reclusive techie zoomer

discord: @chris.0666 (ping me in the beehaw server if you want to say hi :) )

  • 7 Posts
  • 14 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • man, as someone who used to be so into foss/privacy i refused to use anything that i couldn’t compile/host & giving out my gpg key to friends, & someone who used to always make charged, sweeping generalizations like the title of this article, reading this just made me remember why people didn’t like to talk tech with me. i was so focused on always spouting why every app/software/os everyone used was “evil” (with poorly thought out & overcharged arguments, because i was coming from a place of anger & “justice” rather than logic) that i became insufferable to have a conversation with. i’m not gonna knock the author too much because i know it comes from a place of passion & morals, but this person has really fallen into the trap of radical black & white thinking that plagues the field of foss so much.

    op, if you are the author of the post (or if the author happens to be reading), my advice to you if you want to reach people better would be to avoid generalizing/judging (& any non-logical statements at all) when advocating for foss/against propietary services. always blame the companies, not the users, because most users are just uninformed. remember that software is not a political or moral issue to most people, it’s just a tool & they don’t research or know anything about it beyond that. all that headline is doing is losing the target audience - no one likes to be told they’re “morally lazy” for simply texting their friends & not knowing about issues in an app. if you are going to post sweeping judgements like this, then at least make sure the article is at least finished before you throw it out there, or else it’s gonna leave a really bad taste in people’s mouth.

    on a positive note, the rest of the site is really cool; reminds me of the site i used to have up in high school. i really liked the “places” & “strong women” sections on the abyss page.



  • Is setting up such a system unfeasible?

    yes. not only would such a policy be messy to implement & partially unenforcable on the current internet for various reasons (look at what’s happening with porn site here in the usa, where some states are literally trying to add a real id system & it’s failing) it’d also be a law that hurts us well-meaning people (specifically, marginalized sections of populations that have a reason to take privacy seriously, such as lgbt people in non-gay friendly locations, for example) moreso than trolls. our privacy is already eroded enough imo, so if a real id system were to come out i’d just quit using the internet. & i’m sure a large chunk of the internet would do the same.

    you assume that such a system would stop all death threats & racist/sexist comments & make the internet a safe place but… why would it? bad people are shameless. if a real id system catches on, but moderation doesn’t change, it’s more likely that these people will just put up their real names & continue doing what they’re doing. there are a lot of people who are already not ashamed whatsoever of having those comments attached to their identity right now, i mean look at how many <real name>s are on twitter & facebook & all that willingly posting hateful comments with their real name today.

    look i get what you’re going for in spirit & why you want this system to be a thing. but the reason so much toxicity is on modern social media in the first place is simply because companies allow it, either by not spending enough on their moderation staff or, in cases like reddit, just by turning a blind eye to it. so, why not just be direct? why not regulate the companies rather than the consumers? imo a law that requires tech companies to take a zero-tolerance policy to hate speech & scams, as well as to actually spend enough on their moderation staff to allow that, would be much cleaner, safer & effective than a real id system