Wired State

Who's the 'We' Who Will 'Fix' This 'Horror'? On the Unreality of Online America

By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

Once again, I'm going to answer Raph Koster with a blog post rather than a post on Facebook, not only because of length, but because I've always found that the worst possible haters on earth are friends of friends.

Raph wrote:

On the one hand, if we allow networks to spread falsehoods or hatred without consequence, we create alternative realities that drown out facts with emotion. In this view, free speech falls prey to vulnerabilities from scale that were never anticipated, creating propagandistic universes that destroy society. The only solution is authority employing moderation techniques.

On the other hand, any authority that is handed power over moderation techniques in order to restrict speech that is damaging to the public fabric can inevitably become corrupted -- either in a pure government propaganda way, or even in more subtle ways, resulting in the creation of a different propagandistic universe. Therefore we need completely free speech so that suppression of opinions can never happen.

These feel like cases of choosing to hand over our thinking either to the moneyed or the government. Money wins in complete freedom; government wins in moderated scenarios.

If we want freedom, then we probably can't permit accumulation of money to provide the loudest voice. And if we want moderation, we have to design it in a way that doesn't permit those in authority to shape our opinions to reinforce their power.

Why do I mention this? Because of this horrifying story: 

Nothing on this page is real: How lies become truth in online America:

Who's the "we" here, Raph? Let's start with that. Your friends and you in Silicon Valley? You didn't mean Congress, right? You meant perhaps platform providers? Or government? What kind of government? Who is to deliver this pious suppression of free speech for the greater good, no doubt delivered as a coded thing to run mainly automatically with key words? Will we get to elect them?

I read this article through twice to try to see where the "horror" was. Why? It's absolutely normal and is absolutely understandable as the environment that geeks from Silicon Valley created. That Internet environment spawned the Christopher Blairs of the world, cynical trolls with no or dead-end jobs and substandard homes who can make a living by the ad system created to provide just enough democratic access to lure people into thinking it's good.
Such people naturally prey on older women like Shirley Chapian who but for just a few missing connections -- children and grandchildren? a church? a volunteer group? a bar? -- might have stayed closer to their original path of Europe and NOW. But the Internet is the same thing that killed those social connections even if it pretends to save some of them. Where's the horror? It's normal, natural and expected.

The place to rein in cynical geeks is in civic and corporate culture, not by suppression of the First Amendment but changing the nature of how the platform responsibility is viewed. This began with the disrespect of private property (copyright) that ended with disrespect of privacy -- and a hypocritical belief that encryption can't be used for the former but can for the latter, even to the point of keeping the FBI from accessing a terrorist's phone. It means an end to safe harbour. It means in the marketplace of services, Google decides that people with youtubes spawning falsity and hate can't have ads -- but lets them at least copy their uploaded videos before killing them off. Let another provider serve them if they want the possible legal liability, as non-moderation usually leads to extremism fairly quickly -- incitement of imminent action, not just general hatred; child pornography; assassination for hire. You know, like the Silk Road on Tor -- with Jacob Appelbaum. Like that.

What is the solution? Better housing? More church-going? More malls so that you don't have to drive 50 miles to them? Why even reach for moderation and the suppression of the First Amendment when it's about housing or jobs? Or at least, Ocasio-Cortez thinks it is and perhaps she's at least partly right. But where are the jobs? Did the robots take them? Or are they at Amazon? And why is that so terrible?

Shirly Chapian is absolutely right -- if she had kids, she should yank them from school -- because this is the result -- people like Christopher Blair, not fighters for ISIS. Schools only cater to the Internet and tech instead of challenging it.

I really don't understand your pieties, Raph. One thing I know for sure: the people who created this situation can hardly be the ones allowed to moderate with systems they code and rule, given what they think shouldn't be "alternative reality." Because the people who will delete idiocies about sharia law in America may well block any criticism of Islam for violation of the rights of women. They are not to be trusted with this ban hammer.

We "probably can't" allow the freedom of capitalism, i.e. freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one? Why? Who says? The gnomes of the Internet? We're to have Soviet-like uravnilovka (forced leveling)? By whom? So Amazon builds a success building from the Internet created by all your friends and neighbours, and everyone orders online from them, then we are to block them from opening new hubs in our cities? Why? Couldn't we have civic, religious and political institutions under the First Amendment instead? Oh, are those harder to do so you're rather have something coded and run by 20-somethings? But those harder things are required to make it possible for people to sort their way through the minefields created by the trolls and their innocent victims. Not "moderation" except for banning of speech that incites imminent violence.

Yes, it's a lot more hard work in real-time in organic life to make decent people. Ask your mom.

 

PS

Then this further interesting exchange:

Dorian Ouer I have always said that the only thing worse than a stolid, lazy, dysfunctional government bureaucracy with monopoly levels of authority, is a ruthless, for profit, private company with monopoly levels of authority.

 

Raph Koster Dorian Ouer at least we can build rights structures into governments. They can fail but people do cling to them fiercely. Can’t really do rights with private industry except via regulation.

 

 

Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick We already have a "rights structure" built into government, Raph, it's called "separation of powers" and involves Congress, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, you know, that sort of thing. That you think there is some better coded thing that can be built instead of this is the real horror. Apparently you also don't fathom that the private industry you seem to loathe is a result of rights and that's a good thing, you wouldn't even be having this conversation without the private corporation Facebook, which all its faults.

 

Raph Koster Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick I really think you misread what I wrote. I know perfectly well we have a rights structure built into our governmental system. I also know it’s only as good as the government guaranteeing the rights is. 

The concerns I listed in the post are that free speech is losing out to money and it is damaging us all; and we can’t moderate because it would infringe rights and be vulnerable to governments that go bad. The whole Constitution is carefully architected to prevent issues with government going bad. 

I don’t loathe private industry. I loathe specific private industries *brainwashing people.*

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Raph Koster Further: I was specifically describing two opposing viewpoints both of which are failing us — not advocating for either one of the two.

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Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick Raph Koster But you said "we" -- as if there is this smart committee of people who will chart a path between these supposed extremes, even as you lean toward disdain for the free market and capitalism. Otherwise, you wouldn't write this, Raph: "If we w…See More

Dorian Ouer I am genuinely baffled how you can be agreeing with him yet so strongly convinced that you're not.

 

 

 

Catherine Ann Fitzpatrick Raph Koster Free speech isn't losing out to money, Raph, except in your worldview -- which is only that, your worldview. You believe, most likely, as many of your cohorts do, that Facebook's demand to know the funding of Freedom from Facebook is anti-semitic. You might have the patience to read a careful explanation as to why that isn't the case. https://www.tabletmag.com/.../the-truth-about-george-soros Which I can only endorse having worked for Soros or received Soros grants for most of my adult life.

And you might want to ask who the hell is Freedom from Facebook, anyway? Who are those guys? Moveon? Or who? Mitch Kapor? They don't tell you any names, there's no board, even the registration is cloaked. You have to dig around and find the hedge fund guy. But he's not the end of the story.

And good Lord, Raph, there are specific private industries "brainwashing" people?! Which ones? Facebook? Are you serious? If the lady sending out things about Sharia law went to church instead of doing that, you'd call her brainwashed, and if she volunteered for anything but Planned Parenthood, you might well call her brainwashed, too. Nobody can win in your world.

Manage

TABLETMAG.COM

 

The Truth About George Soros - Tablet Magazine

 

 

 

Vote NO on 'Civic Engagement' Proposition on NYC Ballot - It's Stealth Socialism

By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

If you live in New York City, be sure to turn your ballot over tomorrow and vote on three propositions. I recommend NO (Campaign finance limits), NO "Civic Engagement" Commission), YES (Term limits for community boards).

I particularly urge you to vote NO on Proposition 2, the so-called "Civic Engagement" proposition -- it's stealth socialism at its worst.

By using the term "Civic Engagement," the stealth socialists hope that people will simply think, 'Oh, that sounds nice, more involvement from the public, I'll vote for that". It's why I loathe stealth socialism -- they can never stand up and call themselves what they are, and stand for what they actually think, but they have to smuggle in their agenda in part, in order to ram it through in full later.

This particular proposition promotes another seemingly-innocuous concept called "Participatory Budgeting". It's also designed to lull the unsuspecting into thinking, "Oh, more involvement of people in spending public money." But again, that's crap.

Let me suggest there is a way you ALREADY have to "get involved" in spending public tax money. It's called DEMOCRACY and ELECTIONS. You elect people you trust who campaign on principles that you support and delegate them to spend funds because that is what modern liberal democracies do. They have delegation and division of labor, they don't pretend that you can mass-decide anything by "everybody" just "clicking". This is populism at its worst, and both extreme left and right love the concept -- because under the guise of "the public," small groups of determined cadres can take over.

What you get when you push through such methods is what I call "the tyranny of who shows up." Remember the student council in high school? Did you ever bother to follow what they were doing? Did you try to get elected? Or give up because you weren't one of the cool kids? That's how you lose your freedom.

"Participatory Budgeting" is a staple of every socialist party and group in the US and has long been a cult of these groups they have been trying to push through -- and now they're succeeding (it will likely pass due to lack of involvement and stupidity). Google it and you'll see. Yes, I understand what socialism means, no, I don't suffer from a false definition of it, and no, I don't suffer from "propaganda" and "fake news". Do you? Have you visited socialist countries of various types and lived in them, as I have? Did you go to the Socialist Scholars' Conferences in the 1980s, like me -- and Obama?

The "participators" are the "tyrants who show up" and even if any of us do, they show up already from cadres organizations with hidden agendas that we can find difficult to suppose -- especially if they wave the cards of "civility" or "the need to be positive" to suppress criticism.

Who wouldn't want to be involved in spending public money -- especially as a socialist? It's not your organization's, and you didn't vote for or support the people actually elected to do this because you're in a tiny, sectarian minority. You want to have, say, "Public Bikes" or "Bike Paths." This isn't something good just for its own sake, but smashes corporations and is good for dismantling capitalism. That New York already is overrun with Citibikes that aren't even used in many corners (ask me if you want documentation) and actually cost way more than their supporters let on doesn't matter. That bike paths already slow traffic and take away parking spots for people who use cars even if they are poor (or taxis) doesn't matter. That clean, safe public bathrooms would be a better call for spending this million is something that hipster socialists won't get -- they have the disposable income to spend on buying a slice of pecan pie in a diner to go to the bathroom -- unlike some of us, with two kids in a public park or on a fixed income. Socialists are often good at spending other people's money in fact because they have more of their own than others, as I've found.

"Participatory Budgeting" might be benign if it involved only advice, recommendations, and not actual spending of money. But it involves actual spending -- that's why they show up. It's often discretionary funds or open-ended pots of money that can get spent without too much attention. The socialists imagine they are stopping "corporate greed" or "political graft" or whatever by spending YOUR money. But that's insane, as New York City politics are very transparent and very criticized and very contested by the media of all types. But something like this falls below the radar.

I've found that if you try to criticize "Participatory Budgeting" or even just ask some pointed questions about its methods and means and full agenda, you are silenced, banned, muted, harassed on social media. That's how you know it's a socialist cult.

If you don't believe or don't understand anything I am telling you now, think of this: what do you know of "Participatory Budgeting"? Did you ever hear of it? Did you ever read a single article on it? *Is* there a single article that is balanced and critical about it, or can you only find pieces by its ardent supporters by Googling? Are even "critical" articles only advice on how to ram the concept through better in the face of skeptics, painting critics as supporters of corrupt oligarchs?

At the very least, then vote NO until you and others in the public can become more educated about what this REALLY means.

I don't have the capacity due to my personal circumstances to go and "participate" with these "participatory budgeters" to call them to account and flush them out for what they are -- although years of reading and debating about this have convinced me. Yes, it would be good to go to the actual meetings. But do you have that capacity? Does anybody? This is how you lose democracy -- by thinking that elected representatives are corrupt or stupid (the view of many Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley [NYC] hipsters) and that such "organized" little groups can "run it better". But they are ideological stealth raiders. Beth Novak, the socialist who got in the Obama White House tech office with these sorts of ideas, tried (and fortunately failed) to destroy the Patent Office with a form of this "community involvement."

Whenever I see the word "community" in NYC, I've learned to take a second look, because the cult "Working Families" or others may be involved. Democracy means all of us. Socialism means some of us as the "advance guard." Don't confuse it. Sooner or later in my experience, socialists suppress freedom of speech and freedom of association to keep themselves in power. That's why I oppose them.

If you don't want to hear it from me, hear it from The New York Times, which while leftist, isn't socialist in the main, and from Gale Brewer, a liberal, leftist politician whom I have supported on a number of issues who in fact questions the hard-left socialist mayor on this issue:

“The mayor already has control over the Department of City Planning; why should his appointees help select the community boards’ technical advisers for land-use decisions, too?” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer argued in an op-ed in The Villager.

Indeed. What Brewer has ferreted out is that if DeBlasio has the power to pick these "community-involved" types who want to "participate," he will pick his friends, the socialists, and they will grab land decisions away from developers they think are "corrupt" and "oligarchic," regardless of the facts -- which even a leftist like Brewer, who is no corporate tool, questions. 

The New York Times uses that argumentation as well: 

The measure would create a commission, largely controlled by the mayor, whose exact powers would be unclear. It would add yet another layer of bureaucracy without good cause. And in taking up participatory budgeting, such a commission could tread on the authority of the City Council, which now oversees that process. In a city with ample mayoral influence already, it is best that the powers afforded to the Council — most notably land-use and budget oversight — be carefully guarded.

Some of the initiatives the commission would be tasked with overseeing are worthy, such as expanding translation services at poll sites. But it would be wiser to implement them through legislation in the City Council or existing city agencies instead. That would preserve the powers of the Council and prevent the addition of unnecessary bureaucracy, better serving New Yorkers.

 

The New York Times is at least enough of an institution itself to understand you don't dismantle a democratic institution like the City Council and its authorities lightly, handing them over to latte-drinking hipsters in bike-clipped pants and geometric haircuts who believe "we need to dismantle capitalism" -- except, of course, Google or Ben and Jerry's.

Brewer says term limits will "kill our first line of defense" against developers. But I don't agree with her on this point regarding the third proposition, where I recommend voting YES. The community boards are a total racket in New York City, with hard-core pols getting entrenched in ways that are unstoppable. Term limits helps break up those mafias and that's a good thing. Development is not all evil. Community boards opposed things like the Hi Line on the West Side which in fact have turned out to be wonderful. 

Regarding "campaign finance," I advocate NO for lowering limits to $2000 in the socialistic belief that there will now be "a thousand schools of thought contending" with smaller contributions, "like Sanders" (a misunderstanding even of the socialist Sanders campaign -- these things are never decided by Mom and Pop sending in $5, but by socialist corporate hegemons like Ben and Jerry's).  Brewer and the New York Times support that argumentation that "more small contributions" will be encouraged. This is baffling, because small contributions of $100 are made regardless of whether limits are $2000 or $5100, and that's not the way to encourage them -- it is disconnected.