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> Someone can be a creep in public just as easily as in DMs.

Definitely not true.

Public messages risk a wide audience seeing the message and recognizing it’s inappropriate, then taking action against the person, reporting them, or highlighting the inappropriate messages for mob reprisals.

This is why predators overwhelmingly prefer private messaging where they can control visibility of their actions to a single vulnerable target.



> mob reprisals

Great choice of words here, it's an accurate description of the terror of the commons. Force everything into a public venue so we're all watching each other and then get every one invested in reporting on everyone else's behavior.

Meanwhile in the name of "saving the children" from their poor parents we continue to add restrictions, laws and strip rights.

> This is why predators...

We had plenty of these before the internet, the idea that these sorts of laws change any of that is just naive.


>it's an accurate description of the terror of the commons.

There's no inherent terror in it. Self governing communities on the internet need some means to monitor themselves just like they do offline. Communities before the internet didn't let unknown adults in their community have one-on-one conversations with children unsupervised. That's not a right or a common practice.

Before the internet when you went you joined a community you had to show your face, not a lot of clubs I'm aware of that involve minors where people in a balaclava where welcome.


> Self governing communities

Bluesky is a company, not a "self-governing community." They didn't have a legislative process to decide to do this.


> There's no inherent terror in it.

Go watch the classic black and white "Frankenstein" for a portrayal of mob justice. Torches and pitchforks!

How about the French Revolution... where the head of the mob meets the same end, with the loss of his head?

> Self governing communities on the internet need some means to monitor themselves just like they do offline.

This is also an accurate description of a lynching. You think we're doing better on line, see reddit getting the Boston bomber wrong.


>This is also an accurate description of a lynching.

No, it isn't. It's an accurate description of policing. A standard practice in human societies. If you think not letting anonymous people talk to children amounts to the French Revolution or lynching maybe get out some more. Not how the real world works. Never has, never will. People tolerated it on 90s internet chatrooms because it was all middle aged dudes, doesn't fly when it becomes an actual town square.


"Public messages risk a wide audience seeing the message and recognizing it’s inappropriate, then taking action against the person, reporting them, or highlighting the inappropriate messages for mob reprisals."

You're defending this, as policing?

> If you think not letting anonymous people talk to children

Follow this rational to the end state, and we should all have to keep our kitchen knives chained to the counter because they might be used to stab someone.

Let's ban chemistry cause someone might make a bomb.

Everyone should wear helmets all the time cause they might trip and bump their heads.

Dont tell me you're saving the children with the digital version of "papers please". Dont pass a law where "parenting" is the real and easy solution.


>risk a wide audience seeing the message and recognizing it’s inappropriate

As everyone knows, risk is unacceptable!

And inappropriate is of course an objective classification.


>Public messages risk a wide audience seeing the message

Anyone can easily circumvent this by using asymmetric cryptography to encrypt their messages.


Nobody is going to the trouble of getting their target to set up cryptography tools so they can pass private messages back and forth between public channels.

They're going to move to another platform where they can find targets who have DM functionality available. BlueSky's job is done.


Having to delete the obvious spam "hello" DMs in Telegram is so much fun... Fortunately I'm not that active and only in a couple channels. I still see a couple a day (block/report, etc).


No one is going to the trouble of getting their target to GDPR-request their private DMs as well. This misses the point of the blogpost.




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