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Most people didn't use to have a platform like Twitter where you could instantaneously reach the whole world, no. But the argument was always "If you don't like

by imgabe 6y ago

Most people didn't use to have a platform like Twitter where you could instantaneously reach the whole world, no. But the argument was always "If you don't like it just build your own thing". So, sure, maybe the NYTimes didn't have to publish you, but you could go buy a mimeograph or a printing press and put out your own newsletter, even if you had to stand on the street corner and hand it out yourself. But now the companies that make printing presses won't sell to you. The machine shops that make the parts to build printing presses also won't work with you. Maybe you're supposed to mine your own ore and refine your own metal to build your own printing press? In the long run, we're going to have to find a better way to deal with odious speech that by simply cutting people off and shutting them completely out of the public sphere. For one thing, this requires us to trust that the gatekeepers who control access are always going to be fair and just and only shut out genuinely bad actors. There's needs to be a process where anyone who wants to can still see and inspect the banned speech to audit whether it was really worth banning or not.

XorNot 6y ago
This is all still a special pleading that people are entitled to an audience of millions, rather then what they actually have a right to which is speech in public spaces protected from censure by the government. Not from private individuals. I'm more then happy for us to decide that some parts of the internet should be public spaces, paid for out of general revenue and provided for the common good by the government. Internet access should be a basic human right. But frankly, once you have IP-packet routing functionality, that's as much as I think you should be offered. No one else has any obligation to associate with you.
ccortes 6y ago
>For one thing, this requires us to trust that the gatekeepers who control access are always going to be fair and just and only shut out genuinely bad actors. There's needs to be a process where anyone who wants to can still see and inspect the banned speech to audit whether it was really worth banning or not. How is this different from what we have today? Who decides what's really worth banning? Why should that person/entity and not another one? There's no end to this, there's always going to be a something that is just completely arbitrary. IMO the only "solution" is to have a truly decentralized platform.

by imgabe 6y ago

XorNot 6y ago

This is all still a special pleading that people are entitled to an audience of millions, rather then what they actually have a right to which is speech in public spaces protected from censure by the government. Not from private individuals. I'm more then happy for us to decide that some parts of the internet should be public spaces, paid for out of general revenue and provided for the common good by the government. Internet access should be a basic human right. But frankly, once you have IP-packet routing functionality, that's as much as I think you should be offered. No one else has any obligation to associate with you.

ccortes 6y ago

>For one thing, this requires us to trust that the gatekeepers who control access are always going to be fair and just and only shut out genuinely bad actors. There's needs to be a process where anyone who wants to can still see and inspect the banned speech to audit whether it was really worth banning or not. How is this different from what we have today? Who decides what's really worth banning? Why should that person/entity and not another one? There's no end to this, there's always going to be a something that is just completely arbitrary. IMO the only "solution" is to have a truly decentralized platform.