3 ms·

I think it's a silly analogy because sunlight won't do squat for many infections. There are clearly better disinfectants out there. But in terms of speech, a b

I think it's a silly analogy because sunlight won't do squat for many infections. There are clearly better disinfectants out there. But in terms of speech, a better quote is: the best response to bad speech is good speech.

knzhou 7y ago
That's an idealistic statement but a false one. Bullshit is much easier to produce than truth, and is inherently much more appealing, because it isn't constrained by having to be true. For example, the "good speech" counterpart of David Icke is a number of real experts who are taking to Twitter and blogs. I've seen a few. They usually have single digit reach. In five minutes, Icke can reach a larger audience than all of them combined throughout their entire lives.
- unishark 7y ago
  Perhaps you'd prefer a quote like: the best response to bad speech is an authoritarian censor with unlimited powers to silence and imprison people? Because if your only criterion is effectiveness at silencing someone I think that misses the point. Built into the statement is the idea that otherwise the cure (censorship) is worse than the disease.
  - knzhou 7y ago
    This slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're saying. If YouTube began issuing a million times more bans, it might approach the quality of an average newspaper in terms of accuracy. Would we be living in a dystopia at that point? No, we'd be living just like we did in the year 2000, when YouTube wasn't around but newspapers were. Just like a nutjob in 2000, Icke still has print, radio, TV, going outside with a megaphone, and going door to door with pamphlets to promote his message. In fact, he's even luckier, because he still has access to the entire rest of the internet. Indeed, the fact that we're here discussing Icke's massive popular impact is proof that in 2020, there is far more free speech than there was in 2000, when he was mostly ignored. We are at historically high levels of free speech. Freaking out over this is like thinking we've gone back to the Bronze Age every time the stock market goes down 1%.
    - unishark 7y ago
      I'm not making a slippery-slope argument or freaking out over anything. Just noting the metric you are using will always prefer a more authoritarian response. I.e., did the policy work to silence every example I can find for any conspiracy theory that might survive to gain attention? Defenders of free speech obviously want us to take the bad with the good. As for the internet, I think of it as technology that brings advances also brings new problems. Sometimes we just have to accept them. Not that I'm against YouTube censoring their content as a private company, by the way. Just defending a quote here.
      - sagichmal 7y ago
        > I'm not making a slippery-slope argument > Perhaps you'd prefer a quote like: the best response to bad speech is an authoritarian censor with unlimited powers to silence and imprison people? This is literally the slippery slope argument.
        unishark 7y ago
        And I say it isn't. Speaking of logical arguments, you haven't really brought a lot to the table, by the way. And you've misused "literally".
    - thebean11 7y ago
      There are huge differences between YouTube (a platform for user-generated content) and a newspaper (a publisher). The latter curates and is legally responsible for anything it publishes, the former isn't. I think YouTube is a lot closer to AT&T than to the New York Times.
      - knzhou 7y ago
        Maybe legalistically it is, but my point is that it's like the NYT and radio and print in the sense that these are all routes for one-to-many communication. Restricting one route of one-to-many communication isn't the end of the world. (Meanwhile, AT&T facilitated one-to-one communication. It would indeed be horrifying to censor that -- which is why precisely nobody in this giant comments section is advocating for it, nor is it going to happen.)

knzhou 7y ago

That's an idealistic statement but a false one. Bullshit is much easier to produce than truth, and is inherently much more appealing, because it isn't constrained by having to be true. For example, the "good speech" counterpart of David Icke is a number of real experts who are taking to Twitter and blogs. I've seen a few. They usually have single digit reach. In five minutes, Icke can reach a larger audience than all of them combined throughout their entire lives.

unishark 7y ago
Perhaps you'd prefer a quote like: the best response to bad speech is an authoritarian censor with unlimited powers to silence and imprison people? Because if your only criterion is effectiveness at silencing someone I think that misses the point. Built into the statement is the idea that otherwise the cure (censorship) is worse than the disease.
- knzhou 7y ago
  This slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're saying. If YouTube began issuing a million times more bans, it might approach the quality of an average newspaper in terms of accuracy. Would we be living in a dystopia at that point? No, we'd be living just like we did in the year 2000, when YouTube wasn't around but newspapers were. Just like a nutjob in 2000, Icke still has print, radio, TV, going outside with a megaphone, and going door to door with pamphlets to promote his message. In fact, he's even luckier, because he still has access to the entire rest of the internet. Indeed, the fact that we're here discussing Icke's massive popular impact is proof that in 2020, there is far more free speech than there was in 2000, when he was mostly ignored. We are at historically high levels of free speech. Freaking out over this is like thinking we've gone back to the Bronze Age every time the stock market goes down 1%.
  - unishark 7y ago
    I'm not making a slippery-slope argument or freaking out over anything. Just noting the metric you are using will always prefer a more authoritarian response. I.e., did the policy work to silence every example I can find for any conspiracy theory that might survive to gain attention? Defenders of free speech obviously want us to take the bad with the good. As for the internet, I think of it as technology that brings advances also brings new problems. Sometimes we just have to accept them. Not that I'm against YouTube censoring their content as a private company, by the way. Just defending a quote here.
    - sagichmal 7y ago
      > I'm not making a slippery-slope argument > Perhaps you'd prefer a quote like: the best response to bad speech is an authoritarian censor with unlimited powers to silence and imprison people? This is literally the slippery slope argument.
      - unishark 7y ago
        And I say it isn't. Speaking of logical arguments, you haven't really brought a lot to the table, by the way. And you've misused "literally".
  - thebean11 7y ago
    There are huge differences between YouTube (a platform for user-generated content) and a newspaper (a publisher). The latter curates and is legally responsible for anything it publishes, the former isn't. I think YouTube is a lot closer to AT&T than to the New York Times.
    - knzhou 7y ago
      Maybe legalistically it is, but my point is that it's like the NYT and radio and print in the sense that these are all routes for one-to-many communication. Restricting one route of one-to-many communication isn't the end of the world. (Meanwhile, AT&T facilitated one-to-one communication. It would indeed be horrifying to censor that -- which is why precisely nobody in this giant comments section is advocating for it, nor is it going to happen.)