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The last 5 years have really made question the benefits of free speech in our hyperconnected world. My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly be

The last 5 years have really made question the benefits of free speech in our hyperconnected world. My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West.

raxxorrax 6y ago
Because you don't know the alternative. There are worse things out there than bad opinions on the internet. Which disinformation are you talking about btw?
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Both political parties have taken "misinformation" to mean "information they don't like", which complicates things. There are very different levels of misinfo: - Democrats think Trump is a Nazi/Russian collaborator - People who think Earth is flat - People who think Covid-19 is a globalist conspiracy from Bill Gates - so he can inject us with microchip vaccines - People who think Brexit is an amazing/terrible idea - People who think QAnon is a real issue - etc... It's simply too broad a brush to call it "disinfo", and those who claim to combat disinfo should be looked at with heavy skepticism for this reason. It will get abused for political ends.
mrec 6y ago
I think you have a very rose-tinted view of how these restrictions would be applied, and by whom. The power to decide what counts as "disinformation" would be the most valuable political real estate there is.
- _jal 6y ago
  Exactly. If you want to see how this works in the real world, you're in luck, it is playing out right now in the Philippines and Hungary. If you find yourself saying, "yes, but it could work if only...", I'd suggest you are failing to understand human nature.
- Riverheart 6y ago
  Guy didn't say he supported restrictions, only that his normal reaction to defend it has dropped due to significant abuses of it.
pydry 6y ago
When you argue the toss on freedom of speech you really have to ask yourself if it's worth entrusting these powers you think the government should have to people whose views you loathe.
throwaways885 6y ago
The minute the government comes to censor you, I sense opinions will change. Do not give up that right.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  They will never censor me! I'm on the right side of history!
rvz 6y ago
Yes. Free speech has its consequences as one can use this to suppress someone else that they don't like and completely silence them because of other reasons. It is now far worse online than ever before. > My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West. These disinformation and smear tactics is indeed mostly driven by almost every group in the political spectrum but certainly used by the extremes on both sides. In the online side of things, we shouldn't believe everything we see or hear these things on the internet because now: text, images, sound, video, livestreams and now historical archives can be faked and replaced by AI tools. The worst part is: Everyone is now doing it, even the established media companies.
52-6F-62 6y ago
The disinformation campaigns are definitely a problem, but I think peoples' susceptibility to them (as well as the very visible polarization etc) may only be growing pains. The challenge is to make it through those adolescent years in a good way. The current state of hyper connectedness has really come upon us all quickly. We weren't really ready for the challenges—we didn't really foresee what they would be. There was a lot of naive optimism. I'm still optimistic, but maybe just less naive now. Now that tech literacy is starting to become the norm, maybe we can advance to reasoning soon.
disown 6y ago
That's an argument against hyperconnection rather than free speech. Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. And the only way to fight disinformation is with free speech. Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  > Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. True, but what is new is that disinformation campaigns can utilize popular online platforms to communicate directly with susceptible individuals on the scale of billions of people. That has never existed before and private companies are clearly struggling to address it. > Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control. Unfortunately, disinformation doesn't need total control to be able to hijack a democracy, it just needs to be effective enough to keep the electorate wanting to support the officials that disinformation supports. To be clear, I'm very much on the fence on how we should move forward on this issue. But we now clearly live in a world that no longer has a commonly shared truth. One's perception of truth and belief in leadership style, or even the existence of criminal activity depends largely on your political background.
Consultant32452 6y ago
The most dangerous disinformation campaigns are coming from the cathedral. They aren't the ones who will be silenced by restrictions on speech.
pas 6y ago
Free flow of information is important, but not necessarily in any form. Eg. hate speech, which is pretty redundant. (The same slurs chanted for hours.) Similarly the same idiotic 2 bit memes and other forms of unfortunately rather effective propaganda is of little value after seeing the first few. How to even categorize and how to introduce friction against these is the hard problem of free speech. As long as someone contributes to a discussion that's valuable, even if their idea has a very low probability to be true/useful. But if they are simply repeating the same thing, they stopped contributing, they became noise.

raxxorrax 6y ago

Because you don't know the alternative. There are worse things out there than bad opinions on the internet. Which disinformation are you talking about btw?

throwaways885 6y ago
Both political parties have taken "misinformation" to mean "information they don't like", which complicates things. There are very different levels of misinfo: - Democrats think Trump is a Nazi/Russian collaborator - People who think Earth is flat - People who think Covid-19 is a globalist conspiracy from Bill Gates - so he can inject us with microchip vaccines - People who think Brexit is an amazing/terrible idea - People who think QAnon is a real issue - etc... It's simply too broad a brush to call it "disinfo", and those who claim to combat disinfo should be looked at with heavy skepticism for this reason. It will get abused for political ends.

mrec 6y ago

I think you have a very rose-tinted view of how these restrictions would be applied, and by whom. The power to decide what counts as "disinformation" would be the most valuable political real estate there is.

_jal 6y ago
Exactly. If you want to see how this works in the real world, you're in luck, it is playing out right now in the Philippines and Hungary. If you find yourself saying, "yes, but it could work if only...", I'd suggest you are failing to understand human nature.
Riverheart 6y ago
Guy didn't say he supported restrictions, only that his normal reaction to defend it has dropped due to significant abuses of it.

pydry 6y ago

When you argue the toss on freedom of speech you really have to ask yourself if it's worth entrusting these powers you think the government should have to people whose views you loathe.

throwaways885 6y ago

The minute the government comes to censor you, I sense opinions will change. Do not give up that right.

jaywalk 6y ago
They will never censor me! I'm on the right side of history!

rvz 6y ago

Yes. Free speech has its consequences as one can use this to suppress someone else that they don't like and completely silence them because of other reasons. It is now far worse online than ever before. > My knee jerk reaction to defend free speech has certainly been dampened by the efficacy of disinformation campaigns in the West. These disinformation and smear tactics is indeed mostly driven by almost every group in the political spectrum but certainly used by the extremes on both sides. In the online side of things, we shouldn't believe everything we see or hear these things on the internet because now: text, images, sound, video, livestreams and now historical archives can be faked and replaced by AI tools. The worst part is: Everyone is now doing it, even the established media companies.

52-6F-62 6y ago

The disinformation campaigns are definitely a problem, but I think peoples' susceptibility to them (as well as the very visible polarization etc) may only be growing pains. The challenge is to make it through those adolescent years in a good way. The current state of hyper connectedness has really come upon us all quickly. We weren't really ready for the challenges—we didn't really foresee what they would be. There was a lot of naive optimism. I'm still optimistic, but maybe just less naive now. Now that tech literacy is starting to become the norm, maybe we can advance to reasoning soon.

disown 6y ago

That's an argument against hyperconnection rather than free speech. Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. And the only way to fight disinformation is with free speech. Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control.

save_ferris 6y ago
> Also, disinformation campaigns in the "West" have always existed. It's not anything new. True, but what is new is that disinformation campaigns can utilize popular online platforms to communicate directly with susceptible individuals on the scale of billions of people. That has never existed before and private companies are clearly struggling to address it. > Free speech is what prevents disinformation to have total control. Unfortunately, disinformation doesn't need total control to be able to hijack a democracy, it just needs to be effective enough to keep the electorate wanting to support the officials that disinformation supports. To be clear, I'm very much on the fence on how we should move forward on this issue. But we now clearly live in a world that no longer has a commonly shared truth. One's perception of truth and belief in leadership style, or even the existence of criminal activity depends largely on your political background.

Consultant32452 6y ago

The most dangerous disinformation campaigns are coming from the cathedral. They aren't the ones who will be silenced by restrictions on speech.

pas 6y ago

Free flow of information is important, but not necessarily in any form. Eg. hate speech, which is pretty redundant. (The same slurs chanted for hours.) Similarly the same idiotic 2 bit memes and other forms of unfortunately rather effective propaganda is of little value after seeing the first few. How to even categorize and how to introduce friction against these is the hard problem of free speech. As long as someone contributes to a discussion that's valuable, even if their idea has a very low probability to be true/useful. But if they are simply repeating the same thing, they stopped contributing, they became noise.