4 ms·

Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a g

Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.

barrkel 9y ago
Free speech is a dangerous idea by itself, and without democracy and solid institutions, it can easily be the tool of populists and demagogues. It's not an absolute value all on its own.
- chroem- 9y ago
  Please elaborate on how populism and democracy are two separate entities, when, by definition, both are characterized by majority rule. Are you sure you aren't confusing democracy with republicanism?
  - grzm 9y ago
    Populism stresses a distinction between "the common man" and "the elite", while democracy doesn't have this connotation.
    - chroem- 9y ago
      But why would the difference between populism/democracy even be a useful distinction to make if both served the interests of "the commom man" equally?
      - grzm 9y ago
        One measure of a functioning democracy is how it approaches compromise between differing opinions and respecting the rights of those who don't agree with you. Actively pitting one group against another works against this. It can easily lead to what's known as the tyranny of the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
        tgragnato 9y ago
        On the other hand some people are worried about the rise of a ruling elite centralized in government, media, and universities, with a partial influence and cooperation of the military industry. The deep state. This group of decision-makers would like the public to think they operate on behalf of the interest of the state and act on the basis of "scientific principles". Arguing that this is essentialy social control and that this constitutes the basis of the "tyranny of the elite" may not be flawed. There's always the need of a balance between extreme tendencies. The liberal premise that the political elite has the right and obligation to make fundamental decisions on behalf of the mass of citizens has its limits.
        vorotato 9y ago
        and everyone is some kind of minority in some way or another. This is why solidarity is so critical.
hkmurakami 9y ago
Ideals over first principles seems to be their MO
InternetOfStuff 9y ago
> Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Well, there is such a place. The U.S. However, in Germany, German rules of speech apply. As a German, I consider this a good thing. And remember, the German constitution was written at the pleasure of the allies -- the US were apparently quite happy with the way our constitution balances freedom and responsibility. And, corner cases aside, so am I. I prefer "responsible speech" to the US "wild west speech". This is largely cultural I'm sure. Of course once we accept that Germany can insist on their own model of speech, so can China. Or Syria. Or Thailand. Which I find hardly ideal, given that I'd like to propagate liberal (and, dare I say it, "western") values. But I don't have a decent solution to this conundrum.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  > Well, there is such a place. The U.S. That is sort of the point. Once all speech transits corporate networks and those corporations are empowered to censor that speech then the public square protected by the U.S. Constitution no longer exists.
  - weepingprophet 9y ago
    But Facebook already "censors" algorithmically. You are not shown a democratic slice from a marketplace of opinions. You are given a curated echo chamber of voices algorithmically optimized to keep you engaged/enraged. The voices that rise to the top are either the ones with the deepest pockets or the ones that most activate the lizard part of our brains.
- ams6110 9y ago
  > US were apparently quite happy That's not necessarily the case. They may have accepted it as a best compromise, as they did the division of Germany into East and West.
- RaleyField 9y ago
  > But I don't have a decent solution to this conundrum. I have. The German model is wrong for the reasons you allured to. If states can't be trusted to be arbiter of acceptable speech then they shouldn't have that job. > And remember, the German constitution was written at the pleasure of the allies That would be an appeal to authority and we all know US made few mistakes in the past so I'm not sure why you'd want to use that fallacy. > This is largely cultural I'm sure. Must be. Thinking that the state is always right and bossing people that disagree is historically very German.
BurritoAlPastor 9y ago
The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors. When a private actor (such as Facebook) chooses to publish or suppress content from a third party, that is a voluntary exercise of Constitutionally protected speech. Social media services have neither a moral nor legal obligation to publish hate speech.
- chadgeidel 9y ago
  This is so true and something that is confused all the time by “free speech advocates”. It’s quite frustrating actually. I’m not happy about the amplification of speech that social networks offer, but l’m even more unhappy about the attitude of “smart” techies who shrug their shoulders and say “free speech - cant do anything about that”. We can do something about that, but that would mean solving hard problems and not creating another way to type a few hundred words into a text box.
  - leetcrew 9y ago
    what would it look like to solve the problem of "free speech"? im not asking you to give a full implementation, but i am genuinely curious what your vision for the internet would look like for a day to day user.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  Correct. But private corporations can choose whether or not to follow in the path of liberal democracy or authoritarianism in how they relate to their customers. Facebook has more customers than any country has citizens so this question is of great importance to how their service continues to grow and impact the world.
  - dgzl 9y ago
    > can choose whether or not to follow in the path of liberal democracy or authoritarianism Liberal Democracy can also be authoritarian. The words you're thinking of are libertarian and authoritarian. Liberty as in free, authority as in ruled.
walterstucco 9y ago
> no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution - US is not the only free country in the world, what applies to US might not be desirable in other countries - have you ever considered it? - - US free speech is not a novelty, you can find the same amount of freedom across many western countries and in many of them people are more free than in the US (think about the freedom to join a communist party, apparently freedom of speech in US means you can be a nazi but not a socialist) - the very dangerous mindset is thinking that everybody should bow to the principles of the US constitution, written by the same people that thought it was a good idea to let anyone own hundreds of guns in their homes That mindset brought us the last US rigged elections -and possibly in other countries now - just because nobody in the US told Facebook "you can't be that big, it's too dangerous" You're so obsessed with freedom of speech that you have lost the ability to see that the freedom of a private actor, collecting an outrageous of private user's data, is less important than the right of the public to be protected by abusive behaviour. Such has hate speech.
yujbbg666 9y ago
That’s basically the university system right here (where did the leaders of these tech companies come from?) Send one off to seminary and they speak the Bible. Send one off to American business schools and they speak “sound economics” What dominates the news at night? Economy and stock market Not “we built how every many hospitals and schools we needed”. Free speech is gone. We only discuss certain ideas most of the time. TV propaganda helped soften the public up for internet propaganda That sounds dramatic but since I cut out TV (including Netflix) and social media, and only use the internet for my job as a coder or learning new math kind of tasks, thoughts in my head are very different. I’ve cut out a lot of people, but I am way way happier

barrkel 9y ago

Free speech is a dangerous idea by itself, and without democracy and solid institutions, it can easily be the tool of populists and demagogues. It's not an absolute value all on its own.

chroem- 9y ago
Please elaborate on how populism and democracy are two separate entities, when, by definition, both are characterized by majority rule. Are you sure you aren't confusing democracy with republicanism?
- grzm 9y ago
  Populism stresses a distinction between "the common man" and "the elite", while democracy doesn't have this connotation.
  - chroem- 9y ago
    But why would the difference between populism/democracy even be a useful distinction to make if both served the interests of "the commom man" equally?
    - grzm 9y ago
      One measure of a functioning democracy is how it approaches compromise between differing opinions and respecting the rights of those who don't agree with you. Actively pitting one group against another works against this. It can easily lead to what's known as the tyranny of the majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
      - tgragnato 9y ago
        On the other hand some people are worried about the rise of a ruling elite centralized in government, media, and universities, with a partial influence and cooperation of the military industry. The deep state. This group of decision-makers would like the public to think they operate on behalf of the interest of the state and act on the basis of "scientific principles". Arguing that this is essentialy social control and that this constitutes the basis of the "tyranny of the elite" may not be flawed. There's always the need of a balance between extreme tendencies. The liberal premise that the political elite has the right and obligation to make fundamental decisions on behalf of the mass of citizens has its limits.
      - vorotato 9y ago
        and everyone is some kind of minority in some way or another. This is why solidarity is so critical.

hkmurakami 9y ago

Ideals over first principles seems to be their MO

InternetOfStuff 9y ago

> Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Well, there is such a place. The U.S. However, in Germany, German rules of speech apply. As a German, I consider this a good thing. And remember, the German constitution was written at the pleasure of the allies -- the US were apparently quite happy with the way our constitution balances freedom and responsibility. And, corner cases aside, so am I. I prefer "responsible speech" to the US "wild west speech". This is largely cultural I'm sure. Of course once we accept that Germany can insist on their own model of speech, so can China. Or Syria. Or Thailand. Which I find hardly ideal, given that I'd like to propagate liberal (and, dare I say it, "western") values. But I don't have a decent solution to this conundrum.

saas_co_de 9y ago
> Well, there is such a place. The U.S. That is sort of the point. Once all speech transits corporate networks and those corporations are empowered to censor that speech then the public square protected by the U.S. Constitution no longer exists.
- weepingprophet 9y ago
  But Facebook already "censors" algorithmically. You are not shown a democratic slice from a marketplace of opinions. You are given a curated echo chamber of voices algorithmically optimized to keep you engaged/enraged. The voices that rise to the top are either the ones with the deepest pockets or the ones that most activate the lizard part of our brains.
ams6110 9y ago
> US were apparently quite happy That's not necessarily the case. They may have accepted it as a best compromise, as they did the division of Germany into East and West.
RaleyField 9y ago
> But I don't have a decent solution to this conundrum. I have. The German model is wrong for the reasons you allured to. If states can't be trusted to be arbiter of acceptable speech then they shouldn't have that job. > And remember, the German constitution was written at the pleasure of the allies That would be an appeal to authority and we all know US made few mistakes in the past so I'm not sure why you'd want to use that fallacy. > This is largely cultural I'm sure. Must be. Thinking that the state is always right and bossing people that disagree is historically very German.

BurritoAlPastor 9y ago

The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors. When a private actor (such as Facebook) chooses to publish or suppress content from a third party, that is a voluntary exercise of Constitutionally protected speech. Social media services have neither a moral nor legal obligation to publish hate speech.

chadgeidel 9y ago
This is so true and something that is confused all the time by “free speech advocates”. It’s quite frustrating actually. I’m not happy about the amplification of speech that social networks offer, but l’m even more unhappy about the attitude of “smart” techies who shrug their shoulders and say “free speech - cant do anything about that”. We can do something about that, but that would mean solving hard problems and not creating another way to type a few hundred words into a text box.
- leetcrew 9y ago
  what would it look like to solve the problem of "free speech"? im not asking you to give a full implementation, but i am genuinely curious what your vision for the internet would look like for a day to day user.
saas_co_de 9y ago
Correct. But private corporations can choose whether or not to follow in the path of liberal democracy or authoritarianism in how they relate to their customers. Facebook has more customers than any country has citizens so this question is of great importance to how their service continues to grow and impact the world.
- dgzl 9y ago
  > can choose whether or not to follow in the path of liberal democracy or authoritarianism Liberal Democracy can also be authoritarian. The words you're thinking of are libertarian and authoritarian. Liberty as in free, authority as in ruled.

walterstucco 9y ago

> no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution - US is not the only free country in the world, what applies to US might not be desirable in other countries - have you ever considered it? - - US free speech is not a novelty, you can find the same amount of freedom across many western countries and in many of them people are more free than in the US (think about the freedom to join a communist party, apparently freedom of speech in US means you can be a nazi but not a socialist) - the very dangerous mindset is thinking that everybody should bow to the principles of the US constitution, written by the same people that thought it was a good idea to let anyone own hundreds of guns in their homes That mindset brought us the last US rigged elections -and possibly in other countries now - just because nobody in the US told Facebook "you can't be that big, it's too dangerous" You're so obsessed with freedom of speech that you have lost the ability to see that the freedom of a private actor, collecting an outrageous of private user's data, is less important than the right of the public to be protected by abusive behaviour. Such has hate speech.

yujbbg666 9y ago

That’s basically the university system right here (where did the leaders of these tech companies come from?) Send one off to seminary and they speak the Bible. Send one off to American business schools and they speak “sound economics” What dominates the news at night? Economy and stock market Not “we built how every many hospitals and schools we needed”. Free speech is gone. We only discuss certain ideas most of the time. TV propaganda helped soften the public up for internet propaganda That sounds dramatic but since I cut out TV (including Netflix) and social media, and only use the internet for my job as a coder or learning new math kind of tasks, thoughts in my head are very different. I’ve cut out a lot of people, but I am way way happier