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I used to think like you do, and I've increasingly come to disagree. Free speech absolutism was a core belief of the open source and early internet community in

I used to think like you do, and I've increasingly come to disagree. Free speech absolutism was a core belief of the open source and early internet community in the 90s and 00s, which is where I picked it up. The idea was that publishing information would no longer be limited to the claws of established powers, and with anyone able to distribute anything, science and art would flow freely over international borders, global unity would reach unprecedented heights, and humanity would enter a new dawn. It was a very attractive idea, and it was hard to argue against because nothing like it had ever been possible. Then, through the power of capitalism rather than hacker spirit, it came true. Mark Twain famously said "A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots." Pithy at the time, but now that the experiment of instant global publishing for everyone is playing out in real time, we can see that it's true. You say > a good idea is stronger than a bad idea and this is where free speech absolutism has lost me. When everyone has a chance to weigh in on it, false information spreads wider and faster than true information. This isn't a theory any more, there's data now. The average human cannot evaluate true from false, and tend toward false. I'd guess that true things have complexities and ambiguities that make them less engaging than tailored lies. We are now in an age of truly unrestricted free speech, as opposed to the centuries in which free speech was practically available only to those with a printing press or the like. Given the immense damage that has already been wrought on dozens of fields, I no longer think totally free speech is worth the price. A few angry tripadvisor reviewers going to jail is a small price to pay for continuing to have scientific progress and functioning infrastructure.

rendall 6y ago
If you could set up a perfect scheme to eliminate fake news, how would you do it? There is a lot to think about. Would it be a committee that has authority to decide what is true, for example? Comprised of whom from where? Would there be appeals for mistakes? What would a final appeal look like? What would penalties for non-compliance look like? Could you be jailed for fake news spreading? What would prevent abuse: say, an annoyed powerful person labeling something embarrassing but true as fake news? What if, say, a scientific fact that everyone knew turned out to be wrong? How would this be different from fake news?

rendall 6y ago

If you could set up a perfect scheme to eliminate fake news, how would you do it? There is a lot to think about. Would it be a committee that has authority to decide what is true, for example? Comprised of whom from where? Would there be appeals for mistakes? What would a final appeal look like? What would penalties for non-compliance look like? Could you be jailed for fake news spreading? What would prevent abuse: say, an annoyed powerful person labeling something embarrassing but true as fake news? What if, say, a scientific fact that everyone knew turned out to be wrong? How would this be different from fake news?