But people CAN filter reality, and we're getting better at it. It might not be healthy in some ways, but to call it a fiction is incorrect. If some techie pulls off the eyeball augmentations that sci-fi has posited for years, it'll be totally viable to filter an offensive person entirely, but we continue to edge in that direction.
There is no difference and Hollywood never made such a difference. Sometimes a movie has sex in it. Whether it is integral to the plot or not is in the viewer's mind.
They can. Few do. Teach abstenance, but what does a responsible parent do for a fallback position? Would you rather tell the kid about condoms/birth control, or about the morning-after pill, or about adoption services? You have a duty to your child... but also the potential grandchild.
You mentioned being in the oscillating state where anything can push you over. That's likely the state the machine is detecting. It isn't detecting exactly whether you'll do it or not, just whether your oscillation is high enough where the risk is sufficient that your environment is likely to present you with a situation.
So while I'll grant that it is improbable that the machine could predict *what* will push you too far, I suspect that it is far better than the average human at identifying whether you're in that oscillating state, mostly because humans tend to be in denial about whether someone close to them is suicidal (various studies back that up).
Humans are very predictable in a whole lot of ways. I'd be surprised if suicide was outside the predictable ranges.
Not according to my profs in school. A key part of the definition of algorithm was that it was guaranteed to terminate. It may take a long time, but it was guaranteed to return an answer someday. A heuristic doesn't have a guaranteed stopping condition, just a time limit that the caller is willing to wait for the most optimal solution.
I believe this to be the typical definition of algorithm, not just a specialization for computer science. Note that the Merriam-Webster definition includes a particularly key phrase: in a finite number of steps. Heuristics keep cycling, gaining ever more refinement with no guarantee of ever finding an endpoint.
MOST of the circuits are struck down MOST of the time when the SCOTUS takes a case because they only take cases where at least four of them think there's an issue needing decision. You can see the stats for all the circuits here:
http://www.politifact.com/pund...
The 9th Circuit is the largest and handles 4000 more cases per year than the next highest circuit, so it isn't surprising that a huge percent of the overall SCOTUS cases would come from that circuit.
See "Mehta v. Ohio University", 2011. Professor stated that, in his opinion, a student had plagiarized. That was found to be libelous. Opinion is a MAJOR defense, but it isn't bulletproof. If you're offering a professional opinion, for example, it's not a good shield (i.e. a psychologist saying "in my opinion, this man is crazy" when the psychologist hasn't actually done a proper analysis of the person). Basically, the professional status of the speaker gave the impression that the opinion was factual when it was not.
Your first sentence is true, but not the second. The thing you're publishing has to be true. The act of publishing is assumed to be an endorsement (i.e. we know you "liked" it (in the Facebook sense of the word), that's why you chose to publish it). But the actual content has to be true. And that's where I think a US court might see this in a similar light, if it ever gets tested. Although, as I said elsewhere, I agree a single LIKE isn't sufficient, but a pattern of LIKEs could very well be.
If a person comments on the bad posting, be it agreement, commiserating, or disagreeing, they further spread the posting.
True. And I'd be interested to see how the Swiss court would rule on that.
You make many other excellent points. After reading through them, I still think there is grounds for hitting LIKE to be used as a piece of evidence in a defamation trial, but perhaps not as the sole point of action. But if I can show that a person has hit LIKE to promote many such posts, that I think overcomes most of your objections (accident, casual contemplation, etc).
And I'll call it "Thoughtcrime" too, because by jingo, I can do that! It isn't against the law here in the backwoods.
And I'll support your right to use a term incorrectly, all the while exercising my right to mock you for using the term in contradiction of its generally accepted definition.;-)
I concede the technicality. A large part of what is criminal law in Europe is civil law in USA. Nonetheless, publishing libel does expose the publisher to legal punishment, even if it is not specifically a crime, which was the heart of my point: USA does have laws protecting against libelous speech/publication. Should the LIKE button qualify as publishing?
I generally think we should treat social media companies as neutral carriers and make the people using the platforms responsible for their own speech (unless the speech is anonymous, then the social media platform is responsible for what they allow to be published). In that, I would lean toward the LIKE button being a form of publication (because of the way it encourages the spread of a message within the networks). This is all part of the larger discussion about Facebook filtering and what, if any, responsibility do social media companies have to control the speech of their posters.
Except your example ISN'T what this case was about. It wasn't some emotional grief or something like that. The charge was criminal defamation, specifically, promoting a false story without evidence.
Your emotional grief example is a strawman argument that has no relationship to the actual issue of the case.
The Swiss court decided that it was the user's job to be aware of what the LIKE button does. I agree that it was just a bookmarking tool originally, but, as you admit, it now triggers something wider. Did the user know that? Probably... most of us know that hitting LIKE or +1 or whatever will promote a post in various social media feeds. Yes, Facebook made the change to the meaning of the LIKE button, but it is still the user choosing to hit that LIKE. I don't *think* Facebook is so insidious (yet?) that it can make people push the LIKE button for them.
I never said that US citizens are arrested for pushing LIKE. The crime in the US is called libel. See New York Times v Sullivan (SCOTUS 1964). A person is guilty of libel if they publish something (quoting Wikipedia which is correctly [by my study of the decision] summarizing the SCOTUS decision) "knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity." It's that second case that is applicable here -- the person pushing the LIKE button is recklessly disseminating information without regard to its truth or falsity. If that information is defamatory AND turns out to be false, then the person is guilty of libel under US law. The only open question is whether pushing LIKE is equivalent to publishing. The Swiss court determined that it was because it is publishing that article out to a wider network than the original post. That is untested in US law, but I could see that being a reasonable determination under the prevailing laws. Note: I am not a lawyer, but I have had training in libel risk at various points in college and in my career.
No. It is a crime because pushing the LIKE button spreads the message. It isn't just that you liked it, it is that you published it to your network. You helped spread a false and defamatory statement. It is not thoughtcrime at all. It is an actual crime of promoting a lie, something that is punishable under US law also. The only thing new here is ruling that the LIKE button is a form of publication... which it is.
Not thoughtcrime. Willfully distributing FALSE STATEMENTS. That's a crime in the USA also. The only thing new here is that the court ruled that the LIKE button qualifies as distribution of false statements. This wasn't about opinion. This was about not doing the fact checking before spreading lies.
Not quite. The Swiss court ruled that having a *racist* opinion is racist, and expressing it is illegal. The court didn't invent that law... it's been on the Swiss books (and the books of many other European nations) since end of WWII.
THEY ARE NOT AGAINST NET NEUTRALITY. They remain in favor of net neutrality. They just aren't being as loud about it as before.
Do not twist this story into lies. Claiming that they are opposing net neutrality is absolutely false.
Incorrect. The network was neutral 10 years ago. There was no need for regulation of net neutrality because no one imagined a network that wasn't neutral. Then about 5 years ago, some ISPs started jacking with various forms of traffic (torrents, Netflix downloads, etc). Concurrently, some carriers became content providers. All of the sudden the thing that used to be the default with no need for regulation to protect it became a threatened entity that needed regulation to keep it in place.
It's like species protection. Animals didn't need laws to protect their habitat until it became threatened. Same thing here.
Did you read the story that you linked to? The prevailing theory, mentioned in the final paragraph, is that this was done at Nye's own request because that segment contradicted Nye's new position on the matter. That would mean it is NOT a case of Netflix being anti-science... it would be a case of exactly the opposite: updating earlier materials to reflect new learning.
Hastings said they would benefit from no net neutrality. The fact that they are still supporting net neutrality -- just in a quieter voice -- is actually laudable.
There are competitors to Netflix. If net neutrality goes away, many of those competitors can't even get their foot in the door. Under US law, Netflix, as a publicly traded company, MUST act in a way that provides best profit for its shareholders. They walk a fine line in advocating for net neutrality when it is actually against their fiduciary duty to oppose it. It doesn't surprise me that the volume of their defense decreases as their exposure to the problem decreases.
The requirement to always serve profit is a weird requirement in our laws that has pros/cons. That's why I like the surge of "public-benefit corporations" recently, which are founded with specific principles in their by-laws that are allowed to trump profits. Because they're in the by-laws when the company goes public, people buying the stock know that they may get lower returns because the company has a higher goal to serve.
Why? They're still supporting net neutrality, just not banging the pots and pans as loudly. Hastings is being honest that this isn't their fight directly -- it's up to other people to lead this charge. Boycotting Netflix at this juncture on this topic doesn't make any sense.
We will see. The future is hard to predict, I'll grant, but I think there's a lot of data in favor of my scenario. Check back on this thread in 20 years. Whoever is right will ask his robot to fetch the other a beer... if it isn't too much trouble for the robot.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
But people CAN filter reality, and we're getting better at it. It might not be healthy in some ways, but to call it a fiction is incorrect. If some techie pulls off the eyeball augmentations that sci-fi has posited for years, it'll be totally viable to filter an offensive person entirely, but we continue to edge in that direction.
There is no difference and Hollywood never made such a difference. Sometimes a movie has sex in it. Whether it is integral to the plot or not is in the viewer's mind.
They can. Few do. Teach abstenance, but what does a responsible parent do for a fallback position? Would you rather tell the kid about condoms/birth control, or about the morning-after pill, or about adoption services? You have a duty to your child... but also the potential grandchild.
Also, in this case, the 4th Circuit -- third for *least* reversed -- concurred with the 9th's decision.
You mentioned being in the oscillating state where anything can push you over. That's likely the state the machine is detecting. It isn't detecting exactly whether you'll do it or not, just whether your oscillation is high enough where the risk is sufficient that your environment is likely to present you with a situation.
So while I'll grant that it is improbable that the machine could predict *what* will push you too far, I suspect that it is far better than the average human at identifying whether you're in that oscillating state, mostly because humans tend to be in denial about whether someone close to them is suicidal (various studies back that up).
Humans are very predictable in a whole lot of ways. I'd be surprised if suicide was outside the predictable ranges.
Heuristics are algorithms.
Not according to my profs in school. A key part of the definition of algorithm was that it was guaranteed to terminate. It may take a long time, but it was guaranteed to return an answer someday. A heuristic doesn't have a guaranteed stopping condition, just a time limit that the caller is willing to wait for the most optimal solution.
I believe this to be the typical definition of algorithm, not just a specialization for computer science. Note that the Merriam-Webster definition includes a particularly key phrase: in a finite number of steps. Heuristics keep cycling, gaining ever more refinement with no guarantee of ever finding an endpoint.
MOST of the circuits are struck down MOST of the time when the SCOTUS takes a case because they only take cases where at least four of them think there's an issue needing decision. You can see the stats for all the circuits here: http://www.politifact.com/pund... The 9th Circuit is the largest and handles 4000 more cases per year than the next highest circuit, so it isn't surprising that a huge percent of the overall SCOTUS cases would come from that circuit.
Well... maybe. There's this other story on Slashdot today... https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
See "Mehta v. Ohio University", 2011. Professor stated that, in his opinion, a student had plagiarized. That was found to be libelous. Opinion is a MAJOR defense, but it isn't bulletproof. If you're offering a professional opinion, for example, it's not a good shield (i.e. a psychologist saying "in my opinion, this man is crazy" when the psychologist hasn't actually done a proper analysis of the person). Basically, the professional status of the speaker gave the impression that the opinion was factual when it was not.
Your first sentence is true, but not the second. The thing you're publishing has to be true. The act of publishing is assumed to be an endorsement (i.e. we know you "liked" it (in the Facebook sense of the word), that's why you chose to publish it). But the actual content has to be true. And that's where I think a US court might see this in a similar light, if it ever gets tested. Although, as I said elsewhere, I agree a single LIKE isn't sufficient, but a pattern of LIKEs could very well be.
If a person comments on the bad posting, be it agreement, commiserating, or disagreeing, they further spread the posting.
True. And I'd be interested to see how the Swiss court would rule on that.
You make many other excellent points. After reading through them, I still think there is grounds for hitting LIKE to be used as a piece of evidence in a defamation trial, but perhaps not as the sole point of action. But if I can show that a person has hit LIKE to promote many such posts, that I think overcomes most of your objections (accident, casual contemplation, etc).
And I'll call it "Thoughtcrime" too, because by jingo, I can do that! It isn't against the law here in the backwoods.
And I'll support your right to use a term incorrectly, all the while exercising my right to mock you for using the term in contradiction of its generally accepted definition. ;-)
I concede the technicality. A large part of what is criminal law in Europe is civil law in USA. Nonetheless, publishing libel does expose the publisher to legal punishment, even if it is not specifically a crime, which was the heart of my point: USA does have laws protecting against libelous speech/publication. Should the LIKE button qualify as publishing?
I generally think we should treat social media companies as neutral carriers and make the people using the platforms responsible for their own speech (unless the speech is anonymous, then the social media platform is responsible for what they allow to be published). In that, I would lean toward the LIKE button being a form of publication (because of the way it encourages the spread of a message within the networks). This is all part of the larger discussion about Facebook filtering and what, if any, responsibility do social media companies have to control the speech of their posters.
Except your example ISN'T what this case was about. It wasn't some emotional grief or something like that. The charge was criminal defamation, specifically, promoting a false story without evidence.
Your emotional grief example is a strawman argument that has no relationship to the actual issue of the case.
The Swiss court decided that it was the user's job to be aware of what the LIKE button does. I agree that it was just a bookmarking tool originally, but, as you admit, it now triggers something wider. Did the user know that? Probably ... most of us know that hitting LIKE or +1 or whatever will promote a post in various social media feeds. Yes, Facebook made the change to the meaning of the LIKE button, but it is still the user choosing to hit that LIKE. I don't *think* Facebook is so insidious (yet?) that it can make people push the LIKE button for them.
I never said that US citizens are arrested for pushing LIKE. The crime in the US is called libel. See New York Times v Sullivan (SCOTUS 1964). A person is guilty of libel if they publish something (quoting Wikipedia which is correctly [by my study of the decision] summarizing the SCOTUS decision) "knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity." It's that second case that is applicable here -- the person pushing the LIKE button is recklessly disseminating information without regard to its truth or falsity. If that information is defamatory AND turns out to be false, then the person is guilty of libel under US law. The only open question is whether pushing LIKE is equivalent to publishing. The Swiss court determined that it was because it is publishing that article out to a wider network than the original post. That is untested in US law, but I could see that being a reasonable determination under the prevailing laws. Note: I am not a lawyer, but I have had training in libel risk at various points in college and in my career.
No. It is a crime because pushing the LIKE button spreads the message. It isn't just that you liked it, it is that you published it to your network. You helped spread a false and defamatory statement. It is not thoughtcrime at all. It is an actual crime of promoting a lie, something that is punishable under US law also. The only thing new here is ruling that the LIKE button is a form of publication ... which it is.
Not thoughtcrime. Willfully distributing FALSE STATEMENTS. That's a crime in the USA also. The only thing new here is that the court ruled that the LIKE button qualifies as distribution of false statements. This wasn't about opinion. This was about not doing the fact checking before spreading lies.
Not quite. The Swiss court ruled that having a *racist* opinion is racist, and expressing it is illegal. The court didn't invent that law... it's been on the Swiss books (and the books of many other European nations) since end of WWII.
THEY ARE NOT AGAINST NET NEUTRALITY. They remain in favor of net neutrality. They just aren't being as loud about it as before. Do not twist this story into lies. Claiming that they are opposing net neutrality is absolutely false.
Incorrect. The network was neutral 10 years ago. There was no need for regulation of net neutrality because no one imagined a network that wasn't neutral. Then about 5 years ago, some ISPs started jacking with various forms of traffic (torrents, Netflix downloads, etc). Concurrently, some carriers became content providers. All of the sudden the thing that used to be the default with no need for regulation to protect it became a threatened entity that needed regulation to keep it in place.
It's like species protection. Animals didn't need laws to protect their habitat until it became threatened. Same thing here.
Did you read the story that you linked to? The prevailing theory, mentioned in the final paragraph, is that this was done at Nye's own request because that segment contradicted Nye's new position on the matter. That would mean it is NOT a case of Netflix being anti-science... it would be a case of exactly the opposite: updating earlier materials to reflect new learning.
Hastings said they would benefit from no net neutrality. The fact that they are still supporting net neutrality -- just in a quieter voice -- is actually laudable.
There are competitors to Netflix. If net neutrality goes away, many of those competitors can't even get their foot in the door. Under US law, Netflix, as a publicly traded company, MUST act in a way that provides best profit for its shareholders. They walk a fine line in advocating for net neutrality when it is actually against their fiduciary duty to oppose it. It doesn't surprise me that the volume of their defense decreases as their exposure to the problem decreases.
The requirement to always serve profit is a weird requirement in our laws that has pros/cons. That's why I like the surge of "public-benefit corporations" recently, which are founded with specific principles in their by-laws that are allowed to trump profits. Because they're in the by-laws when the company goes public, people buying the stock know that they may get lower returns because the company has a higher goal to serve.
Why? They're still supporting net neutrality, just not banging the pots and pans as loudly. Hastings is being honest that this isn't their fight directly -- it's up to other people to lead this charge. Boycotting Netflix at this juncture on this topic doesn't make any sense.
We will see. The future is hard to predict, I'll grant, but I think there's a lot of data in favor of my scenario. Check back on this thread in 20 years. Whoever is right will ask his robot to fetch the other a beer... if it isn't too much trouble for the robot. :-)