Postel's Principle and Layer 9 protocol engineering

[Larry Masinter <[e-mail]>]

I wasn’t taking Postel’s Principle as a given, or saying others SHOULD follow it.

I was trying to offer a perspective for reasoning about content moderation

which I thought might be helpful to the protocol engineers amongst us.

 

IETF regularly engages in Layer 9 protocol engineering whenever we 
talk about harassment, NOTE WELLs, working group formation, choice
of technical infrastructure, etc. 

 

FB is faced with intense conflicting pressure to moderate
content or disallow content. 

 

But banning someone is very different from delaying their posting
for a reasonable length of time. Especially if the algorithm used
is clear enough that participants who value the ability to
communicate without delay can readily choose other ways
of expressing their perspective, without resorting to hyperbole.

 

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 <https://LarryMasinter.net> https://LarryMasinter.net  <https://interlisp.org> https://interlisp.org

 

From: Emil Ivov <[e-mail]> 
Sent: Sunday, June 6, 2021 12:13 AM
To: Larry Masinter <[e-mail]>
Cc: Dean Willis <[e-mail]>; Jared Mauch <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Why we really can't use Facebook for technical discussion.

 

Ironically, advising *others* how *they* should follow Postel’s principle is exactly the opposite of the principle.

 

On Sun, Jun 6, 2021 at 00:44 Larry Masinter <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> > wrote:

This is the argument about Postel's principle (conservative in what you send, liberal in what you accept) in layer 9.
It seems to me that Facebook is doing just fine slowing down (24 hours) the possible propagation of violence incitement without requiring a lot of judgement on what does or does not constitute thoughtful vs. inciteful speech.

"Kill them all and let TCP sort it out" can readily be expressed in other terms. A content moderation policy that slowed down frequent postings (by 24 hours) might temper heated conversations and lead to calmer considerations of the actual requirements. 

> I hereby propose we censor Facebook engineers in IETF meetings for promoting stupidity.

Can public forums improve the quality of discussion by delaying frequent, divisive posters?
Is trying to do so really  "promoting stupidity"? (Obligatory 😊)

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