3 ms·

> have a hidden implication that "other choices" really means no reputable choice would take their material, I don't know if it's...super hidden. Isn't that th

> have a hidden implication that "other choices" really means no reputable choice would take their material, I don't know if it's...super hidden. Isn't that the entire point of the marketplace of ideas? You're free to espouse anything, free from government intervention. But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace. Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea. It's the freedom to enter the idea into the marketplace of ideas. But the marketplace of ideas is as cutthroat a business as any other marketplace. I _can_ understand the complaint from an anti-monopoly point of view: arguing that Facebook and Twitter have too strong a hold on that marketplace, and their influence over it should be reduced. But that strikes me more as an anti-monopoly stance that should be directed at particular actors.

mistermann 6y ago
> But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace. This seems to highly misrepresent the situation. Actually, the reality is all "reputable members of society" who control a major publishing platform. So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed). > Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea. It's the freedom to enter the idea into the marketplace of ideas. But the marketplace of ideas is as cutthroat a business as any other marketplace. An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms. Yes, one "can" "just" move to another platform, or roll your own, but framing this in a manner that overlooks the fact that all other things are not equal seems rather disingenuous, and this occurs extremely frequently on social & mainstream media, which is quite concerning.
- ncallaway 6y ago
  > So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed). I would argue that the number of gatekeepers to nationwide mainstream dialog is much higher than 3 or 4 individuals. I think the number is too small, but 3 or 4 seems to me to be an incredibly hyperbolic number of individuals to name as gatekeepers to the entire marketplace of ideas. If you think only 3 or 4 people control the entire marketplace of ideas for "reputable members of society", then you should be able to exhaustively name them. Who are these 3 or 4 people that control all of reputable society? > An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands. I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all!
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > I would argue that the number of gatekeepers to nationwide mainstream dialog is much higher than 3 or 4 individuals. I think the number is too small, but 3 or 4 seems to me to be an incredibly hyperbolic number of individuals to name as gatekeepers to the entire marketplace of ideas. If you think only 3 or 4 people control the entire marketplace of ideas for "reputable members of society", then you should be able to exhaustively name them. Who are these 3 or 4 people that control all of reputable society? Hence the italicized portion from my prior comment: "So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed)" Let's try to minimize not acknowledging uncertainty qualifiers that are literally written within comments please. Since we seem to be now in the mode of hyper-dissection of assertions, hyperbole, etc, and I may have committed the sin of being off by a couple hundred people, what would this same level of scrutiny come up with when taken to your claim: >> But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace. Which of these two numbers would be larger in your estimation? ([All members of society] - [People who control a major publishing platform]) ([People who control a major publishing platform] - [4]) ...where [All adult members of society - USA] = ~250 million ...where [Twitter Users - USA] = ~68 million ...where [Facebook Users - USA] = ~235 million ...where [YouTube Users - USA] = ~126 million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-... https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-facebook-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-face... https://www.statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-age-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-... > It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands. I would say it's exactly that, and also other things. I don't consider myself in disagreement on that point. > I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all! It is literally both, so I think we should treat it as both. I wonder though...might the problem be not so much my math, but more so that I happen to hold an unacceptable opinion on the matter of censorship, in general? Based on voting patterns on anti-censorship comments (most of which contain no mathematics), I'm leaning towards the latter. Considering the way the wind is blowing on such matters, maybe people like me should start toeing the party line around here, lest the very topic of conversation pays a personal visit to our doorstep.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea." Entirely true and I 100% agree but that's not what the "other choices" argument is about. There are groups attempting to force expression of certain opinions to only be through "other choices" and preventing third parties from interfering with communication between a speaker and people who voluntarily want to listen to that idea, no matter how good the intentions of the third party are, _is_ very much a matter of freedom of speech. For example, note the "seek, receive, and impart" part of Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.[0] That's why the "other choices" argument isn't persuasive; its underlying intent is often interference with voluntary communication in order to cut it off. [0] "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

mistermann 6y ago

> But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace. This seems to highly misrepresent the situation. Actually, the reality is all "reputable members of society" who control a major publishing platform. So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed). > Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea. It's the freedom to enter the idea into the marketplace of ideas. But the marketplace of ideas is as cutthroat a business as any other marketplace. An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms. Yes, one "can" "just" move to another platform, or roll your own, but framing this in a manner that overlooks the fact that all other things are not equal seems rather disingenuous, and this occurs extremely frequently on social & mainstream media, which is quite concerning.

ncallaway 6y ago
> So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed). I would argue that the number of gatekeepers to nationwide mainstream dialog is much higher than 3 or 4 individuals. I think the number is too small, but 3 or 4 seems to me to be an incredibly hyperbolic number of individuals to name as gatekeepers to the entire marketplace of ideas. If you think only 3 or 4 people control the entire marketplace of ideas for "reputable members of society", then you should be able to exhaustively name them. Who are these 3 or 4 people that control all of reputable society? > An example of this is getting deplatformed from the few major "marketplace of ideas" platforms It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands. I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all!
- mistermann 6y ago
  > I would argue that the number of gatekeepers to nationwide mainstream dialog is much higher than 3 or 4 individuals. I think the number is too small, but 3 or 4 seems to me to be an incredibly hyperbolic number of individuals to name as gatekeepers to the entire marketplace of ideas. If you think only 3 or 4 people control the entire marketplace of ideas for "reputable members of society", then you should be able to exhaustively name them. Who are these 3 or 4 people that control all of reputable society? Hence the italicized portion from my prior comment: "So that takes the pool of people deciding from hundreds of millions (in the USA) down to like 3 or 4 individuals (depending on how final decision making power is distributed)" Let's try to minimize not acknowledging uncertainty qualifiers that are literally written within comments please. Since we seem to be now in the mode of hyper-dissection of assertions, hyperbole, etc, and I may have committed the sin of being off by a couple hundred people, what would this same level of scrutiny come up with when taken to your claim: >> But if all reputable members of society decide not to associate with an idea...it's losing in the marketplace. Which of these two numbers would be larger in your estimation? ([All members of society] - [People who control a major publishing platform]) ([People who control a major publishing platform] - [4]) ...where [All adult members of society - USA] = ~250 million ...where [Twitter Users - USA] = ~68 million ...where [Facebook Users - USA] = ~235 million ...where [YouTube Users - USA] = ~126 million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-... https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-facebook-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/408971/number-of-us-face... https://www.statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-age-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-... > It's almost like there's a monopoly concern I raised, and that the power is concentrated in too few hands. I would say it's exactly that, and also other things. I don't consider myself in disagreement on that point. > I did advocate for treating this as an anti-monopoly issue instead of a free speech issue after all! It is literally both, so I think we should treat it as both. I wonder though...might the problem be not so much my math, but more so that I happen to hold an unacceptable opinion on the matter of censorship, in general? Based on voting patterns on anti-censorship comments (most of which contain no mathematics), I'm leaning towards the latter. Considering the way the wind is blowing on such matters, maybe people like me should start toeing the party line around here, lest the very topic of conversation pays a personal visit to our doorstep.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "Free speech isn't the right to have everyone listen to every idea." Entirely true and I 100% agree but that's not what the "other choices" argument is about. There are groups attempting to force expression of certain opinions to only be through "other choices" and preventing third parties from interfering with communication between a speaker and people who voluntarily want to listen to that idea, no matter how good the intentions of the third party are, _is_ very much a matter of freedom of speech. For example, note the "seek, receive, and impart" part of Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.[0] That's why the "other choices" argument isn't persuasive; its underlying intent is often interference with voluntary communication in order to cut it off. [0] "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech