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I agree with the concerns that society is raising with unlimited free speech at scale via the internet today. Radicalization is a real problem. But I think dec

I agree with the concerns that society is raising with unlimited free speech at scale via the internet today. Radicalization is a real problem. But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. Get serious about anti-trust so that one monopoly / monopsony isnt allowed to own another and now Facebook and Instagram have to be split up, as well as Google and YouTube. In a decentralized world with many more small networks, the scariest stuff (like state sponsored election manipulation) becomes much, much harder. With the addition of legal liability for the content your platform distributes, I think we’d see a shift toward far more HN-like sites and far less Facebook dominance. Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. These are fixable!

rayiner 6y ago
> But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before. > Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. How would proportional representation work? It seems like most approaches would deemphasize the states, which would cause more polarization in my opinion. The polarization is driven by the fact that folks in New York want to micromanage folks in Iowa in a way that rarely happens even in unitary countries, much less putatively federal ones. In Bavaria they recently passed a law requiring Christian crosses to be displayed in all public buildings. Nobody is getting the federal government of Germany involved to overturn that law. But that’s the playbook for achieving any social change (sometimes good, sometimes bad) here in the US. Of course Germany manages to have a robust federal system as well as proportional representation, but the focus on voting reform seems to be mainly on increasing the power of the central government.
- burlesona 6y ago
  Australia is a good model for proportional representation. At its simplest, congressional districts would become larger multi-winner districts with ranked choice voting. The top N vote getters become representatives. The expected outcome would then be that districts would tend to have 1-2 representatives from each major party, and specifically that we’d end up with more parties as alternatives to red and blue. So perhaps in NY the Green Party starts getting seats, while in Iowa maybe it’s the Libertarians. One goal is actually to decentralize politics. Increasingly today elections are fought on national brand, not local issues, hence the “NY wants to manage Iowa” problem. I recently read a great book on this and would highly recommend it if you want a deep dive on this topic: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-tw...
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I had never thought of multi-winner districts. And thank you for the reference!
- throwawayffffas 6y ago
  > No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before Section 230 absolves online platforms that feature user generated content from publisher liabilities, by revoking it facebook would be liable for everything on its platform. For example if someone posts on facebook that a certain vaccine causes hair loss, with section 230 revoked the manufacturer of said vaccine could sue facebook for libel. Edit: typos
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Only very narrow kinds of disinformation that would meet the extremely high standards for libel in the US. Most of what is deemed “disinformation” or “hate speech” on Facebook would not be actionable.
  - 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

> But I think decentralization and legal liability are better solutions. Drop section 230 and it becomes legally fraught and prohibitively expensive for Facebook to allow disinformation and hate groups to organize on its platform. No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before. > Finally, consider that our democratic process in the US needs to be more resistant to polarization and radicalization. First past the post voting and a lack of proportional representation are the key drivers of broken democracy in the US over the last thirty years. How would proportional representation work? It seems like most approaches would deemphasize the states, which would cause more polarization in my opinion. The polarization is driven by the fact that folks in New York want to micromanage folks in Iowa in a way that rarely happens even in unitary countries, much less putatively federal ones. In Bavaria they recently passed a law requiring Christian crosses to be displayed in all public buildings. Nobody is getting the federal government of Germany involved to overturn that law. But that’s the playbook for achieving any social change (sometimes good, sometimes bad) here in the US. Of course Germany manages to have a robust federal system as well as proportional representation, but the focus on voting reform seems to be mainly on increasing the power of the central government.

burlesona 6y ago
Australia is a good model for proportional representation. At its simplest, congressional districts would become larger multi-winner districts with ranked choice voting. The top N vote getters become representatives. The expected outcome would then be that districts would tend to have 1-2 representatives from each major party, and specifically that we’d end up with more parties as alternatives to red and blue. So perhaps in NY the Green Party starts getting seats, while in Iowa maybe it’s the Libertarians. One goal is actually to decentralize politics. Increasingly today elections are fought on national brand, not local issues, hence the “NY wants to manage Iowa” problem. I recently read a great book on this and would highly recommend it if you want a deep dive on this topic: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-two-party-doom-loop https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44244963-breaking-the-tw...
- rayiner 6y ago
  I had never thought of multi-winner districts. And thank you for the reference!
throwawayffffas 6y ago
> No it doesn’t. Because of free speech laws in the US, there is no legal liability for whatever it is you are calling “disinformation and hate groups.” Moderation has created remedies against speech that have never existed before Section 230 absolves online platforms that feature user generated content from publisher liabilities, by revoking it facebook would be liable for everything on its platform. For example if someone posts on facebook that a certain vaccine causes hair loss, with section 230 revoked the manufacturer of said vaccine could sue facebook for libel. Edit: typos
- rayiner 6y ago
  Only very narrow kinds of disinformation that would meet the extremely high standards for libel in the US. Most of what is deemed “disinformation” or “hate speech” on Facebook would not be actionable.
- 6y ago