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As long the Internet is not subject to government packet filtering based upon content (ie, the US doesn't become China), there's no way to prevent the eventual
by gfodor 7y ago
As long the Internet is not subject to government packet filtering based upon content (ie, the US doesn't become China), there's no way to prevent the eventual outcome that someone can say bad things and it reach millions of people. If that person breaks the law, the legal system can hold them accountable. But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It's not a new lesson. It's hundreds of years old, all that is different now is the speed of dissemination and scale of reach. The current centralized platforms are transitional technology. There's some kind of Nash equilibrium where they can exist in a regime where a certain level of legal speech is stifled, but as soon as that threshold is breached and a sufficient sub-network of people conclude their speech needs to go around any centralized provider, the incentives are there to do the work to make it possible -- and internet infrastructure which already exists would arguably be the hardest problem they'd need to solve.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago> But if they are not breaking the law, it seems to me that in the limit such speech cannot somehow be stopped from being spread. It can't be stopped, but it can be severely limited. See: 8chan and Stormfront.
- gfodor 7y agoI agree that the centralization of internet infrastructure (like Cloudflare, who was involved to the sites you mention) is a corollary to my claim that government packet filtering as a potential regime which could result in limiting global speech.
- wyldfire 7y ago> As long the Internet is not subject to government packet filtering based upon content (ie, the US doesn't become China), there's no way to prevent the eventual outcome that someone can say bad things and it reach millions of people. Here's the cool thing about trade group regulation like MPAA: we have much less to worry about with respect to slippery slopes. If there's someone who's too small to be a member, then yes: they do get to distribute their content. This means that people can still host individually horrible pages and blogs that few care about. But managing legal liability / responsibility for all those horrible blogs would be a real challenge for wordpress or github, e.g. Writing legislation to thread those kinds of holes but still be upheld in courts might also be difficult. But that's the threat. If the lion's share of deceptive "news" and bogus claims are spread via Youtube/Twitter/FB, just think of how valuable it would be for those three to come together and have a trade group like the MPAA that would set standards for them to audit content.