"It's really, really hard to build a world" - Philip on Civility

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A login requirement is not a shield from litigation, that's what 230 provides.

230 is the linchpin that all social media is built upon, remove that and it all collapses, this is why it's been made a target. The point of going after 230 is to destroy the town square.

User generated content falls at the very first hurdle because there will never be enough lawyers to sign off on it all. This wipes out "big tech" as intended, but it also wipes out the small tech too. Everything from twitter, facebook and google, all the way down to yelp and amazon reviews. SL would not be immune.

Hopefully we are still on-topic 🙂

How on earth (sorry, hyperbole) did the internet and Social Media exist, grow, and thrive before Section 230?

[Coffee Pancake]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hopefully we are still on-topic 🙂

How on earth (sorry, hyperbole) did the internet and Social Media exist, grow, and thrive before Section 230?

Section 230 is part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and was a direct result of ISP getting targeted by lawsuits.

It predates the modern social Web 2.0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230

[Arielle Popstar]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There is absolutely no reason not to require real identity on any forums or virtual world. You can always layer a pseudonym over this RL name which makes you responsible for what you post. A car on the highway has a license and is identifiable when it violates traffic rules, and the Internet of people should be no different. The question is first to identify the limits of speech and the second is to invest in moderation. But most important is to set the tone and show leadership. The Lindens or any platform owner can editorialize. They can comment on the issues of the day and opine on what is right and wrong. They already do this on some issues, but not all. 

You want to promote the use of real life identity when you are by your own continuous admissions, a veritable poster child for what happens to people whose r/l identity is easily identified? I think not!

[Theresa Tennyson]

28 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

When there was a move to promote the use of real names - there was a time where it was civil - until people became even so emboldened in their positions - and with the rise of virtue signaling type of behavour - they PROUDLY stated their full names. Of course they only do that when they're in the majority and relatively safe from being mobbed, censored and banned by others - and they forget that should the tide shift that they would then be subject to the same measures against them.

Even if their names were 'exposed', they didn't need or care for 'civility' nor did it shame them into 'good behaviour'. All most people need is to be in the majority, then they cannot be shamed or otherwise motivated to be 'civil' anyway.

But yeah, arguing with others that "The rights you deny others can and will be denied you" is completely fruitless, because as humans I guess most of us simply do not care until we are personally affected.

 

Here's the thing:

A lot of the people who are complaining about being "cancelled" used to be considered within the "majority", meaning that they didn't have to worry about being mobbed, censored and banned as you put it yourself. They don't understand how to filter themselves because they never had to do that.

Meanwhile, a lot of the people who are now in the "majority" used to be in the "minority," are familiar with the "minority rules," and are looking at the problems of the now-ex majoritarians and saying, "Well, ain't that just too bad."

Edited June 2, 2022 by Theresa Tennyson

[Codex Alpha]

 

10 hours ago, animats said:

"It's really, really hard to build a world". But SL is close to having it right.

The key to the "civility" problem is keeping jerks local. As I've said before, jerks in SL have an annoyance radius of about 100 meters (the "shout" distance), and Second Life is about the size of Los Angeles. Right now, there's probably someone, somewhere in SL, being a jerk. And very few users are aware they even exist. That's a really good feature.

Sometimes the best thing to deal with alleged trolls and griefers, and on the other side 'elitist' or 'early access community members' is to dilute their effect with having a platform grow big and fast enough - to make their influence moot.

4 hours ago, cunomar said:

The world over moral and legal obligation to civility is enforced by isolation (prison) . Avatars are ghosts so walls can't hold them , but block/derender ultimately results in the online isolation .

The worst offenders the nihilists generally have their own little cult of followers so remain toxic and unaffected while they seek out their next unwitting victim .

RL for better or for worse we have reputations that follow or haunt us , a virtual serial killer could wander with impunity forever just changing his/her appearance and name .

Anonymity brings with it great freedom - but there is always a flip side of every coin .

Yet anonymity has probably been one of the most freeing concepts universally that has allowed the safe exchange of ideas. I've seen what people can and will do when given the opportunity to silence others for a view that they disagree with.

It underscores more than ever the need for anonymity (at least between users) - as many people truly 'play for keeps' and will come after you and your RL interests 100%.

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

As I already noted, it starts with requiring real ID to register to post. Real ID doesn't mean you can't have a pseudonym on top of it. That isn't a complete cure-all, but it's a start. When social media platforms bear liability for posts they will find ways to get the job done, believe me. They're businesses, remember? There also has to be moral leadership, which few people find compelling as a plan. It's great that thousands of school children are now staging walk-outs; they also need to stop exchanging memes that humiliate others. Everybody says you can't ban 4chan. But of course its owners can moderate it. And anyone can cease to use it and read it and encourage others to stop as it is indeed connected.

This is what the whole NFT and crypto-coin movement is about. It is a trojan horse promising riches for one group, and opportunity to get rich for artists - but you will have a unique ID world wide. This may apply to your participation in "Metaverse" style platform like Decentraland or other - and be the ultimate control over you. There will be no escape, no restart, no reset for you.

2 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

If RL ID is required how long do you think it would take these "griefers" to figure out your RL information, including your address where they can come and harrass (or worse) you IN PERSON. 

It happens all the time. If people disagree with another on the internet, it won't end there.. they will seek other ways to continue to 'punish' that person by whatever means they can.

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Right .. So, are LL going to hire a team of legally qualified moderators to inspect every single post before publishing it, or are they just going to close the forum.

Or the more recent tactic now employed by many companies - to hide away all information, discussion, news and announcements behind a Discord wall - far from the internet access and search - and under close watch of governance as to who is allowed in, to view what, and who can participate. This creates a chilling effect for many - and the result is only a handful, a literal handful are vocal in any way, and only because they unceasingly bow to and pander to the status quo.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Codex Alpha

[Mollymews]

41 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A login requirement is not a shield from litigation, that's what 230 provides.

yes, it was a gimme which resulted in the social media sites that we have today.  Had that gimme not been given, and the sites held to the same standard as all other forms of information dispensing/sharing/publishing then social media would be quite a lot different than what it is

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How do you imagine any public forum would operate post section 230 ?

They wouldn't.

Neither would a lot of other sites and services.

[Mollymews]

15 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

 

Or the more recent tactic now employed by many companies - to hide away all information, discussion, news and announcements behind a Discord wall - far from the internet access and search - and under close watch of governance as to who is allowed in, to view what, and who can participate. This creates a chilling effect for many - and the result is only a handful, a literal handful are vocal in any way, and only because they unceasingly bow to and pander to the status quo.

why is it chilling that group of people, be they a company or a family, want to communicate between themselves in private across the internet

on Facebook, we have a extended private family group. Is nobody else's business what we say and share with each other. Same as is none of my business what some company's staff talk about on their Discord channel

other people's affairs are none of my business. Is not for anyone to compel them to share their affairs publicly with me. Nor my family's affairs with them

 

[Modulated]

44 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Here's the thing:

A lot of the people who are complaining about being "cancelled" used to be considered within the "majority", meaning that they didn't have to worry about being mobbed, censored and banned as you put it yourself. They don't understand how to filter themselves because they never had to do that.

Meanwhile, a lot of the people who are now in the "majority" used to be in the "minority," are familiar with the "minority rules," and are looking at the problems of the now-ex majoritarians and saying, "Well, ain't that just too bad."

No one should be cancelled for expressing their opinions or ideas, no matter how popular or unpopular they may be. I know it may seem like the right thing to do but shutting down the free flow of ideas and opinions is never good.  The majority/minority argument is kinda baseless here IMO.

There are people who express very abhorrent things daily that I personally do not agree with and they have folks that agree with them and folks who disagree with them. That's how it should be. Who am I to burn them down for whatever they are saying? I choose to disregard it and life goes on for me.

If you have to silence or 'cancel' anyone because you don't like their ideas, then how comfortable are you in your own beliefs that you see that as necessary or the right thing to do?

[Prokofy Neva]

44 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You want to promote the use of real life identity when you are by your own continuous admissions, a veritable poster child for what happens to people whose r/l identity is easily identified? I think not!

The only hope is to widen the circle. 

Anonymous has a terrible quote that goes something like "Because none of us are as evil as all of us."

So that has to be turned against them. Because none of us are as good as all of us.

And the rest of their cult-like mantras, such as "We are Legion. We do not forget. We do not forgive. Expect us." Turn it around. Expect *us*, who aren't anonymous and think people like you who commit massive DDoS attacks should do serious time. That Aaron Swartz was not "killed," but committed suicide because he was a highly troubled young man conditioned by a cult hero, and after losing face when he was offered a six-month prison term in exchange for admission of guilt. He was never going to have to serve 50 years as C-NET screamed or even 5 years for "unauthorized access to a computer system" which is a perfectly good law. But he was going to have to go to jail for hacking MIT's servers under a pseudonym -- the very institution that gave him grants -- to "take out too many library books" as geek-think would have it, or as to economically damage J-STOR and other businesses selling scholarly journals because he believed force and violence and financial damage should be used on people who didn't share his technocommunist views.

Much of the time I silence Twitter ankle-biters by pointing out their 2009 birth date and inactivity since then -- it was the year when Twitter was spectacularly hacked and berated by all the techs, but they failed to understand the real damage -- the hackers obtain zillions of unused accounts which they took over to harass people and cause havoc.

But more efficiently, I say "I'm not anonymous. You are." And that's it. That's the quote.

I'm not banned from Second Life. The griefers are. I enjoy my Second Life. They don't. 

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 minutes ago, Modulated said:

No one should be cancelled for expressing their opinions or ideas, no matter how popular or unpopular they may be. I know it may seem like the right thing to do but shutting down the free flow of ideas and opinions is never good.  The majority/minority argument is kinda baseless here IMO.

There are people who express very abhorrent things daily that I personally do not agree with and they have folks that agree with them and folks who disagree with them. That's how it should be. Who am I to burn them down for whatever they are saying? I choose to disregard it and life goes on for me.

If you have to silence or 'cancel' anyone because you don't like their ideas, then how comfortable are you in your own beliefs that you see that as necessary or the right thing to do?

Here's the next thing:

"Cancellation" isn't really "silencing." People can express their opinion; people can also chose whether to do business with the person who expressed that opinion. They can even express their opinion that someone else shouldn't do business with that person.

The problem starts when people start making laws about it, and the people who have been making recent laws about expression lately seem to be the "cancelled" themselves.

Meanwhile, if the original person was "silenced," nobody would have heard their "offense" in the first place.

[Luna Bliss]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It's not a matter of "hate or not hate". It's a matter of *not accepting a limited and crippling ideology* that imagines structuralism where it does not exist and vast evil forces that in fact begin at home with the use of ideological memes. I don't share your religion. Full stop.

My belief that neoliberalism is harmful is not my religion. I simply don't believe in a societal structure which allows vast amounts of wealth to be hoarded at the top while 1 in 7 kids in the US live with hunger:

https://www.nokidhungry.org/blog/how-many-kids-america-go-bed-hungry

We really can't comprehend what a civil society would be like in RL, on the internet, or in the combination a metaverse would consist of without examining the noxious effects of neoliberalism.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Luna Bliss

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You want to promote the use of real life identity when you are by your own continuous admissions, a veritable poster child for what happens to people whose r/l identity is easily identified? I think not!

And yet, they do not stop and have not been stopped.

[Luna Bliss]

16 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

I could go on with great length on this, but perhaps it is all over, and as I had posed to recent staff on a related platform - that current society and it's social issues and needs of the individuals for safe spaces and to ban and cancel everyone and everything they don't like - then add to that some form of Facebook babysitting and governance, etc - that it is no longer possible to have a free and open virtual world.

The last 2 years I saw how far the nanny state will go. I had experienced it first 2 years in a virtual platform and experienced first hand what it feels like when people want a safe space where nothing will ever offend them - and then in real life to a shocking degree that I will never forget, and am probably traumatized by if I am being honest.

The nanny state is here and only growing in both virtual and reality worlds.

 

When we try to sort out what a civil society should be we have to take into account every person and not just who you believe deserves consideration. Through numerous posts you have mentioned being treated unfairly due to censorship and a kind of unjust pile-on, and perhaps it's true you were not given the consideration you deserved. I don't know other than what you've described, and from your description I glean that it had extremely bad consequences for you, whatever the cause.

But if you want me to give you consideration via the unfair censorship you claim, you need to do the same for other people. However, you do not. Instead you assume a gay teacher is only being political when he wants to be able to show photos to his students of his partner and himself on vacation the same as the straight teacher can. Or you assume my insistence that women are indeed being treated unfairly due to these new abortion laws has no validity.

Again, a just society, whether in RL or on the internet, requires the needs of all people to be taken into consideration, and their needs should not be dismissed on account of either your political stance or because you didn't take the time to understand their valid concerns.

 

[diamond Marchant]

Thank you for sharing A metaverse prophet’s warning

I appreciate this discussion, particularly the different points of view and tips on the things you can do in SL that I didn't previously consider (that was a joke).

Rosedale sums up the future-of-the-metaverse topics when he asks

Quote

who owns the spaces where people are hanging out, what are the rules of engagement, what's the moderation strategy

I am particularly concerned with the ownership question, such as what happens to my inventory when the plug is pulled (the answer is obvious). It seems unlikely that the current SL product/business model will endure. The point is that WE need an exit strategy.

On the positive side... having a subscription based (ad free) metaverse (like SL) seems entirely reasonable, even using current SL pricing. $99 per year for a virtual home  is less than a paid music or video stream. The 2022 problem is the required hardware and the "high barrier to entry" user experience. Perhaps in 202x (where x>2), that nut will be cracked.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A login requirement is not a shield from litigation, that's what 230 provides.

yes, it was a gimme which resulted in the social media sites that we have today.  Had that gimme not been given, and the sites held to the same standard as all other forms of information dispensing/sharing/publishing then social media would be quite a lot different than what it is

Ironically..some social media sites like Facebook really want you to use your "real name" (unless you are making a "page", or a profile for your dog, etc.).

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

I appreciate this discussion, particularly the different points of view

Different points of view is our specialty!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

1 hour ago, Codex Alpha said:

Or the more recent tactic now employed by many companies - to hide away all information, discussion, news and announcements behind a Discord wall - far from the internet access and search - and under close watch of governance as to who is allowed in, to view what, and who can participate. This creates a chilling effect for many - and the result is only a handful, a literal handful are vocal in any way, and only because they unceasingly bow to and pander to the status quo.

why is it chilling that group of people, be they a company or a family, want to communicate between themselves in private across the internet

on Facebook, we have a extended private family group. Is nobody else's business what we say and share with each other. Same as is none of my business what some company's staff talk about on their Discord channel

other people's affairs are none of my business. Is not for anyone to compel them to share their affairs publicly with me. Nor my family's affairs with them

Gladys Kravitz is gonna get us all! (Lady peeking through the curtain on Bewitched. Not posting her meme this time.)

[Coffee Pancake]

26 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

I am particularly concerned with the ownership question, such as what happens to my inventory when the plug is pulled (the answer is obvious).

All the talk of interoperability is just smoke and mirrors, in world assets (any asset, any world) only has meaning when in the place that gives it context.

Some hair from SL just can't work somewhere else, in the same way some buffed up hitting stick from a game doesn't have any meaning or function in SL. The raw asset might be to a degree transferable, but without that context it's just junk.

26 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

It seems unlikely that the current SL product/business model will endure.

It might endure here, but it's lack of adoption by other parties is somewhat troubling in the long term.

26 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

The point is that WE need an exit strategy.

.. that's already in play, it's called Discord. We reinforce our SL social bonds there and are already taking those bonds to other platforms and games.

At the end of the day, our social connections are the only thing with any real value.

[Paul Hexem]

12 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How do you imagine any public forum would operate post section 230 ?

The problem a lot of people seem to have with it is it allows sites to curate what content they want, while still being protected from any consequences.

It's one of the few times the "free speech" argument actually makes sense.

If you want to have the same protection as a public square, you should have to follow the same rules as a public square.

If you're in the habit of taking down content you don't want on your platform, why shouldn't you be at least partially responsible for what's left, the stuff you seemingly agree with?

[diamond Marchant]

24 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Some hair from SL just can't work somewhere else, in the same way some buffed up hitting stick from a game doesn't have any meaning or function in SL. The raw asset might be to a degree transferable, but without that context it's just junk.

Exactly...

However...

High tech companies, in my lifetime, have often entertained migration and/or backward compatibilty plans (e.g running Windows on a Mac). Just as a thought experiment, let's pretend that Mr. Oberwager decides that Tilia is the future and decides to divest from Second Life. Nobody wants to buy it outright but they are interested in the 70+ million registered accounts that Daniel Voyager reports. So Mr. Oberwager sells the accounts and corresponding data assets to a newfangled metaverse. Current SL residents are given the option of migrating to "The Valley Beyond" (WestWorld ref) with their inventory and scripts working (kinda maybe).

Is this a win-win?

Edited June 2, 2022 by diamond Marchant
divest in -> divest from

[Lindal Kidd]

14 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Is this a win-win?

For the buying and selling companies, yeah.

For the seventy million users...maybe yes, maybe no, depending on that transferability and the functions and social space offered by The Valley Beyond.

[Coffee Pancake]

10 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

High tech companies, in my lifetime, have often entertained migration and/or backward compatibilty plans (e.g running Windows on a Mac). Just as a thought experiment, let's pretend that Mr. Oberwager decides that Tilia is the future and decides to divest from Second Life. Nobody wants to buy it outright but they are interested in the 70+ million registered accounts that Daniel Voyager reports. So Mr. Oberwager sells the accounts and corresponding data assets to a newfangled metaverse. Current SL residents are given the option of migrating to "The Valley Beyond" (WestWorld ref) with their inventory and scripts working (kinda maybe).

Is this a win-win?

Unless the target world was constructed and operated identically to Second Life, your assets, even if transferred wouldn't function and probably couldn't be made to function.

All assets, on all platforms, are at the very top of a huge house of very specific cards.

Yes, you can make Windows run on a Mac, but you have to have ALL of windows working for it to be of any use. On newer Macs, that goes even deeper as you have to build an entire intel virtual machine on top of the actual hardware.

So to get SL assets in anything that wasn't SL, they would have to build ALL of SL into their platform.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

My belief that neoliberalism is harmful is not my religion. I simply don't believe in a societal structure which allows vast amounts of wealth to be hoarded at the top while 1 in 7 kids in the US live with hunger:

https://www.nokidhungry.org/blog/how-many-kids-america-go-bed-hungry

We really can't comprehend what a civil society would be like in RL, on the internet, or in the combination a metaverse would consist of without examining the noxious effects of neoliberalism.

Well, you've made my point for me on multiple counts. But hey, why use this charity with such low recognition value and ideological tilt that is obvious and say it's only 13 million, when you could cite Save the Children, with more recognition value, that says 17 million? Well I say, don't, as Save the Children is the most top heavy and least effective charity I ever dealt with in my years at the UN. And don't go by some campaigning NGO's tendentious statistics. Think. Use common sense. Research.

So let's start with the USDA's statistics that show 6 million children as *food insecure* which is not the same as "hungry".  That's 0.08 percent of the population, and therefore 0.018 million. And that's *food insecure* which is NOT the same as hungry. It means non-nutritious or low-nutrition and insufficient food, not absence of food.

Let's note that half of the children in America now are people of colour. So it's still a serious problem you can work on practically and beneficially, just not with the tendentious ideology you hold, and the hysteria you invoke, with the solutions you imagine (so...let's have more abortions so we won't have as many hungry children? Or what's the logic?).

The existence of the food insecure is a complex phenomenon, not the lock-step result of some imagined cabal of neoliberals starving children in basements. There are all sorts of factors you can site, with statistics and linkie-links, but you don't want to be confused by facts. Drug addiction, imprisonment, single mother households, gangs in schools, etc. You can write all those off as "neo-liberalism" if you like; since I live in these neighbourhoods and my children went to these city schools, I'm here to tell you it's not what you imagine, but far more complex. 

Example, in Buffalo, the mass shooting took place at a TOPS supermarket, which the Black community there struggled to get opened in their wasteland of no stores, a direct result of racism, but also the unwillingness of stores to go into what they view as, and are actually, high crime areas -- so it's a vicious cycle. Social scientists campaign to get fresh foods into neighbourhoods and even give you spacebux if you are chronically ill on Medicaid, like me, that can only be used at farmer's markets, and only for fresh fruits and vegetables. I always asked the Latinos who have driven 6 hours and slept in their cars with their produce if they really mind taking the spacebux and can they cash them out efficiently. And the answer is yes, because that agency maintains a desk there at the market to handle EBT cards, etc.

To be sure, that market is a 2.3 mile walk from my house, because I am not spending $5.00 round trip to take 4 buses there (NYC is on a grid and like that) or spend $20 for a cab there and back which kind of undoes the point. Still, on a good day, I will make that walk and shop on the edges of the market to avoid crowds, and while $261 per year in fresh fruit and vegetable spacebux is not going to change my health, still, it's something and you can freeze some of it.

So...Do you think that TOPS, which the gunman researched diligently as the place that would yield the maximum number of victims and the highest coverage of his horrendous ideology, will ever open there again? They've closed now. So give generous directly to the community funds in Buffalo. Or to Invisible Hands, which brings groceries directly to people in need who can't get out, my daughter volunteered for them for some time. Anyone can send money on their phone, and that can be directly used to feed a family on the spot. 

No, the illusions of ideological extremism don't fix society and lead to violence that doesn't change society for the better. There has to be a combination of public and private means, state and religious programs, individual initiative and corporate programs to meet the need. Destroying wealth and redistributing the meager remains doesn't work. Regulating wealth production does. That's why America long had the highest number of immigrants in the world, and still has many who want to move into it, even as you wish to move out.

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, Anaiya Ahren said:

That's a big fat "nope" for me.  I'm deeply disturbed with how much information is being sucked up and traded on through peoples' internet use.  They don't need my ID or anyone's.  Internet information trackers and traders already know far too much. 

Public "anonymity" isn't actually very helpful if I've given my ID to the very companies whose monetization models rely on selling information about their users to whoever will pay.

I have a tweet for you. If you can reason by analogy.