037: Aggravatingly Similar
[CW: depressing political shit, CP mention]
Actually nah, I'm not done yet tonight. I think.
Anyone find it odd how aggravatingly similar anarchist talking points, especially re: tech, are to alt-right? I'm specifically thinking about the cries for decentralized, privacy-protecting software that isn't encumbered by corporate interests.
The issue is, in the case of the alt-right, they just want a consequence-free space to spout harmful, toxic BS. Like Parler. Or Gab. Or 4chan/8chan. Or Trump's new "Truth" thing. Those are fucking awful. Absolutely abhorent displays of the worst of humanity.
AND YET, those of us in marginalized positions on the left *need* those exact same assurances to be able to have discussions without being scrutinized and stomped out by the distressingly puritain views of big tech companies. Especially in regards to NSFW content, a completely vital and valid form of human expression, and how the likes of Tumblr and OnlyFans tried their damndest to stomp those out to keep a positive PR and/or to appeal to payment providers.
I wrote an article... fuck, Feburary, really? about early expression of transgender identities on the internet, at http://invisibleup.com/articles/35/. Of course, a lot of that was only possible because Geocities decided to graciously allow LGBT content to be hosted, at a time when that was politically risky. There were sites other than Geocities, for sure, as the internet was undeniably more decentralized back then, but knocking out that primary hub of discovery and discussion would have been *way* too easy if Geocities willed it. If they decided to ban NSFW content, the trans community just might be in a significantly worse place now. I have no way of proving this, but it's something to ponder.
Thankfully, while Geocities provided a while district (West Hollywood) for LGBT content, they refused to do the same for neonazi content. I can't prove or disprove at the moment if any existed (I have no idea how moderation on Geocities worked, and I don't feel like digging through archives right now), but Geocities clearly did not to support its existence. It's a stance very dissimilar to what modern social media does, where they don't really give a shit what's on the network so long as it's not *too* toxic, While Geocities was fine telling bad actors to go take a hike, modern social media needs to appeal to everyone and relish in infinite growth to keep solvent.
Let's, ah, get back on track a bit. A while back, I was approached by someone intersted in helping Park City set up internet television. After some back and forth, I learned that this person was kind of really fucked up. They had an internet TV stream that, when not streaming pirated anime (which idgaf about) would get files from the most popular image hosting board containing, and I quote, "explicit music videos, terrorist attacks, hardcore porn, screamers, youtube poops, all of these, endless". And then they started up on how we could avoid DMCA claims by looking for obscure privacy-guaranteeing web servers in Pakistan. They were secure, this person claimed, because they had been monitoring several CP websites that had been hosted for months without issue, and CP was the hardest thing to host.
Look, there's abuse-proof hosting, but CP is one of those things where I'd call up the fucking FBI if I ever saw it, shortly before setting my computer on fire. And then they tried to paint me on Twitter as freaking out at a completely valid suggestion because they mentioned CP. Like, bitch, I'm not gonna wire Bitcoin to a server I know hosts CP just because it "ensures my privacy". And that, right there, is what worries me about the calls for a decentralized internet, keeps me up at night wondering if I'm even advocating for the right thing.
I don't know why people have to be awful like that. I really fucking don't. My life would be a hell of a lot easier if people could just not be trashfires. But unfortunately, what would end up wresting control away from malicious tech companies might just wrestle control *into* save havens for the awful. But then again, there are protocols and procedures in place for taking down completely awful and illegal websites. It's just, that only goes so far because of free speech laws. Which I support! Except gosh darnit that intolerance paradox. Very hateful speech should not be allowed to fester and spread, but we don't really have the ethical or legal framework in place to deal with these issues.
My only hope is that it seems that quarantining and isolating toxic communities keeps them from growing a lot. There's been studies (that I can't be assed to find at the moment) that show that quarantining subreddits reduces the number of new people that join, and banning them (or Facebook groups or whatever) causes the people to just be less toxic. So, decentralization is still the best goal we have, even if it allows bad actors to flourish. I mean, CP aside (which is obviously an extreme example that most every legal system knows how to handle), there already are toxic ecosystems on mainstream social media networks, and they're allowed to spread *because* they're on a well-connected, centralized network. But, wouldn't that also make it hard for people stuck *in* those traps to get out? If abandoning a toxic community involves trashing *everything*, that's a hard sell. But this is already a problem we have, and I'm not convinced that searate networks for smaller, more tight-knit communities would be significantly worse. But it might.
In summary, I have no idea what to do about any of this, and that worries me.