4 ms·

I've been saying this for years: censorship, like many things, has been privatized. Things like the First Amendment in the US are inadequate for the modern age,

I've been saying this for years: censorship, like many things, has been privatized. Things like the First Amendment in the US are inadequate for the modern age, because the majority of our discourse touches multiple intermediary businesses on its way between individuals. There is no "just herpderp yourself" when communication and publication in our digital society involves information coming in contact with a handful of middlemen who can tamper.

zorked 8y ago
Hmm, mass communication wasn't easy back in the time the First Amendment was written and the problem was "we don't have enough free communication". You could just as well argue that it wouldn't exist if written today. There were never practical limits on 1:1 communication even in the worst dictatorship because you can't have a policeman in every house. The first amendment was always about public discourse.
- indigo945 8y ago
  You can't have a policeman in every house, but you can have an Amazon Alexa. I think the privatization of surveillance is much scarier than the privatization of censorship. To escape the latter, I can just visit my local library, whereas the former is growing at such alarming rates that it might just make that impossible very soon. The chilling effects are real.
  - Frqy3 8y ago
    This is exactly the problem. Imagine if every single law on the books is enforced 100% of the time. No leeway, no margin for discretion.
    - unityByFreedom 8y ago
      No country does that, they just set examples of people who break draconian laws, which is effective as long as you don't count all the people trying to leave the country.
- unityByFreedom 8y ago
  > There were never practical limits on 1:1 communication even in the worst dictatorship because you can't have a policeman in every house You underestimate the ability of cultures to self-censor and convince free-thinkers to leave. Plenty of people in North Korea are afraid to speak out, for fear their neighbors will rat them out. Same goes for speaking against royalty in public in Thailand. That said, I do think the First Amendment was born out of practicality. Censoring speech, even in the internet age, is not a good growth strategy when your competitors censor less. People will do their best to get to the most free place.
jim-jim-jim 8y ago
Bingo. Liberalism is ill-equipped to promote free expression in any meaningful sense, because the principles it presumably holds sacred play second fiddle to the central tenant of the philosophy: private property. Most "live free or die" types wouldn't tell someone struggling against government repression, "If you don't like it, why don't you just leave your country?" Yet they do this all the time on corporate communications channels, some of which have populations bigger than most real-world states. It may seem histrionic to complain about much free-market censorship now, but the vise will tighten as firms consolidate and anything threatening to the bottom line will become increasingly difficult to disseminate to a wider population.
- cyphar 8y ago
  I assume you mean libertarianism, not liberalism? While some liberals might have libertarian views (and vice-versa) they are very different concepts. > Yet they do this all the time on corporate communications channels, some of which have populations bigger than most real-world states. Yup -- and a quick reminder (for the people in the back) that Google unilaterally controls what more than 3 billion people find when they search for information. This is a larger impact than any government in the history of humanity -- and unlike any other government in the history of humanity, Google has no constitution or laws which require it to be accountable to its citizens (or users, in this case). You might argue that some regimes like China or the USSR only had theoretical protections for their citizens (with abuses by the government being commonplace and unpunished), but Google has no such protections to even pretend to follow. And like most independent nation-states, Google feels no pressure to obey other nations' laws if it's inconvenient for them.
  - archgoon 8y ago
    > I assume you mean libertarianism, not liberalism? They probably meant liberalism. 'Liberalism' has multiple meanings. To my knowledge, the US is unique in equating 'liberal' with 'the left'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_State...
skybrian 8y ago
On the other hand, switching to private communications has never been easier, at least for person-to-person chat. (Signal, etc.)
- xorcist 8y ago
  The question here was public discourse (or mass media if you will). Securing a private channel is a very different problem altogether.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    There is some overlap because articles can reach a wide audience via forwarding. It would be used more if there weren't easier ways to do it. Unfortunately this would also mean spreading the sort of crap as debunked on Snopes.
guelo 8y ago
This form of communication is brand new. If you don't have the right to free speech now you never had it.

zorked 8y ago

Hmm, mass communication wasn't easy back in the time the First Amendment was written and the problem was "we don't have enough free communication". You could just as well argue that it wouldn't exist if written today. There were never practical limits on 1:1 communication even in the worst dictatorship because you can't have a policeman in every house. The first amendment was always about public discourse.

indigo945 8y ago
You can't have a policeman in every house, but you can have an Amazon Alexa. I think the privatization of surveillance is much scarier than the privatization of censorship. To escape the latter, I can just visit my local library, whereas the former is growing at such alarming rates that it might just make that impossible very soon. The chilling effects are real.
- Frqy3 8y ago
  This is exactly the problem. Imagine if every single law on the books is enforced 100% of the time. No leeway, no margin for discretion.
  - unityByFreedom 8y ago
    No country does that, they just set examples of people who break draconian laws, which is effective as long as you don't count all the people trying to leave the country.
unityByFreedom 8y ago
> There were never practical limits on 1:1 communication even in the worst dictatorship because you can't have a policeman in every house You underestimate the ability of cultures to self-censor and convince free-thinkers to leave. Plenty of people in North Korea are afraid to speak out, for fear their neighbors will rat them out. Same goes for speaking against royalty in public in Thailand. That said, I do think the First Amendment was born out of practicality. Censoring speech, even in the internet age, is not a good growth strategy when your competitors censor less. People will do their best to get to the most free place.

jim-jim-jim 8y ago

Bingo. Liberalism is ill-equipped to promote free expression in any meaningful sense, because the principles it presumably holds sacred play second fiddle to the central tenant of the philosophy: private property. Most "live free or die" types wouldn't tell someone struggling against government repression, "If you don't like it, why don't you just leave your country?" Yet they do this all the time on corporate communications channels, some of which have populations bigger than most real-world states. It may seem histrionic to complain about much free-market censorship now, but the vise will tighten as firms consolidate and anything threatening to the bottom line will become increasingly difficult to disseminate to a wider population.

cyphar 8y ago
I assume you mean libertarianism, not liberalism? While some liberals might have libertarian views (and vice-versa) they are very different concepts. > Yet they do this all the time on corporate communications channels, some of which have populations bigger than most real-world states. Yup -- and a quick reminder (for the people in the back) that Google unilaterally controls what more than 3 billion people find when they search for information. This is a larger impact than any government in the history of humanity -- and unlike any other government in the history of humanity, Google has no constitution or laws which require it to be accountable to its citizens (or users, in this case). You might argue that some regimes like China or the USSR only had theoretical protections for their citizens (with abuses by the government being commonplace and unpunished), but Google has no such protections to even pretend to follow. And like most independent nation-states, Google feels no pressure to obey other nations' laws if it's inconvenient for them.
- archgoon 8y ago
  > I assume you mean libertarianism, not liberalism? They probably meant liberalism. 'Liberalism' has multiple meanings. To my knowledge, the US is unique in equating 'liberal' with 'the left'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_State...

skybrian 8y ago

On the other hand, switching to private communications has never been easier, at least for person-to-person chat. (Signal, etc.)

xorcist 8y ago
The question here was public discourse (or mass media if you will). Securing a private channel is a very different problem altogether.
- skybrian 8y ago
  There is some overlap because articles can reach a wide audience via forwarding. It would be used more if there weren't easier ways to do it. Unfortunately this would also mean spreading the sort of crap as debunked on Snopes.

guelo 8y ago

This form of communication is brand new. If you don't have the right to free speech now you never had it.