Facebook and Twitter pledge to remove hate speech within 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/31/technology/hate-speech-facebook-twitter-eu/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom <comment><USER2> This is a dangerous path to go down. Much better to allow anyone to post anything they like that's not illegal. If you don't like it, unfriend/unfollow/block them.

Why is this bad? Because hate speech is not clearly defined. What may be fine today may qualify as hate speech tomorrow. Eventually posting anything not super positive or encouraging could be considered "hateful" or "triggering" and get you in trouble.

One of my favorite quotes on people being mean on the internet, courtesy of Tyler the Creator: [https://twitter.com/fucktyler/status/285670822264307712?lang...](https://twitter.com/fucktyler/status/285670822264307712?lang=en)

<comment><USER3> You are wrong in that it's only a matter of 'unfriend/unfollow/block them' \- that is only a solution for people who might get one or two harassers, but there are people who just get bombarded with it - just look at the gamer gate thing to see a prominent example.

<comment><USER4> > just look at the gamer gate thing to see a prominent example.

This comic sums up that situation pretty well: [http://imgur.com/aF8eTQf](http://imgur.com/aF8eTQf)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's for sure just some dirt being thrown when prominent women have been very openly threatened with death and rape. Get real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason that Facebook and Twitter receive this scrutiny is that information posted to them is public, persistent, viral and forced into many people's view by feeds. I think SnapChat counteracts all these features.

I was recently hanging out at some nightlife spots, casually talking to random millennials at bars and such and realized that nobody was using Facebook or Twitter. They were all using SnapChat, almost compulsively.

I asked them why and they said it was because their mom was on Facebook (!public). They also liked that everything disappeared after 24 hours (!persistent) and it alerts you if people screenshot your posts (!persistent). They also liked the fact that you couldn't repost stuff, only show pictures that the app took and you only shared with your friends (!viral) and only had to look at their stuff if you actually wanted to (!feed). It didn't come in on a feed.

I think Facebook and Twitter are going to be cleaned out soon except for self- promotion and commercial information. At this point I assume that Facebook is public too. People desperately want privacy. I think a rising trend in the industry is the notion of forgetting. People want services to forget. They want to live in the present and not have everything remembered about them forever. They also don't want to be bombarded by feeds since they are full of distraction, advertising and ideology. The only thing they are interested in posting to these public services is things that they want to share publicly, like self-promotion or commercial/job related stuff.

<comment><USER7> Isn't snapchat video only?

<comment><USER6> Snapchat is also pictures and you can do traditional text. Mainly you have this thing called a "story" that people can subscribe to that lasts for the last 24 hours and it's pictures and video and text that you send to it. I recently tried using snapchat with a few people. They get annoyed that they can only see your pictures for a few seconds and then can't view them again and text disappears after 24 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, I don't think this will work out well. Twitter removes a lot more negative posts from those on the right side of the political spectrum than the left, and seems genuinely biased to treating bad behaviour from the former as somehow worse than the latter on ideological grounds.

And with stuff like the trust and safety council on Twitter and the news topic biases on Facebook (as well as documented examples where they worked with governments to remove speech the government didn't like, such as that about immigration in Germany), I suspect it'll just cause yet more political divisions and drama on these sites.

<comment><USER9> It's not about left or right removal quantity. It's about hate. And there are a lot of easy cases on social media. I don't know what the do with not so easy cases. Maybe the same as before.

<comment><USER10> What if a black person says "To all my n*ggers out there, x,y,z" on twitter, vs. a white person saying the same thing. Will the white person's tweet be removed, or both?

<comment><USER11> And how would Twitter know which race the tweeter identifies as?

<comment><USER12> Interesting point. How can anybody know? If I have a penis, under today's standards I can claim to be female. If I have caucasian ancestry, can I claim to be black? Why not?

<comment><USER13> There are people who claim to be "politically black", for whatever reason. [https://heatst.com/uk/nus-at-war-over-politically-black- anti...](https://heatst.com/uk/nus-at-war-over-politically-black-antisemitic- president-a-rachel-dolezal/)

More substantive comment: why do we care about a person's race or gender when they use particular words?

<comment><USER14> Because all of these factors will necessarily have to be taken into account when we come up with our speech rules, don't you see?

Sure it's complex, convoluted, and controversial.. but as long as we put the right people in charge to make the decisions for us, it will all work out fairly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a name for this, it's a censorship. And in long terms it just doesn't work. Look at EU, almost all countries there have very restrictive laws against the hate speech and spreading of the racial/religious hatred, and yet far-right political options are winning all over Europe... by banning people and ideas from mainstream soc. networks they'll just push them into underground, which will make them even more appealing to young... being banned on FB will be a way to show that you are cool...

<comment><USER16> Correct.

The nuance in the US is that this is censorship by corporation, not by government, so extant laws against censorship (which are aimed at the government) don't apply.

I think it's past time that corporations for social media of a certain "size" be recognized as _public_ fora, and a body of law be developed regarding their behavior and responsibilities. Facebook, Google, etc, should _not_ be censoring. Where this gets tricky is that both the corporation and the internet tends to span borders, so jurisdiction becomes very complex. Someone in country A uses a service in country B to interact with someone in country C. Which country's laws apply?

That is the problem. In the absence of legitimate power, illegitimate power is operative, and today that is Facebook and Twitter; they are serving de facto as quasi-governmental entities regulating interactions between citizens, since real governments have been unable to do so.

<comment><USER17> At some point, these platforms become "utilities" and should be regulated similarly to other utilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Removing hate speech means you have to define it in the first place. As soon as that line is drawn in the sand, it gains the ability to move. When it moves, it means anyone can eventually gain the power to move it. When that happens, it means that good and bad people can move it. When bad people eventually move it, you're in a pinch. That's why you don't draw in the sand.

<comment><USER19> What that means you need to define good and bad people in the first place. On a serious note I completely agree with you as right now hate speech is about race, gender & body shaming which is the current line in sand. Soon nationality, sub-races, religion, region & sub-regions, individuals, comic characters and pretty soon actual corporations will be add to the things you can't hate on.

<comment><USER20> Sorry to be the one to point this out, but we're already there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Then, a few years down the road, it'll have slid down the slippery slope to include anything that could hurt someone's feelings. This has been what's happened to all of society over the past few decades and Facebook and Twitter will be no different.

<comment><USER22> I used to agree with your basic sentiment. I'm still a strong believer in free speech, including speech that causes discomfort to those who hear it.

However, we live in a world that focuses violence on specific individuals, depending on their race, class, gender, religion, and a number of other factors. Our everyday actions are part of that system. Sometimes we help focus that violence, usually without realizing it. This is true of victims of violence as well as those who are not targeted.

What is our responsibility? Ignore the situation?

I'll tell you this: Feelings do get hurt, but the problem is not hurt feelings. The problem is the poverty & oppression baked into our system. A system that supports some people (definitely me) while making life incredibly hard for others.

Is removing hate speech going to stop these problems? Absolutely not.

Would I have any problem removing hate speech from the discussion community I run? Absolutely not.

Would the good people at Ycombinator have any issue removing hate speech from Hacker News? Absolutely not.

Does that hurt your feelings?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Evangelical Christianity is a fantastic example of the slippery slope these sorts of actions create. I doubt anyone here would say most evangelical churches violate the legal ideals of free speech, but they've been extremely vigilant in maintaining group think on many controversial topics and anyone who goes against the group ideals is immediately shunned and treated as "other". This has created a feedback loop where they are now so far detached from mainstream Christianity* many are trying to classify it as it's own sect and in some cases it's own religion. Thus there has been practically no progress in evangelical theology within the past 20 years (Revelations fear mongering not withstanding), and as a result has lead to some seriously unscientific beliefs (that aren't even compatible with their own faith!) and severely detrimental societal interactions with the greater world.

Extremely interesting to find those who look upon those same Evangelicals with contempt and hatred are following the exact same path.

* inb4 someone who's never been to an evangelical church service tries to claim evangelical christianity _is_ mainstream

<comment><USER24> Could you be a bit more specific? As I understand it, "evangelical" just means the church tries to get more members (i.e. evangelizing)

...which describes pretty much all of them.

What's the difference?

<comment><USER25> > As I understand it, "evangelical" just means the church tries to get more > members

"Evangelical" is a label that was adopted by a specific group within Christian Protestantism that was reacting against specific elements that were seen as problematic within Fundamentalism (it was essentially a dissident offshoot of Fundamentalism) -- the term had some prior use, which in part inspired the label selected, but that's now pretty much its exclusive use when used to describe a subset of Christianity.

In some respects, some of those disagreements have faded over time; there's a lot of overlap in terms of both religious ideas and relation of religion to civil society between Fundamentalists and some subset of Evangelicals, though the range of Evangelical views is still broader. Its not uncommon for people outside of either movement to use "Evangelical" and "Fundamentalist" interchangeably.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> An example: Facebook removing _actual_ statistics on campus rape (i.e., "hate speech") and kowtowing to the completely false SJW/feminist narrative that 1/4 college women are raped.

[https://i.sli.mg/oNjASl.jpg](https://i.sli.mg/oNjASl.jpg)

<comment><USER27> Ehh... This is more like "don't post stuff that offends me and makes me scared for my safety".

That's the real danger with censorship. Anyway, Facebook as the social platform is on its way out, but the brilliant fucker that Zucks is, he is buying up everything that remains relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a direct consequence of the world wide web turning from a self- publishing culture (blogging + RSS) to a posting culture (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)

It's trivial to exert political and social pressure globally. I'm not trying to be polemic nor alarmist but, when you centralize the primary social exchange for almost 2 billion people on one network, these are the effects.

People need to start thinking for themselves and see that by using a service like these they are only seeing part of the whole.

To be fair, most people probably won't care too much about what's outside the walls of the garden. And further, the walls of the garden aren't terribly high nor hard to come over. It's easier and simpler than ever to start a blog. It's easier still to make a Facebook account.

People who care enough to make the trivial amount of effort to publish outside the system should and we as developers should make it even easier, safer and lower friction. Let's Encrypt, cheap and easy static hosting, static site generators, etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find it interesting that, in this thread, most of the reasons to support this type of thing resort to the lowest common denominator as the reason to support it.

"This could be used to silence opposing viewpoints!"

"You mean like rape and death threats? Why do you support that? You're a disgusting racist bigot!"

As if that's the only type of free expression the naysayers are talking about. It's kind of sad really.

Imagine the surprise when some of these people supporting such things find out it's their turn to have their opposing viewpoint stifled.

</comment><comment><USER10> You reap what you sow: [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

"Twitter and Facebook aren't violating your free speech rights. They just think you are an a __hole and are showing you the door. "

<comment><USER29> Having watched both of the available trailers for the new Ghostbusters movie, I think I will very much dislike it and have no intentions of watching it. By the measure of many prominent online media publications and verified Twitter users, this alone makes me a misogynist, hate mongering, intolerant man-child [1].

[https://heatst.com/entertainment/angry-video-game-nerd- james...](https://heatst.com/entertainment/angry-video-game-nerd-james-rolfe- will-be-right-about-ghostbusters-being-terrible/)

But Twitter et al. support that sort of hate speech, while my opinion would be happily suppressed because of all of the hate people would stamp onto it.

<comment><USER10> That's because if you dislike the trailer, it's obviously because you dislike women (or at least movies empowering women), which makes you misogynistic.

<comment><USER30> Not liking something that has women in it is not the same as not liking something because it has women in it, but thank you for trying to tell me what I'm thinking.

For example: Not liking a gathering of wives of KKK members is not the same as not liking all women.

<comment><USER10> I was being sarcastic. I didn't think I needed the "/s" but apparently I was wrong.

<comment><USER31> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This call for action seems rather unorganized and vague.

What does this even mean:

"The companies also agreed to promote "independent counter-narratives" to fight hate speech, including content promoting non-discrimination, tolerance and respect."

Are they trying to stop ISIS or please offended snowflakes? Doing both is a heroic task which will leave millions disenfranchised. Will this open the market for new social media platforms?

<comment><USER33> It's probably best to go to the EU press release: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-16-1937_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-16-1937_en.htm)

It's still a bit vague, but it will give you a better idea. I think the focus is terrorism and outright racism more than offended snowflakes. From the release: "The European Court of Human Rights set out the important distinction between content that 'offends, shocks or disturbs the State or any sector of the population' and content that contains genuine and serious incitement to violence and hatred. The Court has made clear that States may sanction or prevent the latter."

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Social media is not directly subject to the first amendment. However, there is a legitimate problem if entities that monopolize a communication channel apply subjective censorship; it's a threat to the first amendment, an American principle, if the mass can't actually carry out free speech. It can be argued that online speech has now been monopolized by a few entities; while I don't think that's entirely true, there's a nugget of truth in there. If Facebook, which now wants to be more of a media company than just a place for cat pictures, controls an obscenely large portion of online communication, that means they(a small number of people in reality) can have far too much influence in political discussion, freedom of expression, etc. While the side of me that's liberatarian says that people can simply not use Facebook if they don't like it, saying that alone is not going to stop the mass in the center of the bell curve from subjecting themselves to censorship, which indirectly subjects myself and others to that same censorship. What can make this worse is the continuing implosion of Twitter. If we want people to have some retain modicum of responsibility(i.e. just unfriend/unfollow/block), censorship that oversteps reasonable boundaries needs to be challenged, and our government can do that if they impose on free speech.(whether or not that actually happens, idk)

</comment><comment><USER35> We need to flag it, not delete it. Pretending this stuff doesn't exist isn't doing anyone any favors. It's far better to have a public record of who is posting this stuff. Let them advertise themselves, and let's deal with them. That's progressive. Censorship is for communists.

For a blanket solution I would suggest a "safe feed" default where tweets flagged as hate speech are removed from your feed. Also have a hate counter in profiles so the number of hate tweets is public information. Then if the user wishes to delete them and have no hate on record, they can. What the manual mod team would need to do is review unflagging requests. Flagging can be done by the community, and most of them will be right. Unflagging and malicious flagging is the right problem to focus on, not whether or not to delete something (minus cases where it's the law).

<comment><USER36> I've had remarkably similar ideas rolling around in my head for the past couple of years, watching various viral controversies work their way through Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia. I disagree with the idea of a "hate counter," though, because it would encourage people to self-segregate and I think it's wrong to reduce people to their worst attributes. Everyone has the potential to make a positive contribution in at least some niche.

I would just add that my ideal system would have a plethora of highly objective, undeniable flags for a variety of potentially disruptive behaviors; posters would be required to disclaim or "pre-flag" their own posts; and readers would have the ability to toggle which flags they're willing to view at any given moment. The punishment for failing to disclaim a flag would be a period of probation (increasing with repeated violations) where the user's posts are automatically disclaimed for that flag. The punishment for malicious flagging, as judged by a group of users with a long history of proper use of a particular flag, would be probation with regard to the ability to use that flag on others' posts.

I expect that the "off-topic" flag, along with the ability to rigorously define the topic in any given context, would get a lot of use, as would "name calling," "assigning motives or attributes to a group" (aka "broad brushing"), and "expressing incredulity" (aka the starting-your-comment-with-"Um..." flag).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The only possible way this scales is if they run on a report-based system.

Result: A group of mildly-dedicated trolls can pull anything they want from Facebook and Twitter by bombing them with flags. These events are miniscule in the grand scheme of millions of posts per day the sites get, so nothing will ever be done about the abuse, leaving those that complain to look like a loud, perpetually-dissatisifed minority.

Hate Speech is now the Worst Thing Ever® on the internet, so Facebook and Twitter now get to claim "Look! We did something! Witness us!"

<comment><USER37> Isn't Facebook already using an automated report system?

<comment><USER24> Yeah. Which means in order to meet this goal, they'd probably need to _lower_ the threshold before automatic action is taken.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What ever happened to the principle "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This is about putting the lid on views of their citizens that European governments don't like. Disappointed that Twitter and Facebook are giving into this in Europe when they wouldn't in China.

</comment><comment><USER39> This makes me uneasy, but not for the reason other people are saying. By committing to a 24 hour response time, they seem to be committing to a response strategy that doesn't involve any investigation. There's a risk that they'll end up removing important speech, and things that are only borderline in their questionability.

</comment><comment><USER40> Defining hate speech is a fuzzy problem. Are we talking about a union of definitions from everyone, or an intersection, or is the answer the ubiquitous "it depends"?

</comment><comment><USER41> again, just to reiterate my unwavering unpopular viewpoint: having a single entity (or 2-3 colluding entities) control vaste swathes of the internet is fucking insane.

* 1 - 2 last mile providers per area.

* google virtually entire world search engine (pagerank variations used in every major one)

* facebook controls most of the worlds personal account info / verification

* twitter realtime sentiment and data broadcast.

facebook and twitter are less dangerous than time warner and google, but facebook is still massively dangerous because a real fb account is more proveable than a ssn. its 10 digits vs, 10 years of your digital life, including any part of your life that ws important to someone else. I still don't get this:

> I have a backup of my application data on aws in several regions, I also > have a replicated backup on azure, and I push to tarsnap every quarter just > in case.

This viewpoint considered pragmatic and best practice.

> We should allow Google & Baidu to essentially control the onboarding, > searching, verification, security, document storage, mobile, transmission, > DNS, and CA on the internet.

this is fine. If you don't like it, use duckduckgo or bing's version of pagerank.

\- everyone

</comment><comment><USER38> American tech companies shouldn't indulge censorship, even if it seems well intentioned, the scope is promised to be limited, and the pressure from governments is immense. They also shouldn't try to pick political winners by promoting the social campaigns and positions of the EC, as they've promised (citation below).

What is legitimate speech should not be determined by whoever is in power. Europe has tried that on several occasions. It never goes well. Just imagine if Donald Trump could declare what speech was considered legal and illegal. Perhaps we're getting a preview from Erdogan in Turkey right now.

This situation appears to be an attempt to suppress dissenting views (largely on immigration, border control, and refugee/asylum policy) following shifts in public opinion away from European integration and establishment incumbents like the CDU/CSU and SPD and toward nationalism and political parties like AfD in Germany, FPO in Austria, and FN in France. Since November Merkel has been pressuring Facebook to sanitize the platform of negative views toward migrants. It is troubling that leaders can punish their citizens for views that break from their policies. State police have even conducted house raids on those promoting "incorrect opinions" toward migrants on social media (citation below). We are not talking about physical threats, we're talking about opinions. Facebook and Twitter should not enable what has become, in a very literal sense, thought police.

If there are window-licking asshats posting nonsense on social media, let's challenge their views and win the debate. Democracy is about more speech, not less. I hope Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft haven't drifted so far from their original principles that they've lost sight of that.

[http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in- crackdown-o...](http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-crackdown-on- right-wing-hate-speech/a-18845429)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36416967](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36416967)

<comment><USER42> > American tech companies shouldn't indulge censorship

I'm all for free speech, but US companies should follow the local laws. US tech companies aren't above the law, especially when they do business in foreign countries (selling ads is doing business). It sucks but going against the laws doesn't work in the long run. You can get away with it when you're a young US start up and you don't have offices in France,Germany or Austria, but as soon as you do, you are effectively subject to local laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Who gets to define what hate speech is?

<comment><USER44> The website where the speech is published to. They don't try to define hate speech in absolute, just define what they don't want to be associated with. Yes it's a slippery slope, but it's just this website opinion.

<comment><USER45> As much as it's annoying, people tend to forget those websites are private companies, not charity or gov entities. They can do whatever they want as long it's legal. They don't have in any way humanity interests in mind, it's silly to expect them to take a stand on any other directions than the one benifiting them.

<comment><USER46> The EU is defining "hate speech" as illegal. This isn't an initiative led by the companies.

<comment><USER47> Hate speech is already illegal in most of EU (you can go to jail for it). Trouble is, this was not enforced properly on social networks, they went "we don't care" and law enforcement didn't know what to do. This became a big problem during the refugee crisis, and several extreme far-right parties across Europe started using social media as their preferred medium (and the Russian propaganda machine is using it too). And they won big in several elections. So first Germany made a deal with Facebook and now the EU did it for all EU countries. I really do hope this will work to stop the propagation of hate speech at least a bit, otherwise several countries will be governed by neonazis in a few years, and even the EU itself might break. This is serious.

<comment><USER48> > I really do hope this will work to stop the propagation of hate speech at > least a bit, otherwise several countries will be governed by neonazis in a > few years, and even the EU itself might break. This is serious.

That's hilarious. You basically said "People who don't have the right opinions should go to jail!". Maybe if your governments had attempted to explain why the far-right is wrong instead of suppressing them, they would have been less radical. You can't just sweep the thoughts and emotions of your people under the rug, even (especially) if they are unpalatable to you, and hell, to me as well.

<comment><USER47> No, I did not say that, and did not mean that, they just have to stop the messages from spreading massively (right or wrong does not really mean a lot now). Trouble is, social media is new, it is very effective in spreading a message - any message really - and the society (and state institutions are a part of the society) did not yet adapt to it. The controlling mechanisms, the culture around the new medium, are not really there yet. So this is the dangerous time when fringe forces are trying to exploit it for evil purposes. And it is not impossible they will succeed in this, like they succeeded in radicalizing the masses in the 20's and 30's with different media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> You can have any opinion you want as long as it agrees with our's. Everything else is hate speech.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm sure Facebook will use the same even-handed approach to this that they used on the curation of their trending news topics.

</comment><comment><USER51> What is the difference between Hate Speech and Newspeak? When do we cross over the line from good intentions to thoughtcrime? Is the best way to end racial, religious, or sexual discrimination to hide it or to lambaste those who would propagate it?

</comment><comment><USER52> It is absolutely stunning and sickening that so many otherwise intelligent people cannot (or refuse to) grasp the simple concept that banning any speech or free expression is the opposite of having "free speech". It doesn't matter if the government (or some other entity) designates that speech as "hate speech", offensive, false, defamatory, or anything else. You either have free speech, or you don't. You cannot partially restrict free speech. Restricted speech is not free. Freedom is dangerous. If we were all locked in our own individual, soundproof cells all the time, nobody would be in danger of being assaulted or offended. That is not a free society. In a free society, you are constantly at risk.

It would be bad enough if censorship, fascism, and bondage were being inflicted upon us by domineering overseers using violence and sheer force. It is far more disgusting and disheartening that so many of my fellow human beings are actually embracing and endorsing this authoritarianism. Unfortunately, it looks like the human race is going to get what its asking for.

</comment><comment> awinter-py hate speech = political speech = speech

Said another way -- when a community needs to have an immune system to produce the result it wants, the community has already failed.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think there are a number of things that can probably be done to address harassment on social media which don't significantly infringe on free speech.

One possibility might be to allow users to set a rate limit on replies to a particular message for people they haven't white listed.

(So, like, if more than 20 "strangers" reply to a public post that one makes, it wouldn't allow further replies. But only if the person who made the post wanted it like that.)

Other possibilities include checking if many people went to an account from the same other account mentioning it, which, there would be ways around that, but, it seems like it could still help. (also as an optional thing)

Some of these are kind of weak but I think some things could be done.

Note that none of these prevent anyone from saying anything to anyone who wants to listen. It just makes it harder for people to say things to someone who doesn't want to hear them.

This seems like a fairly safe thing.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is why it's important for people to understand that the First Amendment is a very unique thing in the world.

<comment><USER55> You don't understand the 1st amendment bro. The 1st amendment only stops the US Government from censoring speech. Private companies can do whatever they want.

<comment><USER54> So the EU (the government) directing a private company to censor things is OK with you? Or did you not understand what I was referring to/making a comparison of?

Bro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> So, removing hateful comments about...

southerners?

people who "cling to god and guns"?

Americans?

Fundamentalists? Catholics? Mormons?

the NSA?

Trump?

Brussels sprouts?

ISIS?

NAMBLA?

Adolf Hitler?

</comment><comment><USER57> I completely understand this move. It seems logical enough, and it's much like what Reddit has done/is doing banning certain hateful subreddits. Advertisers don't want to advertise with companies who are known to host hate-speech or anything of that caliber. However, a move like this is essentially going down the rabbit's hole: you can never get to the bottom. Who decides what constitutes hate speech? No doubt, certain groups will claim they are being censored much like what happened recently with Facebook and conservatives. It may seem like a perfectly good move, but it's just not viable in the long- term.

<comment><USER20> Especially when sometimes this is being forced by a group of people who seem to be professional complainers. First they cut out 10% of the users for this violation, then another 10% of the smaller group for that violation, then another 10% of the new smaller group for another violation, and so on and so on. Eventually you're just left with the complainers, who'll just move onto another platform to start over with the complaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> > Big tech companies have also met U.S. government officials earlier this year > to discuss how to stop ISIS from recruiting terrorists on social media. The > Obama administration had asked the companies to develop techniques to detect > radicalization, and block pro-ISIS messages, photos and videos.

Assuming the messages could be accurately detected, wouldn't it make more sense to allow them to continue and flag them for spying, and find the people sending them? If they're blocked from Twitter, they'll just move on to some less easily accessible platform.

</comment><comment><USER59> Meh, I've seen Facebook and Twitter's standard response to racially motivated death-threats. Deciding it's within the terms of service faster isn't going to change much.

</comment><comment><USER60> Goooood luck. I have reported so much neo-Nazi scum posts, people and groups, and guess what? Not a single one got blocked, despite Hakenkreuzes, refugee hating and other stuff that's outright illegal in Germany. It took over two years to block "Anonymous.Kollektiv", a fake "anonymous" site spreading extreme right-wing hate - and it isn't even certain that Facebook blocked them; many people suspect Mario Roensch to have shut it down voluntarily after he failed at opsec and subsequently got outed on mass media; now he's on the run with multiple warrants.

Meanwhile, Facebook threatened to block "Kein Mensch ist illegal", a 122k-liked pro-refugee page, and its administrator got suspended for 30 days for posting a sourced, valid image ([http://kein-mensch-ist- illegal.org/fb.jpg](http://kein-mensch-ist-illegal.org/fb.jpg)) which shows that 90% of religious muslims like democracy and 28% of right-wing AfD allied people hate democracy with further 61% being frustrated with democracy. All in all, nothing that violates any FB rule. It took mass-media outrage for FB to rescind the block.

As long as FB repeatedly and openly rather allies with neo-Nazi illegal crap and instead bans admins and pro-refugee pages (because Nazis regularly organize "flagging" contests), I won't trust them.

</comment><comment><USER61> Orwell rolls in his grave

<comment><USER62> Actually, it would be Huxley rolling in his grave. Orwell was about government/"the system" oppression. Since these are private citizens/companies doing this, it's more inline with Brave New World.

<comment><USER63> Huxley/BNW

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> It's fascinating to see what criteria they will consider hate speech.

Facebook is usually fast to act on any reports, so I've been able to test what they allow and what they have removed.

A black girl making fun of Asians and calling them stupid and "chinky ass" was left up.

A white guy calling black people "ghetto" was removed.

A white guy calling Mexicans "wet backs" was left up.

I'm not sure what they are counting as hate speech, and what they aren't, as those posts appear to have been moderated by an actual human. I guess it depends on the time of day, and the attitude of the person judging the content.

</comment><comment><USER19> enum HATESPEECH_FACTORS { Race, Religion, Nationality, Feminism, Obesity }

<comment><USER65> Sad but true. "Removing hate speech" is a codeword for "removing right wing ideas".

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I'm sure this won't be abused at all...

</comment><comment><USER67> The upside is that when we figure out how to stop hate speech, we can apply the same solution to spam, and finally be rid of it.

</comment><comment><USER68> Old news, Facebook has been working very closely with the German Government to protect poor little Merkel from being criticized.

<comment><USER69> Do you have evidence of this? I would imagine censoring mainstream dissident speech would be quite a controversy...

<comment><USER38> [http://www.dw.com/en/mark-zuckerbergs-offensive-on-hate- spee...](http://www.dw.com/en/mark-zuckerbergs-offensive-on-hate- speech/av-19083482)

[http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in- crackdown-o...](http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-crackdown-on- right-wing-hate-speech/a-18845429)

And one on a "mainstream dissident" that's quite controversial: [http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/15/europe/germany-erdogan-joke- pr...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/15/europe/germany-erdogan-joke-prosecution/)

Also, while we're on the topic of "slippery slope": [http://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-suspends- darthputinkg...](http://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-suspends- darthputinkgb-account-mocking-vladimir-putin-russia-spoof-parody-social- media/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> just an excuse for censorship

<comment><USER10> How can the world's ultimate nanny state function without proper censorship?

<comment><USER70> total transparency? i.e. everybody sees what fb/google/etc sees...

... what then!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This thread is another proof of HN's immaturity and lack of empathy. The slippery slope arguments are comical.

</comment><comment><USER72> I think being nice to each other on twitter and facebook will be okay.

</comment><comment><USER73> Is Facebook going to delete Ramzan Kadyrov's Instagram then?

</comment><comment><USER74> Autoplay video on CNN, I hate the internet.

</comment><comment><USER75> I wonder what is hate speech. Is HBD hate speech? Is crime statistics hate speech?

<comment><USER76> As an ex-Muslim, I am concerned they're gonna classify criticism of Islam as hate speech or "racism" and remove it. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Considering that the definition of "hate speech" has already morphed into anyone addressing race, sex, gender, national origin, religion, etc. it seems we have already arrived at such a vile place you described. It absolutely boggles the mind to realize that we are living in a world that is imploding on itself through self-immolation and self-doubt and self-destruction.

I guess the cry-bully crowd will be happy once the west and the civilization and peace and prosperity it has brought to the world and provided them is left in a crumpled heap an we are all so fortunate as the rest of the noble savage world that does not indulge in the "privilege" of freedom, liberties, free speech, individual rights, self-determination, competition, etc.

The blessings of socialist nirvana will soon be upon us and we will all be equally destitute once everything has been torn down in an infantile fits of social rage and tantrum akin to what led up to the dark ages.

<comment><USER78> >... _in an infantile fits of social rage and tantrum_...

And yet you've given us quite the example already!

<comment><USER77> Do you feel better after trying to be passive aggressively insulting? Let me guess, you have no comprehension for the fact that your comment is precisely the kind of infantile tantrum I was referring to; in the absence of argument or fact, you resort to flaccid attempts at insult to make yourself feel better in an attempt at abating the discomfort that comes from the cognitive dissonance of reality penetrating the artificial boundaries of your self- delusion.

Don't worry, I don't expect you to understand that and very much expect the same kind of defensive reaction you just exhibited. Don't worry, you can continue fooling yourself into believing you are correct.

<comment><USER78> I'm just making an observation -- that's all. Looks like I hit it right on the mark.

<comment><USER79> We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines.

(We've also banned the other account for breaking the HN guidelines egregiously in a different thread, even worse than in this one).

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807079) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> we are witnessing the end of twitter.

<comment><USER81> Twitter has been an insolvent rotting corpse for quite some time.

Taking the company public only revealed their financials for everyone to see and confirmed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Do these count as American companies? If so, is there not some violation of the First Amendment?

> The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution > prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, > impeding the free exercise of religion, ___abridging the freedom of speech_ > __, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to > peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental > redress of grievances.

<comment><USER62> _...prohibits the making of any law..._

Facebook and Twitter have no ability to make laws.

<comment><USER83> They don't, but they hire people who do. Otherwise why do they (and Google and Microsoft) spend so much time and money in D.C.?</comment></comment></comment>


The Quality, Popularity, and Negativity of 5.6M Hacker News Comments - <AUTHOR> http://minimaxir.com/2014/10/hn-comments-about-comments/ <comment><USER2> > Therefore, starting in 2014, both quantity and quality are on a downward > trend.

Or people have gotten bored with upvoting, or it's lost its novelty, or those most interested in boosterism and show support by upvoting, have moved elsewhere, or people tend to upvote accounts/people they know but the HN user base has gotten too large for the halo effect to be significant.

> What's surprising is how few comments have 0 or fewer points: this shows > that HN users do not like downvoting.

It shows that HN uses do not like downvoting _below 1_. There may those who downvote if and only if the comment is not already "an aesthetically- displeasing gray" and a larger percentage who upvote mild 0s to turn them to 1s.</comment>


The Origins of the Motto, "Don't Be Evil" - <AUTHOR> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/07/no-evil/ <comment><USER2> So Google started to use the motto in early 2002 and stopped using it in 2015. What year did they start to do evil and which event do you consider their first act of evil?

<comment><USER3> They haven't stop using it. It's still there. The question is when they started ignoring it. Also, doing evil is very different from being evil. Using them interchangeably as you have will only lead to confusion.

[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of- conduct.html](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html)</comment></comment>


Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans set up vote to expand FBI spying - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-fbi-emails-idUSKCN0Z7056 <comment><USER2> While slightly off topic, what don't right wing people (and a few left wings, namely Feinstein) understand about encryption? The right wind peddles the claim that "if guns are banned, only criminals will have guns" yet seems to fail to understand that if encryption is banned, only criminals will use encryption.

Can someone enlighten me on this besides just "they're stupid" (the anti-gun movement is viewed as stupid and uneducated by pro-gun people)?

<comment><USER3> You seem to be asking how people can so publicly be hypocrites. The fact is that they're not all stupid. They're mostly scared[1][2][3], but some are paid off by lobbyists[4]. (I'm not even sure how we would define stupid. Being stubbornly ideological doesn't always mean someone is smarter, since pragmatism requires compromise and therefore hypocrisy.)

Conservatives in the US think that they're safer if gun ownership increases or that they're safer if they carry a gun or both. They also think they're safer if we sacrifice some freedom in order to protect us from "suspected" "terrorists".

I personally think it's a terrible tradeoff most of the time and leads to tyranny, but I still wouldn't call it stupid.

1\. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human- beast/201104/...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human- beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds)

2\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2015/11/18/wh...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2015/11/18/why-fear-is-more-prevalent-and-powerful-among- conservatives/)

3\. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce- poli...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political- wars/)

4\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true- believ...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true-believers- converted-a-marksmanship-group-into-a-mighty-gun- lobby/2013/01/12/51c62288-59b9-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html)

<comment><USER4> In my experience, at least, safety is not the driving factor. Not unimportant, but also not primary.

It's more about self-reliance.

I know a pretty decent number of people with concealed weapons permits, and not one walks around in cloud of fear and suspicion. Nobody carries because they fear a mass shooting, or because they are afraid of being attacked.

I can also say with confidence that all of them hope to never need to use their weapons, outside of a range.

But, as the old saying goes, it is better to have and not need, than need and not have.

Hopefully this isn't too political for the mods; apologies if it is.

<comment><USER3> We're not exactly talking about people carrying handguns. We're talking more broadly about the ideology behind gun-rights support. Though unlikely, your friends who carry might support an AR-15 ban.

To address the tangent though: if they carry the gun, they do so because they think they might use it defensively. That is fear, to me. If people walked around in bulletproof vests, I'd say they were also doing it out of fear.

<comment><USER4> Given that they all, except one, own AR-15s -- it is the most popular rifle in the US for a reason -- I rather doubt they would support a ban.

It's not like one model of rifle is really any more or less lethal than another, after all.

As far as fear goes, if we apply the same logic, would it be fair to say that people who own fire extinguishers, train in CPR, wear seatbelts, own amateur radios, or use bike helmets also do so primarily out of fear?

<comment><USER3> > _It 's not like one model of rifle is really any more or less lethal than > another, after all._

That isn't true, because rates of fire, capacity, accuracy, and ammunition vary between rifles. An M1 Garand is just not going to kill the same way (or in the same quantities) as an AK-47, which can fire 10x rounds in the same amount of time.

> _fair to say that people who own fire extinguishers, train in CPR, wear > seatbelts, own amateur radios, or use bike helmets also do so primarily out > of fear?_

Yes, absolutely. In some cases, it's not their own fear, but rather society's fear (which results in regulations, like mandatory extinguishers and mandatory seatbelts). But, at its core, it's still a fear of something going wrong that has motivated those decisions.

What's wrong with fear? Fear is a vital emotion that sometimes helps us make great decisions and sometimes causes us to make terrible decisions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Snipt: Long-term memory for coders - <AUTHOR> http://forrst.com/posts/Snipt_Long_term_memory_for_coders-YDo

<comment><USER2> Personally I prefer to use github gists

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's my main competitor. Their API is lacking, though: <http://develop.github.com/p/gist.html>

So, I'm trying to fill that void.

<comment><USER3> GitHub beefed up the Gist API in v3: <http://developer.github.com/v3/gists/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, nice! Hadn't seen that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On the main page:

      GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON my_database.*
      TO 'my_user'@'localhost'
      IDENTIFIED BY 'my_password'
      WITH GRANT OPTION;

Couldn't have shown a better example!

</comment><comment><USER5> I like the "long-term memory for coders" tag line--it gets the idea across well.

I've been working on a project--Labradoc--that approaches a similar idea from a different direction: <http://www.labradoc.com/>

My goal is to encourage developers to take notes as they go to both help them and help other people looking for the information later. From my own experience I've found a "lab notebook" style of site has been valuable both for me and other people. And it tends to be pretty low overhead.

A longer term feature I was considering was making individual entries browsable as "tips" for particular technologies but that's still on the TODO list for me.

I think there's some interesting areas to explore in the spaces between services like GitHub gists, Stack Overflow and Instructables.

</comment><comment><USER6> This plus a vim plugin for browsing snips would be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> As soon as the API is built out (it's already kinda-sorta built: <http://snipt.net/api>), this should be trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like a neat service, but browsing the public javascript 'snips' there is a large amount of quite terrible code that i wouldn't recommend anyone uses.

Not that this is in any way detriment to the service itself which looks good, merely a warning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, definitely. The site started out as a place where I could organize my (private) command snippets, and kinda went from there. People wanted to make some public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Signed in with OpenID, and Snipt prompts me to make a new account. I don't wanna.

<comment><AUTHOR> OpenID is going up in a smoke for the new version. Back to traditional accounts.

<comment><USER9> Mind explaining why? I don't really need yet another account.

<comment><AUTHOR> OpenID is a PITA to support on the backend. It's another layer that doesn't need to exist. A bunch of providers are doing away with OpenID, like Slicehost, 37signals, etc.

From a UX perspective, I'm not convinced OpenID is any more convenient than a traditional u/p. I use 1Password to manage my logins, it works perfectly. For many other reasons, everyone should be using 1P or some password management program, as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, Slicehost might not be getting rid of it. Not sure where I got that info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Snippets rocks, but a big time GUI wouldn't be so bad. A killer feature like textexpander would blow the top off snipt.

<comment><USER11> I just took a look at it and was considering buying it. Does it have any sort of cross-computer or cloud synchronization? Or is that how Snipt is different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would be awesome if you could sort by the number of favorites.

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks like github gists without the versioning.

<comment><USER13> I don't think you can tag gists. Snipt's searching/tagging looks a little better.

<comment><USER14> Are the tags parsed our from the tools used or user provided?

<comment><AUTHOR> User provided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just in case you didn't want to use one of the other 1,000,000 options.

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't that what Evernote is for?

<comment><USER17> Personally I'm a big fan of Snippets for OS X (<http://www.snippetsapp.com/>) The killer feature is Command-Option-V to autocomplete the snippet you want to paste.

I gave up on Evernote because of the totally broken text formatting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Snippets is a nice app. I tried it a while back. If we can get them to interface with the Snipt API when it's finished, it'd be a great desktop UI for Snipt.

<comment><USER18> Do you need an integration with the Snipt to have your snippets available online? Any other reasons?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook users urged to check privacy settings - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/26/facebook-check-privacy-settings-public-post-search-index <comment><USER2> > The proposed settlement bars Facebook from making any further deceptive > privacy claims, requires that the company get consumers' approval before it > changes the way it shares their data, and requires that it obtain periodic > assessments of its privacy practices by independent, third-party auditors > for the next 20 years.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2011/11/faceb...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing- keep)

What's the point of FTC's "20 year privacy monitoring" of Facebook, if with each new update, Facebook resets everyone's privacy settings again and makes everything public? It only seems to confirm what I already believed when it happened - rather than being an actual oversight thing it's more like a "badge" Facebook gets to have for "complying with the privacy requirements" of FTC (even though it doesn't actually happen).</comment>


Controlling interfaces in the browser with JavaScript and the Kinect - <AUTHOR> http://blog.polarmobile.com/kinect-meets-mediaeverywhere/

<comment><USER2> We got started down the wrong path when Apple defined touch events and heuristics for faking mouse events from them. As a transitional measure a library like this is about all we can do for Kinect, but it is _not_ the right long-term solution.

If we all have to add special code to our apps and web pages for dealing with every input type (mouse, finger, Kinect, pen, eye-tracking, voice, etc.) it will severely limit the user's ability to interact with a device full of apps with varying levels of support. We need a unified set of actions and gestures that apply to all the input types. I'd love to see the W3C adopt Microsoft's MSPointer model, assuming Microsoft will let go of any patent claims.

</comment><comment><USER3> > and our solution involves many moving parts working in perfect unison

What did the full stack look like?

<comment><USER4> depth.js for the safari extension + a web plugin</comment></comment>


A new organ discovered in baleen whales - <AUTHOR> http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/a-new-organ-discovered-in-baleen-whales/

<comment><USER2> Let's just hope it doesn't taste good.

<comment><USER3> Its sad that this was my first thought too, that it would become some 'potent ingredient' in some dish like shark fin or rhino horn.

The last time I was in Hawaii we saw feeding whales as we crossed islands on the ferry. These are massive creatures that deserve our protection.

<comment><USER4> Not to disagree with you, but most all sea creature populations need protection these days, not just the large species…</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you come to the decision to sell your house? - <AUTHOR>

I bought a house four and a half years ago which, although it was more house (in terms of size) then I needed, it was well with within a respectable percentage of my salary.  Fast forward to today and I've put approximately $71K into the house and currently according to zillow / eappraisal I'm between 4K and 10K underwater.  I like the location and house but am not so attached to it that I wouldn't sell it.  I'm single in my mid thirties with no outstanding debt outside of the house.  I believe in honoring your debts but I also want to be pragmatic.  I've been unemployed for the last six months and while I could last longer by using my retirement savings I'm not sure it would be a good decision.  I keep seeing houses on the market that look equally as nice as mine for $30-50K less and part of me thinks the best strategy at this point would be to sell (short if I have to) this house and re-evaluate my situation a year or two down the road.  I looked at renting the entire house out but my mortgage agreement prevents it and while I can rent a room, rentals in my area are so cheap that finding a good renter has been difficult.<p>Even if I find a job tomorrow I'm unclear as to whether or not keeping the house is the best decision so I'm curious how others have come to the decision to sell their house. <comment><USER2> _I've been unemployed for the last six months and while I could last longer by using my retirement savings I'm not sure it would be a good decision._

I personally would not go into retirement for an asset that is underwater and that is most assuredly going to go underwater further. It is almost universally agreed among economist that have not been cheerleading for the past 5 years that inflation is coming, when it does house prices will decline further. That coupled with the mortgage fraud crisis means that housing recovery is a long way off.

Rationally looking at the situation you are below zero, putting your retirement into it, compounds the problem because you are not elevating the sinking asset while you are depleting hard cash. It's the old don't throw good money after bad.

 _I believe in honoring your debts but I also want to be pragmatic_

We each have to come to grips with what we find acceptable, some things to remember though are that you may have paid into mortgage insurance, to insure the home from a default. Some people see that as a ethical out, after-all if you paid into it you secured the bank from the event, you should be entitled to utilize it. Others find it ethically agreeable that the banks where bailed out with public money, and therefore the public has the right to in-turn ease the burden on themselves, it is the moral hazard argument that people raised in bailing out the banks. That if we did so, it would give people the ethical right to opt out of being the one holding the bag. It is a moral hazard but I do see both sides of the argument. For me personally I believe we are a civilization of people first, I know at this particular time we sometimes don't act like it, but my personal ethics are people are the most important. As such I believe no person should be asked to personally bear the brunt of any socitial issue, if an issue is causing suffering, which I consider financial hardship to be, then I think that we as a society should support them remedying that situation, even if it contributes to the problem. What we can't have is a class of entities like the banks who are able to pass the burden and then citizens, who are then expected to grin and bare it. To do so asks members of our society who have the least resources, to suffer for the common good. Personally I think we are long past the moral arguments of walking away, either by short sale or foreclosure. Asking homeowners to bare the cost of propping up the inflated housing market, when we did not do so with the banks is unethical in my world view. We as Americans seem to hold a double standard on issues like this, where companies are given a free pass, but yet the citizens are held to a code of honor. It leaves the population ripe for exploitation, by creating two distinct sets of rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> kls, Thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your answer. I may not have a choice in the matter but if I were to get a job does that change your outlook or at this point is any money put towards an underwater mortgage that is likely to decline further "throwing good money after bad"?

<comment><USER2> I think we are looking at at least 10% more losses in housing and possible as much as 20% with a long flat period in demand after that. Please keep in mind I an not an economist nor is finance my trade, but I do listen to a lot of the economist that where right about the situation and have continued to be right. They see the bottom anywhere down to 20% more. If I personally where in your position, I would cut my losses now, given that you do not know what tomorrow will bring. Even if tomorrow brings a job, you are in a better financial position by walking. Especially if you have enough in savings to pick up another house once the market bottoms. To me you are in an ethically good situation to do it, and it makes the most financial sense. If it where me personally I would not seek to do a short sale as you have already chased it down to where you are at retirement funds, destroying yourself to honor an obligation should not be expected, which is a possibility because you will be responsible for payments while it is in short sale and demand is too far down to take the bet that it will sell soon. As well not that this should affect your decision, but foreclosures have taken several years to go through, with the mortgage fraud in some states they are virtually stopped and do not look to be starting up anytime soon. If you do choose to default, you will be in the home for a long time, you can utilize this time to rebuild your life. If you chose to vacate it, it would sit empty for that period, and in may cases the banks prefer that the owner remain in the home so that it is not stripped or vandalized while all the legal process is worked out. If you would like to talk more about it please email me, my email is in my profile. I had a good friend go through this situation, so I am familiar with the turmoil.

<comment><AUTHOR> kls - Thanks again I really appreciate it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stealing content was never easier than with HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/01/26/stealing-content-was-never-easier-than-with-html5/

<comment><USER2> Alright here's an idea, why don't you protect your content server side?

If user is logged in and user payed for music: stream, otherwise don't.

Simple isn't it? Few lines of code.

If you however want to cripple access to the music even after purchased, then simply pick your favorite already existing DRM technology, that is probably already cracked anyway, or invent your own that will be probably cracked anyway. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

And here is even more material on this matter: <http://xkcd.com/488/>

</comment><comment><USER3> sorry, how is flash content save from being copied? As soon as, I can display it on my screen I can record it. It can be even easily scripted (a friend of mine did sth. like that for a streaming page a while back). Also flash or any proprietary plugin solution won't help you. As soon as it gains any traction, there will be "save video" plugins for firefox, chrome etc.

Is this really a problem? If you are scared about smb. stealing your content, you probably shouldn't put it on the Internet ;)

<comment><USER4> _If you are scared about smb. stealing your content, you probably shouldn't put it on the Internet ;)_

Tell that to the big broadcasting sites like NBC or The Daily Show.

Even though its technically possible to save their videos right now, they would be extremely reluctant to switch to a mechanism that would make it downright trivial.

Finally, it could end up being the iOS and Android mobile devices that push content providers towards HTML 5, figuring the benefits of streaming to mobiles offsets the perceived downside of making video easy to save to disk.

<comment><USER5> Protect static content behind authentication? Hosting static files naked is almost _asking_ for them to be hotlinked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just like this one and that guy who wanted to block Firefox because of Adblock hurting ads revenue, people don't realize that as soon as you download a web page, you can do whatever you want with it.

</comment><comment><USER7> So? The web grew to the size it is partly because people could look at how other people were doing things and, well, learn from it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Worthless flamebait.

You can embed other people's images, css and other files, the world still turns.

<comment><AUTHOR> The article's rubbish but some of the comments are amazing though.

Like the fact that the guy in charge of HTML(5) closed a feature request for DRM as WONTFIX with the blunt comment "DRM is evil".

<http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10902#c8>

And the guy (from Opera?) explaining how to do basic server side obfuscation of HTML video/audio file links to equal basic Flash obfuscation.

[http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/01/26/stealing-content-was- nev...](http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/01/26/stealing-content-was-never-easier- than-with-html5/comment-page-1/#comment-26043)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth pointing out that per his byline, this guy is a "Adobe platform evangelist".</comment>


Neovim's Next Feature Poll - <AUTHOR> http://neovim.org/development-wiki/polls/ <comment><USER2> I am convinced that Vim's greatest asset and risk is Bram Moolenar. Bram is a talented, experienced developer, and I commend him for creating Vim. But he is the only person with write access to Vim's codebase. The primary author of NeoVim is Thiago de Arruda. Thiago tried to work with Bram, but was rejected.[1] Patches similar to Thiago's have been proposed before, but were also rejected.[2] It is for this reason that Thiago has forked Vim, and I wish him luck.

It's important to remember that everyone involved is trying to improve Vim as they see it. I think this is a prime example of how the benevolent dictatorship model can fail.

1\. [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/65jjGqS1_VQ](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/65jjGqS1_VQ)

2\. [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/-4pqDJfHCsM%...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vim_dev/-4pqDJfHCsM%5B1-25-false%5D)

<comment><USER3> Do users mind that in your words Moolenar is a risk to vim, though? Are people specifically interested in the advancement of vim or just more generally in the progress of vim-like text editors, in which case they can happily switch to neovim if it becomes better than vim?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please, please implement multi-cursor support. For anyone that doesn't agree, please read my previous post on HN on the topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1625382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1625382)

I wrote to Thiago about this already, but we don't even need multi-cursor support - just a few additional hooks so we can implement a multi-cursor plugin.

Although to be honest, making it part of core is vastly preferable, since it is a _hard_ feature to get right (e.g., how do you deal with copy-pasting into multiple-cursors)?

<comment><USER5> What problems can you solve with multi-cursors that you can't with actual features like block selection?

<comment><USER4> Simple (very common example):

<pre> .some-css-rule { padding-left:50px; padding-right:50px; } </pre>

Say I want to edit those two numbers. With multi-cursors, it's as simple as select one number, hitting a button that causes the other number to be selected, then writing the new value.

Now, after I wrote it, I realize I forgot to put a space after the colon, and want to change the formatting. No problem - I just make the change to the first line, and the next line follows.

Same as macros? Kind of. But let's say I make a mistake in the macro, e.g., I move the cursor left to the beggining of the line letter-by-letter instead of hitting "home", which is a killer for a macro since each line is a different length. (this is a contrived example a real vim'er will never do, but there are plenty of real examples of 'oops forgot about that' things when recording macros).

Anyway, when I run my macro, suddenly things won't work, and then undoing and starting the re-record process takes time. But if I'm doing this with mulitple-cursors, I see _right away, visually_ that something's wrong, and it's _easy to fix_ \- I just hit "home" after moving the cursor left.

And note - this is a drop-dead-simple use case that happens 10's of times a day for any css programmer. Similarly, most programmers will run into cases where they have two similar if blocks one after another, or two similar "except" blocks, and so on.

And that's not even going into lots of other, very powerful cases, like taking a function that gets a list of paramaters, and being able to easily manipulate these paramaters, e.g. given "foo(a, b, c, d, e)", I can easily multi-cursor all the commas, then copy all the params, then paste them after the func definition, hit enter, and I've got a list of all the params after the function definition. And this isn't hard, at all! I visually see everything I'm doing as I do it, and if something goes wrong, I fix it on the spot.

I could ramble more about this, but I think I've either convinced you I'm crazy, or at least to try multi-cursors out :)

<comment><USER6> If you do this kind of editing daily, then executing the following commands would become second nature

:s/50/60/g

:s/:/: /g

No need to touch the mouse or use macros. Many use-cases for multiple cursors are satisfied by the core functionality of vim, however they may not be immediately obvious.

<comment><USER7> Trivial counter-example:

      .some-css-rule { padding-left:50px; padding-right:50px; margin:50px; }

Pretend you want to avoid changing the margin.

<comment><USER6> :s/50/60/g<CR> @:

or even just /50<CR>r6n.

if there's any new feature I'd like to see in neovim it would be one key that will repeat an ex command like period does for normal/visual mode

<comment><USER7> You're first example wont work. What you want is

        :s/50/60/<CR> @:

And that still won't handle

        .some-css-rule { margin:50px;  padding-left:50px; padding-right:50px; }

The second example will work, for this, but not for the situation where you change your mind halfway through and decide you want 70px instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like one of the main goals of neovim is to make it more like emacs. Or guile emacs.

Instead of a shitty language for plugins and configuration: vimL (with some support for plugins in alternative languages but not well integrated and not present in all vim installations) and replace it with a good interface to a single language. Like emacs. Much of emacs is written in elisp instead of c, I wonder if this will enable quicker/higher level development with lua for parts of neovim.

The plans for a compatibility interpreter for vimL on top lua sound a lot like the elisp on top of guile plan for guile emacs, and isn't one of guile emacs goals to add support for concurrency?

<comment><USER9> Both vim and emacs have had problems recently in balancing refactoring needs and their traditional architecture and project layout.

People are more and more used to contributing to projects with an occasional pull request. However to benefit from this, the projects have to become more accessible to these people. This makes all those changes that are introduced to neovim necessary. If tests are already beneficial for a developer who has written the codebase, the occassional contributor really depends on them.

Vim and emacs are projects that are of special strategical importance to the world. They must not vanish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thiago claims that one of Vim's biggest problems is its lack of testing infrastructure. It is difficult to refactor or make changes without the chance of introducing some possibly obscure regression. This is probably a big part of Bram's reluctance to merge large changesets from other developers.

I honestly thing if he can successfully pull off this "msgpack UI" and get a solid set of tests written (which the community seems eager to start work on) this project will be a huge success.

Here is his quote from the mailing list:

"This may not be so obvious, but vim's biggest problem has nothing to do with the lack of the above features. It's something much more basic: poor testing infrastructure.

While vim has some automated tests(about 200 counting with the ~100 tests embedded in test 49) those only catch the 'biggest' bugs, with many small ones being introduced by patches and only detected at a later time. It's a true maintenance hell, and here's a post on reddit that illustrates the problem(even though the author himself disagrees with neovim): [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1yjzez/neovim_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1yjzez/neovim_a_project_to_refactor_and_modernize_the/cfla7j5)

The problem is that in it's current state, vim cannot grow because there's no easy way to write automated tests for it. The current test suite is very hard to understand and those that submit patches probably won't write tests because it's too complicated. But patches need to be tested, especially bug fixes which must acompany a regression to ensure they won't be reintroduced. So it's easy to see why Bram is skeptical about merging patches, especially new features: He has no way of knowing if those patches will break existing code. In the example given by the reddit comment, Bram 'solved' the problem by simply picking the lesser of two evils.

This is one of the firsts issues neovim aims to fix: By writing a msgpack 'UI', we'll be able to write well-documented functional tests in a high-level language. Contributors reporting bugs will be able to reproduce them with a test cases and new features will be properly tested. As the test suite covers more code, neovim will be more 'protected' since there will be a bigger chance of catching bugs the minute a PR is sent(with travis). People need to understand that before posting issues regarding new features or new ideas, as neovim must be properly 'secured' against bugs first."

<comment><USER9> The whole approach makes a lot of sense. Successful refactoring goes hand in hand with setting up a test environment. Code that is not covered by unit tests is legacy code. Without tests, you have to fear breaking things and fear is a bad starting point for development.

I backed Neovim and I really hope that it succeeds. I think the Vim codebase is criticized a little too harshly in general. It is a child of its time.

Whether Lua is the optimal choice as an extension language remains to be seen, yet it is a very pragmatic choice and over time we will see that the C core of vim will shrink dramatically.

I seriously hope that Bram Molenaar is not offended by the fork (and I think he is not). For the vim community having neovim as an independent development line will have its merrits until it is clear whether the fork can replace the proven editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do we know how Bram feels about Neovim and whether he is willing to get behind it if it succeeds?

The reason I ask is because one of the primary reasons I made the switch to Vim from TextMate is ubiquity and longevity. In the age of GitHub, fads, forks and abandoned projects have become all too common. Meanwhile Bram has proven himself to be a pillar-like benevolent dictator for decades, and to me that means a hell of a lot.

<comment><USER12> Bram has said very little. He, IMHO, massively underestimates the communities desire to contribute... Neovim simply tapped in to a community desperate to improve a project they love, and finding no good options on howto do so.

As for "getting behind it if it succeeds" lets hope not! I was a financial supporter of Neovim. I also have run the #vim channel on FreeNode for over a decade. They serve different goals.

Neovim is where "big changes" can happen, gut legacy support, move fast, break shit. It is on Github, it has multiple people doing major contributions, it is being re-factored to make it easier for MORE people to get involved. Neovim wants to be a huge community project, which is awesome.

Vim is -- the default on many systems, shipped with fully working vi compatible mode, has literally millions and millions of users. It can not -- by its nature -- move fast and break shit. Vim has a much, older, slower development process -- from the days well before Github and friends... it might slowly open up -- but not much, because again, millions depend on it. This is also, awesome.

I hope the very best ideas, once they are tested, debugged, and tested again will make their way up from Neovim to Vim, but it will be a very slow process. Neovim gives no thought to Vim -- because it can't -- it has to be its own thing to move forward. Vim gives no thought to Neovim yet -- it is an established, dependable, amazing tool... and Neovim has not yet risen to the point to even be worthy of a response.

<comment><USER13> > Neovim is where "big changes" can happen, gut legacy support, move fast, > break shit. It is on Github, it has multiple people doing major > contributions, it is being re-factored to make it easier for MORE people to > get involved. Neovim wants to be a huge community project, which is awesome.

The first thing done to Neovim was to re-format all the code and then do some refactoring that breaks things. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs but this practically burned the bridges behind and any hope of merging stuff upstream/downstream from neovim to vim or vice versa is gone. At least without significant manual labor.

If you ask me, this was a premature move and the neovim guys should have tried to make non-breaking changes first with an opportunity for upstream-downstream merges.

<comment><USER12> The Neovim development path -- by design -- had no chance of upstream- downstream merges. It is a departure, not a premature mistake, but a decision.

The code had to be re-factored to let the community in -- the Vim code is a horrific legacy cruft-fest that terrifies even the most brave developers. But it is a historical working one, which is hard to argue with -- look at those styling commits, they are wonderfully sane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Sublime minimap" and "better autocomplete" are features that use an underlying API.

I'd prefer if they could be renamed to "Fetaure X which enables e.g. sublime minimap" and dito for autocomplete.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the feedback. I created the poll so I'll be sure that when we create the Bounty we are clear in that the underlying API is what we are looking to improve.

<comment><USER14> I don't follow - it is /not/ clear to me which underlying API it is that will get implemented by voting for "sublime-style mini-map".

<comment><USER15> Possibly this will answer your question? [http://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/1yqqhl/bram_responds_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/1yqqhl/bram_responds_to_neovim/cfmxjb9)

<comment><USER14> I did not ask a question - I wanted the _poll_ to clarify what architectural changes were to be made in order for the minimap feature to exist. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a typo in the news title: it's "poll", not "pool".

<comment><USER16> I thought we were going swimming!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Others have probably already said this elsewhere, but I think high quality error messages for vimscript (or the lua api) are one of the most important things. The project already cares about the developer experience for people writing plugins. Error messages are a difficult but important part of that.

</comment><comment><USER18> Loving the progress of Neovim so far, even better that notable plugin authors ([https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/622#issuecomment-415...](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/622#issuecomment-41552522)) are getting involved.

<comment><USER19> I've always wanted to write Vim plugins, but Vimscript and the RPC contortions always looked too hairy for me to get involved -- I'm excited for the new vim- embedding interface so I can get real VIM compatibility with my IDEs.

<comment><USER20> Except it has been possible for a long time to write scripts in other languages so what are you talking about?

<comment><USER19> I guess I should've been clearer: I want to embed Vim in other applications and environments without having to write three crazy bridges between them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Has anyone used neovim yet ? Is it usable ? Is there any new features or are they only refactoring under the hood ?

<comment><USER22> I tried it. For now it just behaves the same as normal Vim. Most of the work done is indeed under the hood. They are refactoring the codebase so that it will be easier to create plugins, extentions and to use Neovim inside other apps.

<comment><USER23> > For now it just behaves the same as normal Vim

Not quite. Neovim has working job control ("async"):

[http://pastebin.com/hpiCP9Ae](http://pastebin.com/hpiCP9Ae)

It works like the javascript event loop, so even though Neovim is still single-threaded, you can dispatch to external processes and handle the results in a callback(s).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've heard from a HN commentator that Neovim has given up on its principle goal of refactoring, and that progress has largely been due to uncrustify.

Can anyone else speak to the health of the project?

<comment><USER25> Have a look for yourself: [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commits/master](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commits/master).

The code base is now about half of the original size (removed support for legacy OSes, swap all native IO abstractions for libuv, removed dead code, etc). They also split the 25Kloc files called things like misc2.c into multiple files and neovim uses cmake instead of a slew of hand written make files with two decades of commented out hacks. Work on a vimscript -> lua compiler ([https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/243](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/243)) is underway as well as the new RPC plugin stuff ([https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/582](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/582)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think they should focus on refactoring the core and letting people add features through plugins.

</comment><comment><USER27> The greatest thing implemented in neovim, IMHO, is this feature: [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/475](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/475)

</comment><comment><USER28> Terrified that multi-cursor would be for the case of "one user/keyboard/mouse." I'd love to see a Vim that actually does multi-seat.

</comment><comment><USER29> Has anyone created mapping to jump AFTER a character? I did it and think it is great.

</comment><comment><USER30> "pool" vs "poll" \- can the submission title be corrected?

</comment><comment><USER31> How could they make a sublime-style code minimap in a CLI app?

<comment><USER32> The goal (as I understood it) is to separate back-end and front-end. That is, you could have a CLI front-end with just text interface, or a GUI front-end with all the fancy features.

<comment><USER33> Maybe I didn't get the point of neovim but I don't really see how a GUI could be a useful addition for vim. I only use gvim because colorschemes have nicer colors.

<comment><USER34> You can use CSExact to get GUI color schemes to work.

[https://github.com/KevinGoodsell/vim- csexact](https://github.com/KevinGoodsell/vim-csexact)

There is also csapprox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So anyway, where is NeoEmacs?

*i am going to run now.

<comment><USER36> "NeoEmacs" is guilemacs, putting emacs ontop of the guile vm. look at the GSoC project.

<comment><USER35> Oh, i just learn about this.

But when i search google for this guilemacs there are no definitive information for this project (as in where i download the program?).

So based on my little browsing, vim and emacs have some kind of different problems? (or are they even problems?)

Vim has the benevolent dictator who prefer supporting backwards compatibility to developing features. And Neovim try to address that.

Emacs is using a "hacky emacs lisp" and "guile emacs" tries to incorporate a scheme based improvement on the backend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What do people have against Bram Moolenaar? Vim is good already without a coup.

<comment><USER37> Neovim has not been started to spite Bram, why would you think that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If that's not a command line application anymore. What's the point of keeping the "vim" name apart from teasing users? Call it neogvim or neogvimlikenotepadforjsfullstackdevelopper

<comment><USER39> You're free to continue using Vim, no one is taking that away from you. And if you would bother to read up on the project, you'd see that one of its primary goals is to separate the actual editor from the visual interface. That way, everything that is GUI related is separate.</comment></comment>


Telstra's Gigabit Class LTE Network - <AUTHOR> http://cellularinsights.com/telstras-gigabit-class-lte-network-the-work-of-art/ <comment><USER2> It's widely acknowledged that Telstra's LTE network is by far the best in Australia.

It's also by far the most expensive.

The 180GB of data used for the tests would have cost them - assuming "BYO device" plans and that Telstra did not give it to them for free:

        On the "Large" (50/30GB) home wireless plan:
        $150/month + $1300 for the 130GB extra used during peak times.

        On the "M" (25/15GB) home plan:
        $100/month + $1550 for the 155GB extra.

        On a "M" mobile phone plan (10GB):
        $45/month + $74,800 for the 170GB.

<comment><USER3> I'm honestly take TPG's crappy DSL, which is cheaper and has unlimited plans, over high speed connection at prices like that. It's easier to simply queue up stuff overnight.

What's the current state of the NBN network in major cities? What's the availability of Fibre in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Perth? Are there unmetered plans? Are they affordable?

<comment><USER4> NBN state is less than stellar, a vast majority of suburbs have no NBN at all, and a very small minority have actual fibre to the premise. Unmetered plans are becoming more common but are only "affordable" ($60-70 a month) at the lowest speed offering (12mbit). If you want unmetered at 25 or 100mbit, you're looking at 80 or 100 respectively, and that's looking at TPG and iiNet.

<comment><USER5> FWIW (and I know this is a single data point), but my experience with NBN has been positive.

It's also Fibre to the Node (FTTN) which is often maligned in internet/tech circles for being a poor technology choice. I'd prefer FttP, but it's not an option and I'll take what I can get.

I'm now getting close to my plan's speed (50/20), but you're right about the increased cost. It's roughly 45% more. But the speed from the old ADSL2 plan is probably 4-5 times faster.

The only complaint I would have is that speeds during peak are pretty off the advertised plan speed. They fall to around 18-20mbs down at night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The impression I get is that Telstra lobbied pretty heavily for an essentially hobbled fixed-line network. The reasoning is pretty simple: the ACCC stepped in in the early 2000s and gave access to Telstra exchanges for putting in their own hardware (DSLAMs) to provide ADSL service. As a result Telstra (IMHO) decided that fixed line was a loser so focused on 3G/4G as a profit driver since there was competition there (most notably Optus) and thus the ACCC couldn't really force Telstra to "share".

The result? A "next generation" broadband network that for a lot of people is 12Mbps... in 2017. This being a hobbled version of the FTTH network the previous government originally set out to put in place.

The other side of this is Telstra owns half of Foxtel and you can't provide an IP based TV service at 12Mbps (realistically) so no competition there either.

Anyway, this is what I think of when I see announcements about Telstra's LTE network. All others be damned.

<comment><USER7> This makes sense. Telstra's backhaul for fibre and cable customers is very lacking. They have oversold their bandwidth and suffer lots of congestion during peak times.

Take a look at this: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/10/telstras_netflix_do...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/10/telstras_netflix_downloads_get_even_slower/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Telstra is on our list of 6 most expensive networks: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the- world...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world/).

This will not be cheap.

</comment><comment><USER9> For most customers, current bandwidth is fine usually(and even in the countries with highest monthly download, the average is 10GB/month), so this is less interesting.

But this network has a an order-of-magnitude larger theoretical cell capacity and since most costs are infrastructure costs, cost-per-GB for carriers should be 5x-9x lower. And there are other innovations around the corner , which together with this promise something like 25x-50x cell capacity improvement. And

So bandwidth is becoming abundant. The only question: will prices reflect that?

<comment><USER10> Given how much more abundant it is on the wired side, and the fact they're all now introducing caps - no. The only way to increase profits when you're a monopoly is to charge more money for your product. The only way to do that when there's no _ACTUAL_ scarcity is to create artificial scarcity through caps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For us techies, it's good to know that all the software and hardware development behind this is done by Ericsson on the network side and Qualcomm on the device side. They tend to stay a bit hidden because they don't sell directly to consumers. Telstra builds and configures the network and own s the spectrum. Netgear puts the Qualcomm chip in an a box with antennas.

</comment><comment><USER12> The router shown has a (not enforced) 20GB data cap - so you can blow through it within minutes :)

<comment><USER13> theoretical max of service

1Gb/s: (20 gigabytes) / (1000 megabits/second) = 160 seconds

reported maximum in testing from article

400Mb/s: (20 gigabytes) / (400 megabits/second) = 400 seconds

<comment><USER14> When Telstra cable was first released in the 90s it had a 100MB cap and 130Mbit speed, so you could blow your $150+ monthly plan in seconds (and many did)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Epic read – and makes me wonder how long fixed services can truly survive. These kinds of speeds with little infrastructure surely scale better for those making the money, and are easier to implement for consumers too.

<comment><USER16> As long as latency still matters. Gigabit wireless service can certainly be usable for a broad range of consumer applications, but you still have people playing online games, streaming, etc. that are heavily impacted by latency.

Personally, I wish I could get a decent 100/10 fiber connection in my area just for the latency advantages over DOCSIS alone (it takes roughly 10ms to even get out of my ISP's internal network onto their transit provider).

<comment><USER17> Nothing about wireless inherently causes more than a millisecond of latency. It's all about system design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "performing everyday tasks such as ... streaming YouTube 4K videos"

to your phone? what's the point?

<comment><USER19> Or to your computer since the device they were using is a modem:

> Netgear® Nighthawk M1 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon™ X16 LTE modem.

[https://www.netgear.com/about/press- releases/2017/NIGHTHAWK-...](https://www.netgear.com/about/press- releases/2017/NIGHTHAWK-M1-MOBILE-ROUTER.aspx?cid=wmt_netgear_organic)</comment></comment>


Need a little extra money? You'll soon be able to sell and rent your DNA - <AUTHOR> http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-genes-consumerguide-20180514-story.html <comment><USER2> Literally the main plot of orphan black</comment>