigh the losses that one generation would have to suffer to achieve it. it's just a simple trolley problem. if you can't see that, then you are blinded by emotions.
Oh yes, I am sure that the Nazis back then said the same about cleansing the german nation, the benefits for the Volkskörper outweigh the losses that one generation would have to suffer.
Objectively false. People in completely different societies (indigenous, uncontacted, etc) have shown that they don't kill people consequence-free or separated from morality.
Totally agree. Especially since in my country, young people are swallowing far-right propaganda at a higher rate than boomers. Canada's Tater Tots are trying to elect a MAGA candidate right now. Age is not the problem - the well of information has been poisoned.
It’s the right idea, but too narrow of a demographic. It’s not the old people that seem to be the problem. At least not only them. It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in. The ones that are just smart enough to use Facebook, but would struggle to understand the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect
The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.
It’s like they decided that reality didn’t work for them, so let’s just ignore it in favour of “insert discriminatory slogan or catchphrase here”.
The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.
That demographic is a whole other problem that requires a whole other solution. Conservatives have spent a decade building the online right-wing pipeline with podcast bro's and streamers aiming their content at young teenage boys. Now all those kids are of voting age, and a big chunk of them have spent half their lives being raised on manosphere bullshit that taught them that they are owed the world on a silver platter.
I will hand it to conservatives; they are frighteningly good at organizing and staying on message in ways that the Left can only dream of. If we could get half as organized as them, they'd never win another election.
Yeah, there's a reason the orange overlord is targeting universities now. He knows that election wins come from the uneducated and poor. They either truly don't know, or don't care enough since they have no investments worth mentioning.
You give him too much credit. He doesn't know any of this. But the right-wing think tanks that have been waiting for this moment do, and he's easily manipulated into following their agenda.
It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in.
Are you aware that this genuinely sounds like some nazi shit? Let's maybe not start controlling what the "intellect impaired" can do with their lives...
I think you are confusing Nazism with genuine concern. Careful with that. Hating people for opposing views is more dangerously close to what you so easily accuse me of, and your tiny tough guy attempt to mask your own bigotry just highlights that you may need to reflect a little.
To my previous point, not somehow mitigating the easily duped portion of our formerly democratic systems is a big part of what’s driving the Nazi ideals back into popularity. As long as untamed propaganda is allowed into the thoughts of the weak minded, the rest of us face an uphill battle.
If you read my previous statement about this again. You’ll notice that I didn’t say anyone should be controlled. Whether we bring facts back into law and punish those who spread lies, or bolster education to teach people how to spot the lies, it doesn’t really matter. But splitting hairs over how I said it won’t change that it is a problem.
Trying to deflect, blame or sidestep that is playing right into the MAGA/Nazi mindset. Division of the people and spooky non-issues to rally fear in the populace is what gives them control.
I'm jealous. Mine watches far-right extremist content on tiktok and youtube. What's an affordable hobby that wouldn't make an insecure man-child feel emasculated?
Idk, I've never associated him with a hobby. He's good at pretty much everything he does, and genuinely a good person willing to help anyone. If he's not working, he's either doing a favor for someone, or watching disgusting garbage on his phone. It seriously pisses me off to see MAGA turning him into a hateful goblin.
He would probably enjoy a social activity of some kind, but he lives in MAGA country so that's not likely to help. I've tried getting him into gaming, but it didn't stick. Although, I never thought to ask him if he had any hobbies when he was younger. That's probably worth a shot lol
What they should do is one of those replace-words add-ons making rightwingers talk positive about DEI or talk shit about anti-immigration, see how quick people above 60 nationally change their mind
Social media sites thrive on the engagement that comes from those people doom scrolling so this whole premise is antithetical to the purpose of social media sites and the only reason they aren't doing the same to children is because the law prevents them from doing so wholesale (but they will try to edge around the law every chance they get).
The same way we fight it in the physical world. With debate and education and engagement.
Wild that you would express concern with spreading of fascism while advocating for technocracy. You don’t oppose fascism- you just have a preferred flavor of it.
This I agree with. However, I disagree with debating fascists. They don't debate in good faith. Their aim in any debate is to wear you down by spewing more lies than you have the time or energy to debunk.
You can't humiliate someone who has no shame. And with their firehose of falsehoods, you'll only expose a small portion of their lies by the time they've already moved on. Nothing productive comes from waging a war of words with people who don't believe in the words that come out of their own mouth.
I'm not, really. I just don't think we have the luxury of taking the amount of time that we would need to educate people thoroughly enough to counteract the algorithm.
Probably what we need is a limitation on free speech where blatant misinformation is involved. In the same way that shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre is harmful, so is repeating false claims to stir political discord.
Whenever I see someone complaining about this on the internet, I imagine they're an angsty teenager mad that their mom doesn't let them get a face tattoo.
Yeah, you’re aware of the definition of paternalism then. That’s the whole point of authoritarianism. The leadership does not believe the people can trusted to run their own lives, and treats the entire population as disobedient teenagers.
Lol no. You could say paternalism is authoritarian, but not the other way around. Authoritarianism is just about power.
But as an aside, would you mind sharing your age? You don't need to be specific, just say if you're over or under 18. I have a... theory about people who obsess over the concept of "paternalism".
Man so much hate in this thread I'm not about what's happened at all with the USA but I'll still protect my family and show them a better way rather than let them rot and die. So many self righteous people thinking they know whats good.
Sorry guys, that also happened 40 years ago in the form of "retired guy has some free time and starts buying 2 newspapers, one of which is just political propagabda"... That's definitely not on social media, they just amplified the phenomena
I feel like we are glossing over the fact that I doesn't matter that fact if someone is young or old, we can all have good ideas! But the fact of the matter is we need teem limits in congress and SUPREME COURT. We have a problem with stale ideas.
I feel like we are glossing over the fact that I doesn’t matter that fact if someone is young or old,
Actually if you're talking about congress and the supreme court, I think age limits would make a lot of sense. After all, the people in these positions are deciding how the rest of us get to live. If they don't represent the generations they're governing over, it's inherently unfair. I think anybody who isn't of working age shouldn't be allowed to govern, as that's always the most important demographic for the country.
I mean... Have you seen the stuff my parents share...?
I'm just thankful that my kids will never be embarrassed by me. (This is sarcasm. Of course they will!)
I actually hope my kids are at least a little embarrassed by me, someday. I hope they will embrace new kinds of pragmatic effective compassion and community, even if I'm unable up adapt.
My mom embarrassed me all the time as a kid, but only because she's a boisterous, loud personality. She never really did anything on purpose, and I was never the one to throw a tantrum in public so there was no need.
China didn't do that cause they care about their citizens. They did it so only they can control what propoganda their citizens consume, teaching children critical thinking and emotional regulation early in their life is a better approach than trying to turn the external world into some safe walled garden
If the majority of people cannot handle information on their own, how can we maintain democracy?
Are senior cititzens more stupid? Otherwise how do we know that we believe the right things, and not just what is acceptable by the mainstream which will change for the next generation?
Yes, senior citizens are more stupid. That's why scams targetting them exist. You can tell them about something being a scam and they will fall for it anyway. They will get fished by "huge savings" and "sales" despite being millionaires. Once someone starts "sliding back", it doesn't matter how smart they used to be.
You know, in many EU states we have secrecy of correspondence laws. It's illegal for third parties to read your messages without your consent. This includes parents and children
People who say this are usually consuming misinformation and propaganda and don't know it. Anyone outside of those echo chambers can clearly see how it's dangerous and harmful to democracy.
So what basic rights should we strip them also?
The right to vote? I mean, if they are not capable of making valid decisions about what to watch/read/think then they can't be capable of making valid decisions to vote!
And lets remove Freedom of Speech fully, it only gets misused to enable nasty opinions and thoughts that "the correct and good" people don't like.
That is not helping or support, that is enforcing your will on someone else in the disguise of help.
Oh and I am sure that they will be fully informed about that cost and its implications.
When someone talks about murdering everyone he doesn't agrees with or taking away basic human rights only because of the demographic then it stops to be a joke in my eyes.
We have seen times and times again how it ends, and it is never good.
But yes, I think enough words have been said here, everything else is pointless redundancy.
We can influence the behavior of our loved ones, we can't meaningfully influence sociopathic corporations. While not feasible, it still feels like the best of a bunch of shitty options.
There is a huge difference between "influence the behavior of our loved ones" and acting as a dictator who censors where the adult and mentally fit loved ones can get their information from.
See the trick is this: does "mentally fit" apply, even in the case of otherwise mentally healthy individuals? Propaganda can affect anyone and the less tech savvy more so. We have no issues with limiting the physical behavior of the people we care about when they cannot handle it anymore (e.g. we'll drive grandpa around when he can technically do it, but shouldn't). While some do kick a fuss about it (for understandable reasons) ultimately, society at large is pretty OK with the whole deal.
Now we have them exposed to content that is arguably harmful to their health and the health of the people around them (e.g. voting). And this isn't opinion stuff or debates. These are outright lies catered to them. There were no dogs being eaten in Springfield, and yet I could hear the old dudes at my gym discussing it while they walked the mezzanine. At what point does their right to play with their phone cede to their mental health? For anyone really? We cede rights to do things when they harm ourselves and others often. Why is this different?
See the trick is this: does “mentally fit” apply, even in the case of otherwise mentally healthy individuals? Addiction can affect anyone and the less tech savvy more so. We have no issues with limiting the physical behavior of the people we care about when they cannot handle it anymore (e.g. we’ll drive grandpa around when he can technically do it, but shouldn’t). While some do kick a fuss about it (for understandable reasons) ultimately, society at large is pretty OK with the whole deal.
Now we have them exposed to substances that are arguably harmful to their health and the health of the people around them (e.g. drug-related crime). At what point does their right to drink alcohol cede to their mental health? For anyone really? We cede rights to do things when they harm ourselves and others often. Why is this different?
Not the gotcha you think it is. And also, big difference between bans and regulation, let's not conflate them.
We install breathalyzers in cars and revoke licenses when people refuse to act responsibly. It's a common requirement of probation and parole to remain sober. We do what you (/I) describe often. In fact, it's kinda the basis of operation for law at large: we limit the behavior of individuals to reduce harm to people. Be it saying "stabbing people is bad, now go to time out" or "don't drink raw milk, you'll get sick". So yeah, I'm OK with what you described. If people cannot mange their substances, we can and do force them to stop with punitive measures.
Freedom of speech (and with that the right to get information from every legal source) is a basic human right
Your examples are punishments for breaking laws, but censoring what older people can watch, hear or read is a limitation of a basic human right enacted without any prior law breaking.
So your examples are all reactive while censoring older people would be proactive. That is a huge difference.
Oh and saying “stabbing people is bad, now go to time out” or “don’t drink raw milk, you’ll get sick” is not limiting the behavior of people, it is giving them information to change the behavior on their own.. or they don't and then they (and the people around them) have to live with the consequences.
The law the grants freedom of speech exists to protect opinions and texts that some (or even most) people find offending or don't agree with.
A law that only protects speech that everyone agrees with is a law not needed, because nobody will ever fight that words or wants to censor them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Rights and freedoms are not unlimited. Freedom of speech ends at things that put people in danger (e.g. shouting fire in a crowded space). Guns are available pursuant to a well regulated militia (or should be, but let's not open that can of worms).
I'll grant the proactive/reactive in a sort of way. If anyone (not only old people drink the fox news poison) starts up with some hyper racist shit, is restricting them not reactive to their emergent behavior? Would it be that big a stretch to codify the effects of propaganda as a sort of mental injury that needs treated? (Yes it would). Point is, at this point we're splitting this hair rather fine and getting away from the important bits.
So the real way to handle the propaganda is to punish fox and their ilk for being wildly irresponsible and setting up racist fascist bullshit. Corporations are much easier to regulate than individuals (theoretically). They should be sued into the ground for all they've done, but we live in an oligarchy so that's not happening anytime soon. This shower thought emerges because free market capitalism refuses to have any morals whatsoever and people are desperate to stop the big companies from hurting everyone. And the thing that's easiest for everyone to see is the people they love start repeating horrible things and being helpless to pull them out of the echo chamber.
No, the shower thought isn't good. It shouldn't get that far. But right now, the only thing we can affect is the people next to us because the rich are never held accountable, so we're stuck with bad and worse solutions.
If you set up parental controls on your parent's devices I can guarantee they won't find a way around it.
They will, usually by accident. Source: my father in law.
You block Fox News using a Pi-hole?
He only watched Tagesschau, but no matter what we did with his phone to make it secure, he'd manage to fuck it up and get to places he shouldn't get to and change settings he shouldn't have been able to get at. His PC was also a barrel of fun.
Time for a flip phone and an Apple lIe!
my grandpa with dementia installed OVER 40 solitaire apps because he would go to the app store and install one every time instead of opening the ones he "couldn't find"
now he has parental controls blocking app downloading
I hope you guys checked for subscriptions he may have added. Might still be paying for a dozen of those games.
I’m glad he has you/y’all Toadski
<3
Thats all good for kids since they dont know any better to begin with. Parents will bitch and complain they can no longer watch Fox news to enough people, and 'the problem' will get fixed.
My mom mentioned that my dad has been watching some concerning (in her words, "annoying") YouTube content lately. Last time she said that it was America's Got Talent, but this time it's white men arguing with cops. I visited and asked if he would show me. He jokingly said "are you gonna violate my rights?" And I very seriously said "yes. I need to make sure it's not Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan or someone even worse". He got a little bit offended and said "you know me better than that, I'm smarter than that". But the thing is, you start by watching something innocuous like some idiot sovcit arguing with cops and the algorithm pipeline feeds you nazi shit from there and you don't even know it.
For context, my parents are the kind of leftists that don't know what leftists are. My mom calls herself a bleeding heart liberal, and my dad sees the media say things like "radical liberals" and jumps up off the couch screaming "you bet your ass im a radical liberal!" But they're left of liberal, they just don't have the language for it.
I'm not worried that my dad is gonna seek out nazi propaganda, im worried it's gonna find him anyway and I want to throw his phone in a lake.
Maybe shower thoughts wasn't the right community for me to have my existential crisis. But I wish i could block "sovcit" on my dad's phone and "trad-anything" on my mom's phone, not because I think they're dumb (okay maybe a little) but because this shit is so toxic and intrinsic and scary and my parents are so dumb.
Take care of yourself and your loved ones xx
I was interested in Diablo IV when it was released which, after a few videos, led YouTube to recommend Asmondgold. I watched one or two of his videos and the next thing I know my feed is full of maga and manosphere trash. Most of it had innocuous titles and thumbnails but a few minutes in I was being bombarded with lies, bad faith arguments, logical fallacies. Don't even get me started with where funny Garand Thumb videos will lead. All I could think of was how Al Queda and ISIS recruited people with videos posted online.
EDIT: For the most part, I liked Asmondgold, but the algorithm leads from him to very dark places.
Same thing happened with me and Shadiversity. I like medieval stuff and fantasy so i thought he’d be interesting.
Noooope. Just another fash scumbag.
Wait shad is a fash scumbag or the algorithm leads from them to fash?
He had sargon of akkad on his show and defended him when he was demonetized for racist bullshit.
Imo Asmongold is good to mid, until he starts getting political, then it plummets into awful. Also yeah I think the garand thumb to far right pipeline is very real, the guy is actually quite extreme iirc.
I don't get how he can be such a non-self-aware trashbag. He seems so reasonable at times, yet eats is reprehensible in almost every way.
He reallh believes he is self-made.
I remember watching Grand Thumb's video on actual grand thumb, because I had never known it was a thing (I'm not huge on guns and I like history, but not that much) and thought it was interesting. A couple years later and there's a video of him shooting guns with a couple other guntubers out in the bush, and iirc there wasn't anything explicitly said or stated in the video, but I just got an overwhelming vibe of "good ol' boys shootin and drinkin and talkin trash" which rubbed me the wrong way.
Asmon is fucking disgusting human trash who wallows in his own filth, thinking it's normal to do. Like letting rats decompose into the carpet right next to where he sleeps, or not cleaning up his vomit "because he liked the smell"
Leftists really do need to do more gaming content.Thats all I'll say.
Must be nice to have parents that haven't turned out to be fascist sociopaths.
Sending love, you’re awesome
Why do you stigmatize Joe Rogan and others? There's nothing wrong with watching people who you diagree with.
I don't usually feed the trolls, but I'm going to engage w you as if you were being genuine.
I used to watch Joe Rogan w my ex. My ex was a Bernie Bro. It turned into Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate. Now he dates women 10 years younger than him and I live with a roommate and am paying off his luxury car that I co-signed for him that has since been repossessed. He kicked me out of the apartment that I paid for because "he couldn't stand to share his bed with me anymore" because Andrew tate told him he could do better than me. Look, people break up for lots of reasons. We weren't a good match from the start. But the idea that he's some high value alpha and I'm a used up ho is just so fucking silly, it was the stupidest most embarrassing way for my 7 year relationship to have ended.
It's important to hear the opinions of people who disagree with you if they are being genuine. Joe Rogan and the rest are not good faith people. They are promoting disinformation and hate. And I think you are too.
I watched my dad end a lifelong friendship because the friend got sucked down the right wing garbage chute. He has not rebounded from his loss, but he can't tolerate that friendship and just "not talk abt politics" around the guy.
Be better, my dear. I will not respond again.
There's plenty wrong with credulous dipshits who give lying propagandists and conmen a platform.
WhY wOnT yOu cHaLlEnGe YoUrSeLf in tHe mArKeTpLaCe oF iDeAs? I’m jUsT aSkINg qUeStIoNs!
JAQing off, if you will.
Trash should be treated as trash.
Calling bad faith. The Rogan-stans tend to hide behind "he let's anyone on his show regardless of his feelings", while failing to acknowledge that he's platforming some heinously evil and/or stupid people (apparently Andrew fucking Tate is lined up to be on there soon) and just signs off on whatever crazy they spout (looks at Jordan Peterson). He's abdicated all responsibility for giving some awful people a platform and good PR.
It's not about disagreement, it's about responsibility for who uses your platform. If he grilled them like an investigative journalist or meaningfully debated them in any way, we could talk. But this fucker would have Andrew Wakefield on and just be like "oh yeah, vaccines are evil".
Any time you hear Republicans argue 18 year olds shouldn't be able to vote, and they want to increase the age to 21/25, tell them "OK - then anybody over 65 isn't allowed to vote either."
I would settle for no one can be elected if their age is younger or older than 30 and 60.
There already is a lower limit (must be 35), just need to add the upper
I'm not talking about just the president. I don't think we need anyone older than 60 deciding the future. I'm less than a decade from 60 but have been ruled by people much older than me my whole life. It isn't any better and in some ways worse than it was when I was in my twenties.
Yea, I feel you. Age limits everywhere, especially the upper limit, are a good idea.
Yup. I'm 45 and I can't believe that people older than my parents are still running the country.
for becoming a president or for voting?
That number is specifically for the president
Same maximum retirement age for everyone. Politicians included.
If you're old enough to draw your full Social Security payment, you're too old to hold public office.
Sorry, Bernie. You're one of the good ones, but you'll have to make sacrifices for the common good.
Not being eligible doesn't mean not doing campaigns for other people.
I constantly refer to my parents and in-laws as children. Why? Because they behave exactly like my 11 year old. They have no critical reasoning skills, no emotional intelligence, are easily offended, and can not be reliability left on their own without screwing something up.
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.
Unfortunately I think that's just our parents and not all old people. My parents are the same way, but it seems to me more that maturing is a choice and active process that requires effort, and many people are unwilling to put in the work and vigilance required and it leads to the above
I don't think they're children, I think they're selfish lazy assholes, but the result that they need to be treated like children is the same
I haven’t seen that happen to everyone I know around that age. Many still have their wits about them and see the current state of affairs as a clown show. Some are even out here on the streets protesting.
Is this true, or is this just (mostly) boomers?
I know someone who works in a elderly care home, she says roughly the same: "Ouderen verkindsen" (elderly turn into children)
Your cognitive abilities really do seem to diminish after a certain point, no matter where. It's annoying they think they're adults and demand respect...
My great grandmother (meemaw) had severe dementia, and one time in a moment of clarity she said I believe that you're a child twice, at the beginning and the end.
She lived to 96. Luckily my grandparents that I loved, her daughter (mamaw) and her daughter's husband (papaw), died relatively sooner once dementia set it. Unfortunately my grandpa lived with it for about ten years but it was only a couple years for my grandma. In great grandma's case, she was falling into dementia around the time I was born.
I just keep their Facebook accounts logged in on my phone. Every few months, I will go onto their profiles and unlike pages like "Wear your poppy with pride" and deradicalize their algorithm. Poppies for British boomers on Facebook are like Elsa and Spiderman on YouTube for babies.
How are poppies radical on Facebook?
Because the wearing of poppies has become synonymous with the now defunct BNP and the rest of the British right wing for a lot of us.
You can thank Stephen Yaxley-Lennon for that.
That's a bit silly. The symbol has existed as one of remembrance for over 100 years. We shouldn't let fascists take claim of it
Although I take this to mean that the 'poppy pages' are actually fronts for bigotry?
Correct.
They are where you'll find the deeply ignorant, xenophobic, Daily Mail readers frothing at the mouth and red in the face with anger over how "forriners" are lazy criminals that come here to claim benefits for them and their 16 kids, while simultaneously stealing all the jobs and homes from "hard working British families" (read: "British benefit claimants out of work and living in grothole housing owned by a local slumlord").
Of course it's silly.
It's also silly that people get upset at a bunch of Asian countries who still use the swastika. But a lot of people outside the cultures instantly think of Nazis.
We shouldn't be getting upset at swastikas being used within their asian context.
Facebook slowly pushing more shit and you shoveling the shit away. Nicely done!
Very good idea there. I'm starting to have to keep track of my parents passwords (because they don't) and removing spam/disinformation from their Facebook/email/YouTube regularly might resolve many issues.
Like someone mentioned, shoveling the shit. Can't stopped it from getting there, but I can remove it.
That's what router settings do. Sorry, X is not reachable from here.
I love this in general, unfortunately for me my dad is a retired network engineer 😫
You'd have to cut off VPN, SSH, and proxies, too, and to stop a really slippery network person from getting around that, you'd have to inspect protocol, not just block ports.
Solid password of what? The router admin panel? On the router that is physically in his home? He can just factory reset that router, and presto... Password is gone.
As long as you hold the passwords...
My wife stayed at an Airbnb last week, I tried to convince her to turn the parental controls on and block OAN and Fox.
What's OAN? Never heard of that.
Farther right than Fox. Yes, it's possible.
So they straight up have swastikas in the background of their set, behind the anchors? Damn, that's gnar.
On the surface it looks just like Fox. * Fox eases you into the bullshit, They choose what they want to cover newswise and just kind of let that tell their story. They let the real propaganda jump in and special events and with their opinion people. If you already have the right mindset and lack the ability to sniff out propaganda you would easily confuse Fox News for being just regular news.
OAN anchors come right straight out with the propaganda. When Biden was getting inaugurated they were freaking out with all the fences around the Capitol, when it was their own people that caused that to need to be there. They're not covering the news to make the narrative they're making the narrative and just fitting in whatever pictures they can to tell their story.
One America News. They used to be a fringe right-wing conspiracy website. Now they have a "news" broadcast on cable TV and a presidential administration that boosts them. It's basically your drunk Qanon uncle rambling about lizard people, but with professional production.
Another far-right shit hole
Simpler still: disenfranchise senile boomers. Of course you don't target boomers specifically, any old person with very little time left to live and severe disconnect from reality shouldn't be allowed to vote on what affects the rest of the world long after they are dead.
https://old.reddit.com/r/DownWithIncumbency/
Something about that doesn't sit right with me. Seeing how far the definition of an "illegal alien" is being stretched for deportation, I have a feeling people with autism, ADHD, depression, etc, would all be added to the list of people who are "disconnected from reality"
Not to mention some people are dumb enough to argue being trans is a mental illness aswell. (
dysphoria isNVM it's a diagnosis, being trans is not)The better solution imo is to inform people about what's going on around them and how to watch out for pipelines.
They did specifically say senile in conviction with a severe disconnect from reality.
I would say many people with ADHD and milder autism have a more true perception of reality than neurotypicals, but I'm biased.
I feel the need to offer a correction. Dysphoria is a diagnosis, and is not considered to be a mental illness.
Thanks for the correction, I have edited my comment.
I have lived all my life around retirees, people 50+ years old. I can tell you from that experience, you can inform them all you want, they're not likely to change their opinions about anything.
Neuroplasticity goes to hell after 40, faster when you drink and/or smoke.
no, WE THE PEOPLE should have global networks that simply remove that kind of brain rot and delete the people that perpetuate it.
The first step in trustable networks is securely validated identity.
On the internet nobody knows if you're a dog, a Russian Troll, or a corporate shill.
This is the one thing I hoped for out of crypto/blockchain.
You, commenter, don't need to know that I'm "Brian Brianson, a citizen living at 123 Abenue Avenue". But, it's good to know that the person commenting is a real person who has been seen and verified by someone, as a simple true/false flag. If there were good ways of verifying basic conditions of people you interact with online, without exposing personal details, then it could curb botnet opinionation as well as be useful for a lot of things.
The problem there is: seen and verified by who? What's your "chain of trust" behind that blue checkmark or whatever signifies a "verified person"?
Even an "anonymous identity" if it runs long enough eventually gives away the person doing the writing under the pseudonym. They may refer to experiences indirectly, unconsciously even, and those narrow down the subset of who they could be, until eventually there can be only one person on the whole planet who fits all the available clues.
To an extent, the world needs to grow up and realize that anyone determined enough can hunt you down through your online footprint unless you're being super careful with your identity creation, what you say, and how long you use that identity. They also need to realize that among the 8 billion+ of us, they just aren't very interesting unless they seem gullible enough to authorize a transfer of funds...
I’m imagining something like being able to go to a lawyer, or journalist’s office - somewhere they’d have established notaries, and show them a driver’s license or other notable documentation. They wouldn’t be granted rights to record that information permanently, but would grant a cryptographic signature sourced from their office to express that their office has seen them.
This would rely on professional trust - that the people you show your info to will not record it; and, that if they for some reason have to, they won’t turn it over to warrants. By the same token, they’d be trusted that they’re not inventing people from thin air.
You’re right that someone engaging online long enough could be exposed. That would then rely on any effective “Right to be forgotten” laws to erase unnecessary data.
Laws != effective, in my experience.
If you are attempting to deal anonymously, you need to go "burner phone" on a regular basis - throw the identity away and get a new one, or three. How often you do that depends on how valuable your anonymity is to you.
I think the main thing we need to teach the youth of today is: how to maintain a long term undeniable identity that they can live with their whole lives. Meaning: silly pictures with school friends -> anonymous. Master's Thesis -> certified identity. In-between? That's where the judgement calls come in.
People doing serious stuff are going to need to start depending on certified identity sources, and openly disclosing when they don't really know the credibility or even identity of their sources.
As for "credible fake names" - like shell corporations? I think those are a bad idea altogether.
We had some land on a river. Somebody bought the neighboring piece of land through a shell corporation, county public records didn't give any real names in connection with the sale and transfer of the deed. In 5 minutes on the internet I looked up the owner of that corporation in Nevada and found that it was beneficially owned by a has-been rock star. 5 more minutes and I found a newspaper article from the nearby town with has-been rock star quoted as saying "we bought 11 acres out on the river..." It's really that easy, and for the people who "do it better" there are forensic accountants who "untangle it better" and the whole game is mostly a waste of time for everybody except the lawyers and accountants charging billable hours, unless you're covering up something that most people probably don't want hidden anyway - like money laundering or worse.
And that trust would be verified how?
So, Russian Troll goes on vacation in Amerika, visit 1000 notaries and obtain 1000 different cryptographic signatures sourced from their offices expressing that they have seen Russian Troll who borrowed U.S. identity card and swapped photo. Very nice.
A "cryptographic identity" is only as valuable as the material signed by it, and then only as long as the secret portion of the identity (you know, those bitcoin keys that guy is buying a landfill to try to find...) is known only to the person(s) controlling the identity.
They can work very well in blockchain form which makes it impossible to alter past records, again only so long as long as the true owner of the identity has control of the secret that signed the last block in the chain. "Right to be Forgotten" is actually somewhat compatible with blockchain, you don't have to show all the photographs that were placed in the chain throughout history in order to validate the chain, only the cryptographic hashes of those photos. But... if anyone ever finds the bit for bit exact photograph that was in the chain, it becomes irrefutable that the photograph was signed by the chain owner as part of the chain...
This kind of logic should be being made interesting to fourth graders, implemented in practice by 8th graders, and practiced as easily as phone numbers and e-mail addresses by 12th graders. Maybe after kids educated with that kind of knowledge and awareness grow up, they can get a handle on this mess where: "people just trust me, dumb fucks."
You can be all three at the same time!
Jokes apart, how would you prevent trolls and shills from trolling and shilling?
We already have a problem where real accounts get stolen because they have a history so it's harder to be flagged as bots. And one person can open multiple accounts in multiple networks. Hell, Facebook forces people to have phone numbers and there's still so many bots and shills there.
I don't want this to sound like a straw man, I think there's so many ways for bots to happen that it's like playing wack a mole.
You don't prevent trolls and shills, you block them - whitelist style. Communicate with people who have established a good reputation with you, or one or two or three degrees removed from you. Spend time with anonymous when you feel like it, maybe turn some of those identities into trusted friends, but always communicate with some kind of secure ID- even if that ID only lasts for a 10 minute back and forth exchange.
A major not completely solved problem with cryptographically secure anything is: key management. Ultimately you might carry some kind of switchable RFID key with you, switched off until you're ready to authenticate for some reason.
No problem with that, unless you're expecting to count heads accurately. If one person is creating the content of ten using ten accounts, is that a problem?
I don't remember giving FB my phone number... with burner phones that seems to be an intentionally lame approach.
I don't think you ever stop them, you just ignore them like junk mail in your physical mail box, except with secure IDs you can automatically filter them without even a glance.
The squad has taken care of the hacker
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think we should kill large amounts of people just because they follow a different political ideology than us. 🙄 We have to be better than these extremists to truly show them a better way...
... I think he meant delete accounts, not delete actual people, but I could be wrong lol
Edit: nope, dude's just an asshole lol
If so, I don't think they would have 2 different verbs: "remove that kind of brain rot and delete the people that perpetuate it."
EDIT: Not to worry, they clarified by doubling-down on their holocaust argument.
there's only one way to fix idiots and sociopaths.
Give them a lollipop so they shut up?
I'll shut up. Can I have a lollipop, please?
Good thing the actual reason is the being Nazi thing, not just having a different opinion then!
Fuck Nazis and anyone who thinks they don't deserve a slow and agonizing death
Tolerate and slaughter aren't the only options.
educate and build a compassionate society is obviously the correct answer, but we can't do that because there is a portion of society that will never let that happen. remove the roadblocks. anything less is being complicit in prolonged suffering.
"We can build our utopia, we just have to kill everyone who doesn't agree with us" doesn't sound very right in my ears. It sounds like something where one should ask "are we the baddies?"
Murder is never a valid solution to the Paradox of Tolerance.
one of these days, maybe, you'll come to realize that there is no objective morality. there is only the winners that decide how everyone else will live. we all get a choice in who those people are.
i choose to live in a world where rational thought dedicated to furthering humanity and ending suffering reigns supreme. the benefits of that world far outweigh the losses that one generation would have to suffer to achieve it. it's just a simple trolley problem. if you can't see that, then you are blinded by emotions.
Oh yes, I am sure that the Nazis back then said the same about cleansing the german nation, the benefits for the Volkskörper outweigh the losses that one generation would have to suffer.
Objectively false. People in completely different societies (indigenous, uncontacted, etc) have shown that they don't kill people consequence-free or separated from morality.
south park did it.
And they all started playing Minecraft unironically.
Love that episode.
i do, too, but their portrayal of minecraft was hilariously bad
I think it would be better to make social media unprofitable with heavy regularion on data collection, trading and sharing.
Totally agree. Especially since in my country, young people are swallowing far-right propaganda at a higher rate than boomers. Canada's Tater Tots are trying to elect a MAGA candidate right now. Age is not the problem - the well of information has been poisoned.
True. I also wanted a senior mode on Apple family groups.
It’s the right idea, but too narrow of a demographic. It’s not the old people that seem to be the problem. At least not only them. It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in. The ones that are just smart enough to use Facebook, but would struggle to understand the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect
The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.
It’s like they decided that reality didn’t work for them, so let’s just ignore it in favour of “insert discriminatory slogan or catchphrase here”.
It’s bonkers.
That demographic is a whole other problem that requires a whole other solution. Conservatives have spent a decade building the online right-wing pipeline with podcast bro's and streamers aiming their content at young teenage boys. Now all those kids are of voting age, and a big chunk of them have spent half their lives being raised on manosphere bullshit that taught them that they are owed the world on a silver platter.
I will hand it to conservatives; they are frighteningly good at organizing and staying on message in ways that the Left can only dream of. If we could get half as organized as them, they'd never win another election.
JK Rowling is doing something extremely similar to teenage girls, and this isn’t really on many’s radar.
Yeah, there's a reason the orange overlord is targeting universities now. He knows that election wins come from the uneducated and poor. They either truly don't know, or don't care enough since they have no investments worth mentioning.
You give him too much credit. He doesn't know any of this. But the right-wing think tanks that have been waiting for this moment do, and he's easily manipulated into following their agenda.
Are you aware that this genuinely sounds like some nazi shit? Let's maybe not start controlling what the "intellect impaired" can do with their lives...
I think you are confusing Nazism with genuine concern. Careful with that. Hating people for opposing views is more dangerously close to what you so easily accuse me of, and your tiny tough guy attempt to mask your own bigotry just highlights that you may need to reflect a little.
To my previous point, not somehow mitigating the easily duped portion of our formerly democratic systems is a big part of what’s driving the Nazi ideals back into popularity. As long as untamed propaganda is allowed into the thoughts of the weak minded, the rest of us face an uphill battle.
If you read my previous statement about this again. You’ll notice that I didn’t say anyone should be controlled. Whether we bring facts back into law and punish those who spread lies, or bolster education to teach people how to spot the lies, it doesn’t really matter. But splitting hairs over how I said it won’t change that it is a problem.
Trying to deflect, blame or sidestep that is playing right into the MAGA/Nazi mindset. Division of the people and spooky non-issues to rally fear in the populace is what gives them control.
🙄
I can’t speak for everyone but I raised my mom right and kept her away from that trash.
I recently thanked my dad for not going all crazy. He fixes up old cars and takes pictures of birds.
I'm jealous. Mine watches far-right extremist content on tiktok and youtube. What's an affordable hobby that wouldn't make an insecure man-child feel emasculated?
Does he have any useful skills? Or interests he didn't make enough time for when he was younger?
Idk, I've never associated him with a hobby. He's good at pretty much everything he does, and genuinely a good person willing to help anyone. If he's not working, he's either doing a favor for someone, or watching disgusting garbage on his phone. It seriously pisses me off to see MAGA turning him into a hateful goblin.
He would probably enjoy a social activity of some kind, but he lives in MAGA country so that's not likely to help. I've tried getting him into gaming, but it didn't stick. Although, I never thought to ask him if he had any hobbies when he was younger. That's probably worth a shot lol
My parents are already fully indoctrinated. I don't think there's a way back
What they should do is one of those replace-words add-ons making rightwingers talk positive about DEI or talk shit about anti-immigration, see how quick people above 60 nationally change their mind
If they radicalised once they can deradicalise again. Not that everyone will be helped with it, but a lot could benefit.
That’s a feature, not a bug. They show that stuff intentionally.
Social media sites thrive on the engagement that comes from those people doom scrolling so this whole premise is antithetical to the purpose of social media sites and the only reason they aren't doing the same to children is because the law prevents them from doing so wholesale (but they will try to edge around the law every chance they get).
I would whole-heartedly support this.
Lol, this is literally a south park episode.
I’m so tired of this rampant paternalism across society. It’s exhausting.
How do you propose to counteract the spread of facism through the internet?
The same way we fight it in the physical world. With debate and education and engagement.
Wild that you would express concern with spreading of fascism while advocating for technocracy. You don’t oppose fascism- you just have a preferred flavor of it.
the algorithms will not show them to nearly as many consumers as it does with fascist content
Yes, we need more regulation of companies, and what they push. Not people.
This I agree with. However, I disagree with debating fascists. They don't debate in good faith. Their aim in any debate is to wear you down by spewing more lies than you have the time or energy to debunk.
The point isn’t to convert the fascist. It’s to humiliate them and expose them in front of everyone else.
You can't humiliate someone who has no shame. And with their firehose of falsehoods, you'll only expose a small portion of their lies by the time they've already moved on. Nothing productive comes from waging a war of words with people who don't believe in the words that come out of their own mouth.
Debate, education and engagement take time.
The algorithm is instantaneously ready with the next easily digestible bit of content to send you further down the rabbit hole into radicalization.
I worry that we need a more instantaneous cure in our current information environment.
“Instantaneous cure” sounds like you’re suggesting something super fucked up.
I'm not, really. I just don't think we have the luxury of taking the amount of time that we would need to educate people thoroughly enough to counteract the algorithm.
Probably what we need is a limitation on free speech where blatant misinformation is involved. In the same way that shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre is harmful, so is repeating false claims to stir political discord.
The eagerness to censor people, and not the companies pushing the shit, is such peak fascist bootlicking behavior.
Whenever I see someone complaining about this on the internet, I imagine they're an angsty teenager mad that their mom doesn't let them get a face tattoo.
Yeah, you’re aware of the definition of paternalism then. That’s the whole point of authoritarianism. The leadership does not believe the people can trusted to run their own lives, and treats the entire population as disobedient teenagers.
Lol no. You could say paternalism is authoritarian, but not the other way around. Authoritarianism is just about power.
But as an aside, would you mind sharing your age? You don't need to be specific, just say if you're over or under 18. I have a... theory about people who obsess over the concept of "paternalism".
All paternalism is authoritarian. Not all authoritarianism is paternal.
Middle aged. Your theory sounds bunk.
Man so much hate in this thread I'm not about what's happened at all with the USA but I'll still protect my family and show them a better way rather than let them rot and die. So many self righteous people thinking they know whats good.
So, you mean like childish controls?
Sorry guys, that also happened 40 years ago in the form of "retired guy has some free time and starts buying 2 newspapers, one of which is just political propagabda"... That's definitely not on social media, they just amplified the phenomena
Ok but adults controlling other adults isn't "reverse" tho.
The "reverse" here is in the context: "parental controls" is conventionally allows parents to restrict offspring.
Yeah I get the attempted use, but it's not a reverse because adults can only restrict minors, not "offspring". And yes, I am fun at parties.
The opposite of parental controls would be blocking content made for kids
I wish I could do that with my own and from what I can tell my algorithms don't even put them in as much as other folks.
I feel like we are glossing over the fact that I doesn't matter that fact if someone is young or old, we can all have good ideas! But the fact of the matter is we need teem limits in congress and SUPREME COURT. We have a problem with stale ideas.
Actually if you're talking about congress and the supreme court, I think age limits would make a lot of sense. After all, the people in these positions are deciding how the rest of us get to live. If they don't represent the generations they're governing over, it's inherently unfair. I think anybody who isn't of working age shouldn't be allowed to govern, as that's always the most important demographic for the country.
I guess you don't think much of your parents then if you feel like you're a better judge of that.
Massive amount of hypocrisy and double standards going on ITT. Imagine the outrage if someone suggested doing that to your feed.
I mean... Have you seen the stuff my parents share...?
I'm just thankful that my kids will never be embarrassed by me. (This is sarcasm. Of course they will!)
I actually hope my kids are at least a little embarrassed by me, someday. I hope they will embrace new kinds of pragmatic effective compassion and community, even if I'm unable up adapt.
My mom embarrassed me all the time as a kid, but only because she's a boisterous, loud personality. She never really did anything on purpose, and I was never the one to throw a tantrum in public so there was no need.
Lol. What controls?
China didn't do that cause they care about their citizens. They did it so only they can control what propoganda their citizens consume, teaching children critical thinking and emotional regulation early in their life is a better approach than trying to turn the external world into some safe walled garden
Yes, let's normalize censorship.
If the majority of people cannot handle information on their own, how can we maintain democracy?
Are senior cititzens more stupid? Otherwise how do we know that we believe the right things, and not just what is acceptable by the mainstream which will change for the next generation?
Yes, senior citizens are more stupid. That's why scams targetting them exist. You can tell them about something being a scam and they will fall for it anyway. They will get fished by "huge savings" and "sales" despite being millionaires. Once someone starts "sliding back", it doesn't matter how smart they used to be.
You know, in many EU states we have secrecy of correspondence laws. It's illegal for third parties to read your messages without your consent. This includes parents and children
And so nothing changes and probably continues to get worse.
Also, this is an attempt to block malicious influence, outright lies, and distorted reality. You’re free to access actual reality anytime.
People who say this are usually consuming misinformation and propaganda and don't know it. Anyone outside of those echo chambers can clearly see how it's dangerous and harmful to democracy.
Yeah, stripping adult people from some of their basic rights sound like a perfectly fine idea.
It's better than the alternative. Trust me.
So what basic rights should we strip them also? The right to vote? I mean, if they are not capable of making valid decisions about what to watch/read/think then they can't be capable of making valid decisions to vote! And lets remove Freedom of Speech fully, it only gets misused to enable nasty opinions and thoughts that "the correct and good" people don't like.
Right to vote? Yes I think people who have been found to be senile by a committee or at least two doctors should not vote.
That is called disenfranchisement and there are laws for that already.
No rights are being removed. If they choose to come to you for free IT support, they are choosing to accept how you set up their devices...
Remember that at a point in time they setup yours…
Good. If my mental faculties are at the point where I consume and actively seek out disinformation, then someone else should step in.
That is not helping or support, that is enforcing your will on someone else in the disguise of help. Oh and I am sure that they will be fully informed about that cost and its implications.
you should realize this is half a joke
When someone talks about murdering everyone he doesn't agrees with or taking away basic human rights only because of the demographic then it stops to be a joke in my eyes. We have seen times and times again how it ends, and it is never good.
But yes, I think enough words have been said here, everything else is pointless redundancy.
We can influence the behavior of our loved ones, we can't meaningfully influence sociopathic corporations. While not feasible, it still feels like the best of a bunch of shitty options.
There is a huge difference between "influence the behavior of our loved ones" and acting as a dictator who censors where the adult and mentally fit loved ones can get their information from.
See the trick is this: does "mentally fit" apply, even in the case of otherwise mentally healthy individuals? Propaganda can affect anyone and the less tech savvy more so. We have no issues with limiting the physical behavior of the people we care about when they cannot handle it anymore (e.g. we'll drive grandpa around when he can technically do it, but shouldn't). While some do kick a fuss about it (for understandable reasons) ultimately, society at large is pretty OK with the whole deal.
Now we have them exposed to content that is arguably harmful to their health and the health of the people around them (e.g. voting). And this isn't opinion stuff or debates. These are outright lies catered to them. There were no dogs being eaten in Springfield, and yet I could hear the old dudes at my gym discussing it while they walked the mezzanine. At what point does their right to play with their phone cede to their mental health? For anyone really? We cede rights to do things when they harm ourselves and others often. Why is this different?
The same can be used to ban alcohol for everyone:
See the trick is this: does “mentally fit” apply, even in the case of otherwise mentally healthy individuals? Addiction can affect anyone and the less tech savvy more so. We have no issues with limiting the physical behavior of the people we care about when they cannot handle it anymore (e.g. we’ll drive grandpa around when he can technically do it, but shouldn’t). While some do kick a fuss about it (for understandable reasons) ultimately, society at large is pretty OK with the whole deal.
Now we have them exposed to substances that are arguably harmful to their health and the health of the people around them (e.g. drug-related crime). At what point does their right to drink alcohol cede to their mental health? For anyone really? We cede rights to do things when they harm ourselves and others often. Why is this different?
So are you ok with a new prohibition
Not the gotcha you think it is. And also, big difference between bans and regulation, let's not conflate them.
We install breathalyzers in cars and revoke licenses when people refuse to act responsibly. It's a common requirement of probation and parole to remain sober. We do what you (/I) describe often. In fact, it's kinda the basis of operation for law at large: we limit the behavior of individuals to reduce harm to people. Be it saying "stabbing people is bad, now go to time out" or "don't drink raw milk, you'll get sick". So yeah, I'm OK with what you described. If people cannot mange their substances, we can and do force them to stop with punitive measures.
So your examples are all reactive while censoring older people would be proactive. That is a huge difference.
Oh and saying “stabbing people is bad, now go to time out” or “don’t drink raw milk, you’ll get sick” is not limiting the behavior of people, it is giving them information to change the behavior on their own.. or they don't and then they (and the people around them) have to live with the consequences.
The law the grants freedom of speech exists to protect opinions and texts that some (or even most) people find offending or don't agree with. A law that only protects speech that everyone agrees with is a law not needed, because nobody will ever fight that words or wants to censor them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Rights and freedoms are not unlimited. Freedom of speech ends at things that put people in danger (e.g. shouting fire in a crowded space). Guns are available pursuant to a well regulated militia (or should be, but let's not open that can of worms).
I'll grant the proactive/reactive in a sort of way. If anyone (not only old people drink the fox news poison) starts up with some hyper racist shit, is restricting them not reactive to their emergent behavior? Would it be that big a stretch to codify the effects of propaganda as a sort of mental injury that needs treated? (Yes it would). Point is, at this point we're splitting this hair rather fine and getting away from the important bits.
So the real way to handle the propaganda is to punish fox and their ilk for being wildly irresponsible and setting up racist fascist bullshit. Corporations are much easier to regulate than individuals (theoretically). They should be sued into the ground for all they've done, but we live in an oligarchy so that's not happening anytime soon. This shower thought emerges because free market capitalism refuses to have any morals whatsoever and people are desperate to stop the big companies from hurting everyone. And the thing that's easiest for everyone to see is the people they love start repeating horrible things and being helpless to pull them out of the echo chamber.
No, the shower thought isn't good. It shouldn't get that far. But right now, the only thing we can affect is the people next to us because the rich are never held accountable, so we're stuck with bad and worse solutions.