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> where's the idea coming from that that consensus must be adopted by everyone else as well? Well, for two reasons. A) the marketplace of ideas is explicitly

> where's the idea coming from that that consensus must be adopted by everyone else as well? Well, for two reasons. A) the marketplace of ideas is explicitly designed around the concept that some ideas win, at least at a broad cultural level. Free speech advocates aren't trying to build a world where every idea is treated with equal respect everywhere, they're trying to build a process by which, in general, we move closer to truth[0]. That doesn't mean that the ideas can't resurface in the regular marketplace, but it does mean that for ideas to be taken seriously by the broad, regular population, they have to actually convince people. The anti-trans arguments I see online are mostly just really unconvincing to anyone who's done marginal research on trans communities. I'm not an expert on trans communities, I don't have a lot of diverse friends -- I shouldn't know more about trans arguments than the average TERF does; and yet I regularly find that I do. To look at it from a broader market perspective, is it a failure of the marketplace that none of the restaurants on my street sell ice cream with ketchup and green beans? Or is it a success of the marketplace? The marketplace demands that you be able to actually sell what you have, you have no moral claim to force the marketplace to provide you with customers. More importantly, B) the consensus doesn't need to be adopted by everyone and hasn't been adopted by everyone, but private communities aren't required to engage with ideas that aren't furthering their own conversations/goals. And for better or worse, because some of those private communities are very attractive to the broader public, those communities exercising their Constitutionally protected Freedom of Association means that there are fewer spaces that contrarians can join. But again, that's kind of how the system is designed to work. It's contradictory to say that in a free market, people shouldn't be able to choose where they shop. It's contradictory to say that in a free society people shouldn't be able to choose who they associate with. The irony is that it's the far left candidates like Warren[1] who have had by far the most sensible, market-friendly response to the problem of people being deplatformed. If Facebook/Apple is too big, break it up and enforce antitrust. Don't try to nationalize it, or dictate how people can speak, or get rid of fundamental protections like Section 230. Just get rid of the monopolies and let communities compete for members. Outside of solutions like that, I am very skeptical of any argument that claims to be in support of free speech that doesn't think protesting, boycotting, and public criticism are also speech. A lot of cancel culture falls into those bounds: I see people who are angry about boycotts, public criticism, markets responding to consumer demand, private communities like Twitter choosing who they host. Most of that stuff is free speech. ---- [0]: And there are other goals as well, of course, but that's the main conceit of the "marketplace of ideas" argument. [1]: Doctorow also has some interesting ideas here about revising the CFAA and breaking down some barriers for building competitors, but that's a separate conversation.

luckylion 6y ago
> A) the marketplace of ideas is explicitly designed around the concept that some ideas win, at least at a broad cultural level. Right, but "this idea won in this local market, therefore it must not be challenged in that global market and doing so is a hate crime" has giant issues. > B) the consensus doesn't need to be adopted by everyone and hasn't been adopted by everyone, but private communities aren't required to engage with ideas that aren't furthering their own conversations/goals. But that's not what's happening. If something gets defined as hate speech, it's not a private matter, it's a criminal matter. Once we accept that as a valid process, we're just asking "who has the power to define" and give them a carte blanche for criminal punishment. I find that deeply troubling, and given that definitions, majorities and power has changed, I believe so should everyone, as the weapons they build today might be turned on them tomorrow. A somewhat recent example for that was the introduction of FB's anti-hate-speech rules that suddenly outlawed "men are trash", much to the outrage of those who asked for the rules. Especially when it's on individual personal feelings and the only question we ask is "how man Twitter followers do you have" ("you have more, the market place of ideas has decided"), we're setting ourselves up for instability where it's best not to talk to anyone you don't 100% trust. I have relatives who lived under the Stasi, and that's pretty much what they described - if you don't know somebody very well, you limit yourself to talking about the weather and parroting the party line. > A lot of cancel culture falls into those bounds: I see people who are angry about boycotts, public criticism, markets responding to consumer demand, private communities like Twitter choosing who they host. I think there's a lot to say about what is a private community (and at what size it stops being one) and what they are allowed to do. Discrimination is generally considered bad, but the law enforces protection only for protected groups as it's assumed that everybody else will have no trouble to find a competing business. This cannot be said for the local monopolists on the web. Personally, I'd prefer to not get into all out war where you get cancelled and ostracized and need to move to some place where "your people" live (by whatever criteria you define that) because the local majority rules absolutely and destroys everything that is unlike them. That said: if anybody prefers the segregation, I'd love it if they were honest about it and said "I don't want to see that opinion, you must leave". The moralizing and pseudo-science rationalization of it makes everything hazy and dishonest, like an invisible mine-field that we must not acknowledge even exists, much less talk about and say where the mines are buried.

luckylion 6y ago

> A) the marketplace of ideas is explicitly designed around the concept that some ideas win, at least at a broad cultural level. Right, but "this idea won in this local market, therefore it must not be challenged in that global market and doing so is a hate crime" has giant issues. > B) the consensus doesn't need to be adopted by everyone and hasn't been adopted by everyone, but private communities aren't required to engage with ideas that aren't furthering their own conversations/goals. But that's not what's happening. If something gets defined as hate speech, it's not a private matter, it's a criminal matter. Once we accept that as a valid process, we're just asking "who has the power to define" and give them a carte blanche for criminal punishment. I find that deeply troubling, and given that definitions, majorities and power has changed, I believe so should everyone, as the weapons they build today might be turned on them tomorrow. A somewhat recent example for that was the introduction of FB's anti-hate-speech rules that suddenly outlawed "men are trash", much to the outrage of those who asked for the rules. Especially when it's on individual personal feelings and the only question we ask is "how man Twitter followers do you have" ("you have more, the market place of ideas has decided"), we're setting ourselves up for instability where it's best not to talk to anyone you don't 100% trust. I have relatives who lived under the Stasi, and that's pretty much what they described - if you don't know somebody very well, you limit yourself to talking about the weather and parroting the party line. > A lot of cancel culture falls into those bounds: I see people who are angry about boycotts, public criticism, markets responding to consumer demand, private communities like Twitter choosing who they host. I think there's a lot to say about what is a private community (and at what size it stops being one) and what they are allowed to do. Discrimination is generally considered bad, but the law enforces protection only for protected groups as it's assumed that everybody else will have no trouble to find a competing business. This cannot be said for the local monopolists on the web. Personally, I'd prefer to not get into all out war where you get cancelled and ostracized and need to move to some place where "your people" live (by whatever criteria you define that) because the local majority rules absolutely and destroys everything that is unlike them. That said: if anybody prefers the segregation, I'd love it if they were honest about it and said "I don't want to see that opinion, you must leave". The moralizing and pseudo-science rationalization of it makes everything hazy and dishonest, like an invisible mine-field that we must not acknowledge even exists, much less talk about and say where the mines are buried.