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> "amplify factual voices over disinformation." First, to be clear, that's not censorship, and it is entirely compatible with freedom of speech because it is n

> "amplify factual voices over disinformation." First, to be clear, that's not censorship, and it is entirely compatible with freedom of speech because it is not proposing to prevent speech, only to direct emphasis. Freedom of speech means you are free to speak and people who choose to listen are free to listen, not that you get equal airtime. Second, we already have amplification taking place of non-factual voices. It's not like we can just not amplify once kind of voice systematically over another, because anything we do results in that, including doing nothing. It's just inevitable. A well-intentioned free-for-all in communications leads immediately to the uneven amplifications we see now. There is increasingly justified concern that it is becoming dangerously unfactual lately, perhaps due to an interaction between human instincts and rapid changes in information technology, leading to a breakdown of society and democracy, thus the suggestion to promote factual voices. > Who gets to decide which is which? Something inevitably decides. If by that question you are providing the implicit answer "nobody should", then you are favouring the current system of biased amplification, where things like outrage culture, economic incentives promoting polarisation, and widespread avoidance of good-faith reasoning about basic concepts is looking rather evident. So we already have a system deciding which is which, even if we don't want one. It is impossible to avoid having one, even in principle. Let's acknowledge that hard reality, and discuss how to make a better system than the de facto one that emerges otherwise. I don't know the answer of how we decide, but I think it is worthwhile to investigate the question in more detail than dismissing it outright, given what we see at the moment. I suggest ways to determine facts and factual voices could echo systems that have been developed over thousands of years for this. We have a long history of developed legal, justice, political, journalistic, academic and scientific systems with a variety of methods for finding (or deciding upon) facts, to cope with the problem when people dispute about what is true and false.

Lammy 6y ago
> First, to be clear, that's not censorship It's long-term censorship because if you can control speech for long enough you can control the range of ideas people have the possibility to be exposed to, the overall opinion consensus changes over time toward just the allowed range of ideas, and after enough time this changes the facts in consensus reality.
- jlokier 6y ago
  I think shifting the emphasis and amount of representation of different kinds of speech and different prevailing opinions, without actually blocking speech, is not censorship as it is classically meant. Otherwise you might as well say that every form of debate, persuasion and promotion are censorship, because they have that effect. Calling that censorship is to miss the point of the more serious thing that is widely disliked, which is the bright-line distinction between opinions that are merely rendered unpopular, compared with opinions which are actively blocked from being expressed or heard at all. However, the point isn't to quibble over the meaning of the word. The point is, would it be harmful to functioning democracy and people's freedom of thought to "promote factual voices". By all means argue against doing so, and be concerned that it would result in long-term censorship effects but: I've tried to make the argument that the absence of "promote factual voices" also results in long-term censorship (the way you are meaning it), because we get a de facto biased spread of opinions anyway as a result of social media dynamics and all the dodgy actors in them. There's newsfeed algorithms, advertising, optimising for hits and clicks and engagement, nefarious actors, paid shills, all sorts of things. And though I'm loathe to say it, a lot of low-quality trolling and thoughtless opinions which get amplified easily. But even without all those, social media has system dynamics which must inevitably result in something that governs the consensus towards an allowed range of ideas versus ideas which are discouraged. I think we have no choice on that. The only choice is which kind of systemic bias shall we opt for. I favour whatever structures lead to certain types of thinking (not the same as particular opinions): higher quality debate, eduction, knowledge and wisdom in society (which sounds like healthier democracy to me), as represented by a broad spectrum of people, open to all, and designed to protect diversity of thought while promoting quality of thought. I'm avoiding saying what leads to that, because I honestly don't know the answer, only that "don't promote anything" is not necessarily the answer or unbiased, especially when there's plenty of other dodgy promotion going on behind the scenes already.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Eumemics
    - 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

> First, to be clear, that's not censorship It's long-term censorship because if you can control speech for long enough you can control the range of ideas people have the possibility to be exposed to, the overall opinion consensus changes over time toward just the allowed range of ideas, and after enough time this changes the facts in consensus reality.

jlokier 6y ago
I think shifting the emphasis and amount of representation of different kinds of speech and different prevailing opinions, without actually blocking speech, is not censorship as it is classically meant. Otherwise you might as well say that every form of debate, persuasion and promotion are censorship, because they have that effect. Calling that censorship is to miss the point of the more serious thing that is widely disliked, which is the bright-line distinction between opinions that are merely rendered unpopular, compared with opinions which are actively blocked from being expressed or heard at all. However, the point isn't to quibble over the meaning of the word. The point is, would it be harmful to functioning democracy and people's freedom of thought to "promote factual voices". By all means argue against doing so, and be concerned that it would result in long-term censorship effects but: I've tried to make the argument that the absence of "promote factual voices" also results in long-term censorship (the way you are meaning it), because we get a de facto biased spread of opinions anyway as a result of social media dynamics and all the dodgy actors in them. There's newsfeed algorithms, advertising, optimising for hits and clicks and engagement, nefarious actors, paid shills, all sorts of things. And though I'm loathe to say it, a lot of low-quality trolling and thoughtless opinions which get amplified easily. But even without all those, social media has system dynamics which must inevitably result in something that governs the consensus towards an allowed range of ideas versus ideas which are discouraged. I think we have no choice on that. The only choice is which kind of systemic bias shall we opt for. I favour whatever structures lead to certain types of thinking (not the same as particular opinions): higher quality debate, eduction, knowledge and wisdom in society (which sounds like healthier democracy to me), as represented by a broad spectrum of people, open to all, and designed to protect diversity of thought while promoting quality of thought. I'm avoiding saying what leads to that, because I honestly don't know the answer, only that "don't promote anything" is not necessarily the answer or unbiased, especially when there's plenty of other dodgy promotion going on behind the scenes already.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Eumemics
  - 6y ago