This is interesting! And also one of the fundamental flaws of the web that I see. In the physical world, legal dickish behavior (let's call it LDB) is policed through trust, reputation, and...
This is interesting! And also one of the fundamental flaws of the web that I see.
In the physical world, legal dickish behavior (let's call it LDB) is policed through trust, reputation, and community. If I pulled LDB with my family or friends, I'd get shunned. If I pulled LDB at a business, they'd refuse to serve me. If I pulled LDB at a professional conference, I'd get blacklisted.
Online with shifting identities and anonymity, people don't have social leverage against LDB. So you have:
Algorithmic policing, which is imperfect and often wrong.
Moderator policing, which is not scalable.
Upvoting/downvoting, which is easy to manipulate.
Actual policing for illegal activity, which is a very high bar.
I'm very conflicted about it. I've mused on this for a long time. I value anonymity and privacy online. But I also recognize that anonymity and privacy are what enable LDB and render IRL social mechanisms of ostracism ineffective online.
I'm curious about the title. How would you want there to be internet police? I've always found the term "internet police" very strange, actually. The internet isn't a jurisdiction; it's a...
I'm curious about the title. How would you want there to be internet police?
I've always found the term "internet police" very strange, actually. The internet isn't a jurisdiction; it's a communication method that crosses jurisdictions, both real, legal ones (e.g., various US states, cities, etc, other countries and their local jurisdictions, and so forth), and potential domains of power.
The people who run those domains of power do have police, or at least some kind of enforcement; the US has the FBI for internal investigations and various intel and military agencies for external threats, for instance, while large domain registrars and hosts have abuse mitigation teams who will kick abusive users off if their activities pose a threat to the business.
This is interesting! And also one of the fundamental flaws of the web that I see.
In the physical world, legal dickish behavior (let's call it LDB) is policed through trust, reputation, and community. If I pulled LDB with my family or friends, I'd get shunned. If I pulled LDB at a business, they'd refuse to serve me. If I pulled LDB at a professional conference, I'd get blacklisted.
Online with shifting identities and anonymity, people don't have social leverage against LDB. So you have:
I'm very conflicted about it. I've mused on this for a long time. I value anonymity and privacy online. But I also recognize that anonymity and privacy are what enable LDB and render IRL social mechanisms of ostracism ineffective online.
I'm curious about the title. How would you want there to be internet police?
I've always found the term "internet police" very strange, actually. The internet isn't a jurisdiction; it's a communication method that crosses jurisdictions, both real, legal ones (e.g., various US states, cities, etc, other countries and their local jurisdictions, and so forth), and potential domains of power.
The people who run those domains of power do have police, or at least some kind of enforcement; the US has the FBI for internal investigations and various intel and military agencies for external threats, for instance, while large domain registrars and hosts have abuse mitigation teams who will kick abusive users off if their activities pose a threat to the business.