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I don't think I agree that they are mischaracterizing how free speech understood, and I don't think that distinction you are drawing identifies a new idea incom

I don't think I agree that they are mischaracterizing how free speech understood, and I don't think that distinction you are drawing identifies a new idea incompatible with what they are saying. Free speech encompasses a lot of things depending on what you want to emphasize, including a notion in a healthy democracy the best ideas survive critical scrutiny. As other have mentioned, I think however plausible that conception of speech was then, it's utterly ignorant of the problems we're facing today, where ideas spread for reasons that have nothing to do with merit. If anything, I would think you would want to agree with the person you are replying to that the spread of ideas is not due to good ones rising to the top in a marketplace that is selecting for quality.

throwaway2048 6y ago
Two keys to an actual functional market place, as you allude to, involves both good faith engagement (you aren't going to convince somebody deliberately out to cause harm to stop with a well reasoned argument) and critical evaluation (something that is practically non existent on most of the internet)
legolas2412 6y ago
> As other have mentioned, I think however plausible that conception of speech was then, it's utterly ignorant of the problems we're facing today I think it is the exact opposite. Maybe I have read too many dystopian novels like fahrenheit 451, or 1984, or read too much about Chinese govt's control of its population, but I feel that modern technology has allowed too much censorship power in hands of not just the govt, but a few corporations. And it is extremely important that we do not compromise on free speech now.
- glenstein 6y ago
  We're dealing with the net result of a few different forces. Social media has enabled a massive avalanche of misinformation, and of this massive avalanche of misinformation, some subset of that new avalanche gets removed. The net effect is that there much more misinformation than there has ever been before. Despite the best efforts of twitter, facebook & youtube they appear to have been virtually powerless to halt the spread. The problem of social media CEOs having too much power is real, and has wrought real damage: Zuckerberg's naive ideas on speech have lead to far too much harm, and now that he's recovering from his free speech trutherism and implementing reforms it's too little, too late. Lastly I would say that if you are looking at this state of affairs and seeing 1984 or fahrenheit 451, you're seeing things wrong. There are fair examples of that, e.g. Hong Kong, mainland China. But the western internet doesn't fit that at all.

throwaway2048 6y ago

Two keys to an actual functional market place, as you allude to, involves both good faith engagement (you aren't going to convince somebody deliberately out to cause harm to stop with a well reasoned argument) and critical evaluation (something that is practically non existent on most of the internet)

legolas2412 6y ago

> As other have mentioned, I think however plausible that conception of speech was then, it's utterly ignorant of the problems we're facing today I think it is the exact opposite. Maybe I have read too many dystopian novels like fahrenheit 451, or 1984, or read too much about Chinese govt's control of its population, but I feel that modern technology has allowed too much censorship power in hands of not just the govt, but a few corporations. And it is extremely important that we do not compromise on free speech now.

glenstein 6y ago
We're dealing with the net result of a few different forces. Social media has enabled a massive avalanche of misinformation, and of this massive avalanche of misinformation, some subset of that new avalanche gets removed. The net effect is that there much more misinformation than there has ever been before. Despite the best efforts of twitter, facebook & youtube they appear to have been virtually powerless to halt the spread. The problem of social media CEOs having too much power is real, and has wrought real damage: Zuckerberg's naive ideas on speech have lead to far too much harm, and now that he's recovering from his free speech trutherism and implementing reforms it's too little, too late. Lastly I would say that if you are looking at this state of affairs and seeing 1984 or fahrenheit 451, you're seeing things wrong. There are fair examples of that, e.g. Hong Kong, mainland China. But the western internet doesn't fit that at all.