3 ms·

How myopic. Insane beliefs have existed long before Internet-enabled information spread. Over half of the US believes that astrology is real. I remember read

How myopic. Insane beliefs have existed long before Internet-enabled information spread. Over half of the US believes that astrology is real. I remember reading in the early 2000's a survey showing a majority of Americans believing angels exist. Should we talk about religion? I'll tell you what's happening, here. Journalists are encouraging a Zeitgeist of censorship, prepping us all for Internet censorship to protect us from ourselves. That's because the young people who are behind Medium blogs and WP op eds and Vox articles are too young to have a collective memory of censorship in the West jn and before WWII, the McCarthy years, the wars to decriminalize porn, and much more. Because of myopia we want to go backwards in our liberal democracies. All this because you're worried that your neighbor will believe Alex Jones or not get a vaccine? I have bad news: History shows this will not go away despite all the censorship in the world.

kiba 6y ago
Because of myopia we want to go backwards in our liberal democracies. All this because you're worried that your neighbor will believe Alex Jones or not get a vaccine? I have bad news: History shows this will not go away despite all the censorship in the world. Why wouldn't deplatforming and muting these sources wouldn't work? The only reason why they spread as well as they did was because the like of youtube and other social media decided to give these people megaphone. What if we stop giving them these megaphones and give it to someone else instead? It is wrong to think of these platforms as neutral. They are not. They are always choosing what to show to the public based on selection criteria.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  A very rational set of questions, but it makes me depressed that the answers - in a problem space discussed since at least the 18th century - have not been taught and discussed in philosophy and ethics classes and thus need to be repeated. The problem is always the same: NOT what value do we have in Alex Jones, conspiracy theories, liars, misinformation spreaders, etc. All the people that you and I already agree that there is a low value to misinformation that they spread. The question is truly: who decides what's true and false. Today you might agree with the current Fact Checker group. What if tomorrow Trump decides to be the fact checker. Rudy Giuliani tried to ban certain art in NYC when he was mayor, because it offended his religion (Catholicism). McCarthyites in the 50's sought to ban anything unpatriotic (from the State Department removing books from libraries to finger-pointing and 'calling out' people accused of communism, to the visa entry forms that may still exist that ask if you were a communist). We defend the megaphones of the stupid and the fake as an insurance policy. We're wary of giving too much power to those who can yank megaphones away and pick winners and losers, because history itself shows us that the alternatives threaten all of us more than fake information. >It is wrong to think of these platforms as neutral. They are not. They are always choosing what to show to the public based on selection criteria. Oh, but the devil is in the details, here. How they choose is the critical question that we should be talking about, debating and thinking through.
  - kiba 6y ago
    All your examples involve government officials deciding to censor, with historically fewer media sources to comb through. This is different from social media with much wider input. We defend the megaphones of the stupid and the fake as an insurance policy. We're wary of giving too much power to those who can yank megaphones away and pick winners and losers, because history itself shows us that the alternatives threaten all of us more than fake information. Except people aren't entitled to megaphones of their own, nor their own newspapers or their own radio station, much less on a platform governed by an uncaring algorithm over literal million of people who might say something else. And misinformation really do real damage to people. You can't just pretend that conspiracy theorists don't exist and can't influence people to do real damage, regardless of who's in charge and who decides what is true or false and regardless of what damage censorship did or didn't do.
    - mancerayder 6y ago
      I'm not pretending anything with regard to "real damage." Incitement of violence is real and indisputable and no one is defending that. However, "conspiracy theorists" (misinformation) and damage is a slippery slope. Who gets to decide what's damaging "information"? That is the question you're replying to, and you missed that piece - that is not a nuance, but the critical question we should consider when we call for removal of megaphones, censorship and so forth. You mentioned government v. private platforms, and reminded me that those examples I gave of government don't apply. But again I wanted to point out the examples of the "who" part, and the same argumentation they had "this _ is harmful" where _ is art, or books, or speech. Who bloody decides what is true and false, how do we choose them, and what credentials makes them the choosers? And what if today's choosers and tomorrow's choosers have completely different notions of True and False? You're defending censorship using an ancient argument of "harmful information" that has dangerous downstream effects is the point I am driving at.
      - kiba 6y ago
        No? We're talking about the speeches of private social media platforms, and the fact they choose to promote certain speeches over others. That is not in anyway, neutrality, and they cannot be neutral actors.
notahacker 6y ago
History also shows that a majority of people believing in astrology or moon landings not being real is much less harmful than a majority of people believing that the Jews are conspiring to enslave you, vaccines will kill you or even that if you don't force the VP to vote himself back into office, the President won't be able to stop children from being raped. And yes, religions can persuade some average people to do some great things or strange things or be incitement to blow themselves up in the middle of a marketplace or drink the Kool Aid. So keeping an eye on these things is probably a good idea, and if people decide certain stuff should come with content warnings or not be disseminated on their platform thats probably OK. Sure, there are slippery slopes when you start censoring stuff but there are slippery slopes when you stop too, particularly when the actual debate is less about silencing all discussion of misinformation and more about whether misinformation has an inalienable right to a megaphone. Porn is still censored extensively even in its most inoffensive forms and people under certain ages aren't allowed to watch films with rude words, and yet people are insisting that true liberty means that whilst corporations are entitled to decide boobies and f-bombs are inappropriate for their platform, they must be compelled to host Qanon. I'm not sure that was the lesson we were supposed to take from past battles over obscenity laws.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  > if you don't force the VP to vote himself back into office, the President won't be able to stop children from being raped. Extreme framing that makes it easy to dismiss. There are people who think this recent election had some very fishy stuff going on, but are not buying the lunatic fringe, q-anon type of stuff.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    'Extreme framing' represents the actual tipping point that resulted in the actual actions (and arguments) being criticised. (Same goes for other examples: Germany has actual laws rather than mere Facebook policies concerning holocaust denial because it views the slippery slope towards Naziism as more plausible and dangerous than the slippery slope towards a unified state version of history) As for people with concerns about 'fishy stuff', they've been granted plenty of prime time TV hours to talk about it, had fifty lawsuits thrown out by judges often politically aligned with them and are happily posting all over the Internet without fear of any consequences whilst elected officials loudly advocate their cause. Suffice to say this is not the experience of the average 1950s communist or pornographer. I'm not convinced that the existence of more nuanced arguments about elections means social media should be obliged to broadcast Donald Trump declaring that he won a landslide victory without challenge or Lin Wood making Trump look rational, which all too many 'free speech' arguments have been devoted to.

kiba 6y ago

Because of myopia we want to go backwards in our liberal democracies. All this because you're worried that your neighbor will believe Alex Jones or not get a vaccine? I have bad news: History shows this will not go away despite all the censorship in the world. Why wouldn't deplatforming and muting these sources wouldn't work? The only reason why they spread as well as they did was because the like of youtube and other social media decided to give these people megaphone. What if we stop giving them these megaphones and give it to someone else instead? It is wrong to think of these platforms as neutral. They are not. They are always choosing what to show to the public based on selection criteria.

mancerayder 6y ago
A very rational set of questions, but it makes me depressed that the answers - in a problem space discussed since at least the 18th century - have not been taught and discussed in philosophy and ethics classes and thus need to be repeated. The problem is always the same: NOT what value do we have in Alex Jones, conspiracy theories, liars, misinformation spreaders, etc. All the people that you and I already agree that there is a low value to misinformation that they spread. The question is truly: who decides what's true and false. Today you might agree with the current Fact Checker group. What if tomorrow Trump decides to be the fact checker. Rudy Giuliani tried to ban certain art in NYC when he was mayor, because it offended his religion (Catholicism). McCarthyites in the 50's sought to ban anything unpatriotic (from the State Department removing books from libraries to finger-pointing and 'calling out' people accused of communism, to the visa entry forms that may still exist that ask if you were a communist). We defend the megaphones of the stupid and the fake as an insurance policy. We're wary of giving too much power to those who can yank megaphones away and pick winners and losers, because history itself shows us that the alternatives threaten all of us more than fake information. >It is wrong to think of these platforms as neutral. They are not. They are always choosing what to show to the public based on selection criteria. Oh, but the devil is in the details, here. How they choose is the critical question that we should be talking about, debating and thinking through.
- kiba 6y ago
  All your examples involve government officials deciding to censor, with historically fewer media sources to comb through. This is different from social media with much wider input. We defend the megaphones of the stupid and the fake as an insurance policy. We're wary of giving too much power to those who can yank megaphones away and pick winners and losers, because history itself shows us that the alternatives threaten all of us more than fake information. Except people aren't entitled to megaphones of their own, nor their own newspapers or their own radio station, much less on a platform governed by an uncaring algorithm over literal million of people who might say something else. And misinformation really do real damage to people. You can't just pretend that conspiracy theorists don't exist and can't influence people to do real damage, regardless of who's in charge and who decides what is true or false and regardless of what damage censorship did or didn't do.
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    I'm not pretending anything with regard to "real damage." Incitement of violence is real and indisputable and no one is defending that. However, "conspiracy theorists" (misinformation) and damage is a slippery slope. Who gets to decide what's damaging "information"? That is the question you're replying to, and you missed that piece - that is not a nuance, but the critical question we should consider when we call for removal of megaphones, censorship and so forth. You mentioned government v. private platforms, and reminded me that those examples I gave of government don't apply. But again I wanted to point out the examples of the "who" part, and the same argumentation they had "this _ is harmful" where _ is art, or books, or speech. Who bloody decides what is true and false, how do we choose them, and what credentials makes them the choosers? And what if today's choosers and tomorrow's choosers have completely different notions of True and False? You're defending censorship using an ancient argument of "harmful information" that has dangerous downstream effects is the point I am driving at.
    - kiba 6y ago
      No? We're talking about the speeches of private social media platforms, and the fact they choose to promote certain speeches over others. That is not in anyway, neutrality, and they cannot be neutral actors.

notahacker 6y ago

History also shows that a majority of people believing in astrology or moon landings not being real is much less harmful than a majority of people believing that the Jews are conspiring to enslave you, vaccines will kill you or even that if you don't force the VP to vote himself back into office, the President won't be able to stop children from being raped. And yes, religions can persuade some average people to do some great things or strange things or be incitement to blow themselves up in the middle of a marketplace or drink the Kool Aid. So keeping an eye on these things is probably a good idea, and if people decide certain stuff should come with content warnings or not be disseminated on their platform thats probably OK. Sure, there are slippery slopes when you start censoring stuff but there are slippery slopes when you stop too, particularly when the actual debate is less about silencing all discussion of misinformation and more about whether misinformation has an inalienable right to a megaphone. Porn is still censored extensively even in its most inoffensive forms and people under certain ages aren't allowed to watch films with rude words, and yet people are insisting that true liberty means that whilst corporations are entitled to decide boobies and f-bombs are inappropriate for their platform, they must be compelled to host Qanon. I'm not sure that was the lesson we were supposed to take from past battles over obscenity laws.

throwawayboise 6y ago
> if you don't force the VP to vote himself back into office, the President won't be able to stop children from being raped. Extreme framing that makes it easy to dismiss. There are people who think this recent election had some very fishy stuff going on, but are not buying the lunatic fringe, q-anon type of stuff.
- notahacker 6y ago
  'Extreme framing' represents the actual tipping point that resulted in the actual actions (and arguments) being criticised. (Same goes for other examples: Germany has actual laws rather than mere Facebook policies concerning holocaust denial because it views the slippery slope towards Naziism as more plausible and dangerous than the slippery slope towards a unified state version of history) As for people with concerns about 'fishy stuff', they've been granted plenty of prime time TV hours to talk about it, had fifty lawsuits thrown out by judges often politically aligned with them and are happily posting all over the Internet without fear of any consequences whilst elected officials loudly advocate their cause. Suffice to say this is not the experience of the average 1950s communist or pornographer. I'm not convinced that the existence of more nuanced arguments about elections means social media should be obliged to broadcast Donald Trump declaring that he won a landslide victory without challenge or Lin Wood making Trump look rational, which all too many 'free speech' arguments have been devoted to.