Donald Trump thinks he can call Bill Gates to "close up" the internet

boing
21

My prevailing theory is that the entire Democratic party HIRED Trump to pose as a mole in the GOP and ruin them entirely from the inside out. HAIL HYDRA!

5 Likes
22

Which, quite honestly, he did. Without the Gore Bill, we wouldn’t have the Internet as we know it today.

8 Likes
23

There, fixed that for you, Don.

24

I suspect Trump has been in contact with Cthulhu and rolled a 1 on every sanity check.

7 Likes
25

At first I came here to ask, Trump’s technical understanding of the Internet (and lots of other things) notwithstanding, isn’t there some utility in censoring extremist or hate speech? After all, bb moderates this board so that it is a convivial place for discussion and comment.

But I looked around before posting and found this article, which makes me think, maybe not.

TLDR:

  1. Social media sites “promote a sense of collective identification, but do not spark the initial desire to join an extremist network”

  2. “Isolating extremists only makes it more difficult to challenge alternative views. We risk reproducing an ‘us versus them’ logic that continues to polarise society.”

Phew! almost found myself agreeing with that asshole for a bit there.

1 Like
26

It’s only $33 at Etsy. He can skip talking to Gates.

2 Likes
27

Here comes the ‘day job japhroaig’ and not the fair or ideal japhroaig.

Of course you don’t censor speech. What is easier, asking people what they think or letting them tell you? It is a no brainer.

Where we are failing is when there is hate speech, how the hell do you make them not hate? It can be economic, social, acceptance… A million things. But censorship or prosecution/persecution ain’t it.

(We aren’t arguing, I believe I am simply expanding on your points)

4 Likes
28

Is he in a competition with Donald Duck to be the angriest/craziest Donald around?

5 Likes
29

What’s next, calling Alan Greenspan to fix the debt ceiling?

(“You know, fix it. Make it ‘pop’.”)

2 Likes
30

Here’s the tricky thing, though… if Bill Gates does close up the internet, we won’t be able to hear Trump anymore.

Freedom of speech? Or blissful peace and quiet?

3 Likes
31

We all know the internet comes from plumbers because it was built as a series of tubes!

2 Likes
32

But it is possible to be prosecuted for hateful speech that poses an ‘imminent danger’, as well as other expressions of hatred. I wish not censoring was a no-brainer, but to the average person, it probably sounds like a good idea to ban, wholesale, online talk that might be interpreted that way, regardless of nuance.

An interesting comment in the first article I linked to is that

social media platforms amplify our inability to distinguish boundaries of extremist speech

which should probably be interpreted as: it’s going to be hard convincing everyone that we shouldn’t be censoring the Internet.

33

Not to be pedantic (again, my day job hat is on :D) bit that really isn’t censorship. It confirms exactly to what I was saying except for the Punishment part.

Get people to say what they are gonna say without asking them to say it. What happens afters is fucked up though.

34

Well, Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf think Gore did indeed do all that, so who should we believe?

No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving
Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with the public at large.

http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0009/msg00311.html

3 Likes
35

But there doesn’t seem to be much opposition to taking down ISIS websites or Twitter accounts. Do you think that’s misplaced energy?

36

Leaders are for people who don’t know what they’re doing.

37

You forgot secret Clinton operative, to secure her win in 2016.

2 Likes
38

13 Likes
39

In a fundamental way… Yes. Don’t take them down. Get upstream providers to rate limit them. Legally dox the users, and figure out how to get them to better communities. Rehabilitate, don’t punish. And not in a, “this is for your own good” sort of way. Or, “you must conform to the politburo” sort of way.

But a, “don’t hate, don’t harm” sort of way.

1 Like
40

How hard can be to turn off the internet? It’s just a series of tubes right?

1 Like