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> the right of 'bad ideas' to be amplified by platforms ought to end before people who believe in those 'bad ideas' are turned into political weapons Should a

> the right of 'bad ideas' to be amplified by platforms ought to end before people who believe in those 'bad ideas' are turned into political weapons Should a politician be allowed to Tweet that too many people from a particular minority group are moving into the country? (Perhaps the politician believes that these migrants are increasing crime or unemployment). If someone reads that Tweet and then goes and violently attacks people from that minority, have they been turned into a political weapon by a demagogue? With fists and noses, there are well-defined lines, but I'm not sure what speech or algorithms you are suggesting should be outlawed.

bleepblorp 6y ago
Where to draw the line is a very hard question for which I don't have a a definitive answer. Legally, there's precedent that RTLM[0] (Rwandan hate radio) went too far, as the people who ran it were convicted of crimes against humanity. How much lower to set the bar to protect the public while still preserving individual freedom of expression is a question I feel society isn't yet ready to answer. I personally would set the bar at spreading false information. Most of the more vile efforts by demagogues to stir up violence are driven by fabricated propaganda. It's difficult to use facts to incite violence because reality is usually too mundane for people to get violently upset about. Non-factual propaganda, however, can be as lurid as it takes to make people get violent. Keeping outright fabrications out of public view ought to help keep some of these risks contained. It's distasteful, for example, to spread valid statistics that connect immigrant populations with crime (in large part because such statistics, given without context, ignore integration and economic equity issues), but I feel spreading facts is less likely to trigger persecution/violence than feeding vulnerable people with a constant information diet of lies along the lines of 'immigrants eat babies.' As a result, my take on where to draw the line on political speech is 'say what you want as long as it's true.' [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...

bleepblorp 6y ago

Where to draw the line is a very hard question for which I don't have a a definitive answer. Legally, there's precedent that RTLM[0] (Rwandan hate radio) went too far, as the people who ran it were convicted of crimes against humanity. How much lower to set the bar to protect the public while still preserving individual freedom of expression is a question I feel society isn't yet ready to answer. I personally would set the bar at spreading false information. Most of the more vile efforts by demagogues to stir up violence are driven by fabricated propaganda. It's difficult to use facts to incite violence because reality is usually too mundane for people to get violently upset about. Non-factual propaganda, however, can be as lurid as it takes to make people get violent. Keeping outright fabrications out of public view ought to help keep some of these risks contained. It's distasteful, for example, to spread valid statistics that connect immigrant populations with crime (in large part because such statistics, given without context, ignore integration and economic equity issues), but I feel spreading facts is less likely to trigger persecution/violence than feeding vulnerable people with a constant information diet of lies along the lines of 'immigrants eat babies.' As a result, my take on where to draw the line on political speech is 'say what you want as long as it's true.' [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...