‘Harmful’ content should not be promoted via social media algorithms, peers say

www.nationalworld.com ‘Harmful’ content should not be promoted via social media algorithms, peers say

Baroness Kidron claimed that teenage boys are being directed towards Andrew Tate’s “harmful” content

37 comments

Who is in charge of what's deemed "harmful"? How do they decide? Who put them in charge?
- You're being downvoted for a valid concern. I don't disagree that we should block harmful content, but you're putting that power into the hands of whoever writes the definition.
  
  It's a real problem with no real solution that few people seem to ACTUALLY want to try to solve.
- The only practical answer is that users should be able to decide for themselves.
  
  Anything else just devolves into government or corporate censorship.
  
  There’s no such thing as corporate censorship. That’s largely been manufactured from some who have a persecution complex. The only way corporations can censor someone is if that person is accessing property or platforms that the corporation owns. At which point, they have freedom to do what they please when it comes to who they will host. That would be like saying your neighbor is censoring you because they won’t let you on their property or use their things. They can’t legally do anything more than remove you or deny you access to things they operate. The government censorship is a logically real thing in that they have the power to create laws that affect you regardless of property/object ownership
- There is no good answer to this question, because everyone has their own scale of what they consider harmful.
  
  I think this is a fundamental problem with centralized social media a la Reddit, Twitter, Threads, etc. You're forcing countless different communities with different values and beliefs to share a common space, moderated by people with their own set of values. Of course there will be friction and problems. No matter what you do, there will be groups that feel like they're being censored, and other groups that feel like they're being attacked.
- Merely because answering these question might be hard doesn’t mean they don’t have answers or that we shouldn’t answer them.
  
  Ultimately it is up to us (individually and collectively) to decide what content is acceptable and what isn’t.
- I mean people have been coming up with laws for ages. There are clearly harmful posts that offer no value to humanity. So that can be a start. "No approved therapeutic claims" shouldnt absolve anyone touting their "remedies".
- Also, what may be harmful to one person, may not be harmful to another person.
  
  If a thing is harmful to any person, it's harmful. Pretty simple.
  
  People say what you just said when they're trying to justify harming other (usually marginalized) groups. Stopping another person or group from being harmed does not equal harm against you.
  
  Edit: I understand it's not that black and white. It's not always the case, just pointing out that many people do use that argument in bad faith.
- Me.
It's definitely a problem, I hope we can find a way to solve it without creating a mechanism for crushing dissent or privacy violations.
Why is this water so wet!
I'm sick of seeing Andrew Tate and this alpha male bullshit.
- Same here. He’s a douchebag. But most of his crap is merely offensive, not harmful
  
  I guess I make the distinction that he’s trying to persuade people to act toxic, which is different than other podcasters trying to persuade people to act in ways that cause disease or death
  
  I mean, that's a fair response. Given that the dude is an alleged human trafficking psycho, I'd say that his behavior and notions could potentially be seen as dangerous and/or purposely being done for his weird gains.
Surely if anyone can be trusted with the power of censorship, it's the hereditary aristocracy.
Yeah, I don't trust TERF Island to do this right. They'll ban Contrapoints long before they ban Rowling.

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