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The thing that makes me less worried is that we're probably at one of the most open periods in history. Don't like Spotify? You've got about a million other opt

The thing that makes me less worried is that we're probably at one of the most open periods in history. Don't like Spotify? You've got about a million other options. Rogan freely chose to accept some limits in exchange for a truckload of cash. He was already doing quite well without Spotify, from what I understand. I think the framing that he was somehow unable to succeed without accepting censorship is a little off the mark. He made what appears to be a deliberate choice to limit his speech to make more money. Is that a failure? I dunno. It seems like part of freedom of speech should include the freedom to make the decision to stop talking about some things in exchange for cash.

skohan 6y ago
I'm not that worried about Spotify and 40 odd episodes from the Joe Rogan catalog, but it does fit into a larger narrative. I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Nobody was too upset when Alex Jones got deplatformed, but there is something a little unnerving about the fact that Twitter was allowed to basically kill certain news stories leading up to the election. The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
  - skohan 6y ago
    Yes, but again my point is not that it's unprecedented, it's that it's happening now and we might not want it. We are currently writing the rules for how public discourse should work online, and the current approach seems to be "let the market decide". In an environment with massive consolidation, and zero anti-trust enforcement, this may not lead to solutions we would all consider ideal.
- tayo42 6y ago
  If Twitter was actually killing stories effectively, why do you know about it?
  - skohan 6y ago
    You can play semantics, but Twitter did suppress mentions of certain stories on their platform, effectively preventing millions of people from finding out about them.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  > hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. How do you today compares to historical American freedom of discourse? For example, I look at things like the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where stating pro-socialist/pro-communist views might get someone fired or imprisoned in the 40s-50s. [1] Or the 'Comics Code' of the 60s-00s, where comics publishers agreed to self-censor. [2] Or the Hay's Code from motion pictures in the 20s-60s, where things like 'Ridicule of the Clergy' were strictly forbidden? (The Supreme Court even deciding that Freedom of Speech did not apply to motion pictures in 1915.) [3] Or the Parents Music Resource Center who applied the 'Parental Advisory' sticker to music? [4] You could be murdered or beaten for being pro-union in the 1900s-1910s. I bring out these examples not to try and add some whataboutism, but rather to try and connect the Spotify/Tech company case to a broader historical context. Yes, these things are bad, and it may also be bad that we're seeing that consolidation today. It's important to be educated about historical precedents, about who had the authority and who was silenced, about which groups held power of which others, and about how we should holistically look at the problem of limiting public discourse. Far too often I see people narrowly focus on the now, focus on specific recent events and say, "This is an unprecedented shut down of discourse." (And to be clear, this comment is not aimed at you, skohan, but more broadly.) Or, "This is not who we are as a nation!". When in fact, looking through the historical record, we've absolutely been disallowing certain discourse in pretty much every decade for at least the last century. It may be that it's a different group this time, it may feel novel to folks because they are young and haven't experienced it firsthand, it may feel different because the underlying technologies are different, but fundamentally there is a throughline of shutting down discussions when 'the powers that be' dislike it, and we should be, imo, discussion that broader trend as much as the moment now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
  - BryantD 6y ago
    This is a much better, less snarky version of my point elsewhere in the thread. I do think that tech control of discourse is an important thing to watch. I don't yet believe that it's impossible for people with extreme views to find a host; I am right now looking at a Google Podcasts page hosting an unquestionably white supremacist, Holocaust-denying podcast. When I was younger, you had to go find yourself a dingy mimeographed snail mail catalog of books to get a copy of Ragnar Redbeard's book. It's way easier these days. But yes. Even if you think that the danger of conspiracy theories is such that it warrants restraints on free speech, it is also true that you should be extremely concerned with how those restraints are determined and enforced. That said, if you're not looking at trends over decades, you are likely to overreact to the short term.

skohan 6y ago

I'm not that worried about Spotify and 40 odd episodes from the Joe Rogan catalog, but it does fit into a larger narrative. I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Nobody was too upset when Alex Jones got deplatformed, but there is something a little unnerving about the fact that Twitter was allowed to basically kill certain news stories leading up to the election. The current state of social media and online discourse is causing some serious problems, but I am not so convinced we are going about fixing it in the right way.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> I am somewhat concerned that a hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. Large companies are least able to remove someone from public discourse today than at any other time in the past. The internet is wide open for people to shout into, although it requires work and money to host content. But it’s still far cheaper and easier than its ever been to reach basically anyone around the world.
- skohan 6y ago
  Yes, but again my point is not that it's unprecedented, it's that it's happening now and we might not want it. We are currently writing the rules for how public discourse should work online, and the current approach seems to be "let the market decide". In an environment with massive consolidation, and zero anti-trust enforcement, this may not lead to solutions we would all consider ideal.
tayo42 6y ago
If Twitter was actually killing stories effectively, why do you know about it?
- skohan 6y ago
  You can play semantics, but Twitter did suppress mentions of certain stories on their platform, effectively preventing millions of people from finding out about them.
Pfhreak 6y ago
> hand-full of companies can effectively remove someone from the public discourse. How do you today compares to historical American freedom of discourse? For example, I look at things like the House Committee on Un-American Activities, where stating pro-socialist/pro-communist views might get someone fired or imprisoned in the 40s-50s. [1] Or the 'Comics Code' of the 60s-00s, where comics publishers agreed to self-censor. [2] Or the Hay's Code from motion pictures in the 20s-60s, where things like 'Ridicule of the Clergy' were strictly forbidden? (The Supreme Court even deciding that Freedom of Speech did not apply to motion pictures in 1915.) [3] Or the Parents Music Resource Center who applied the 'Parental Advisory' sticker to music? [4] You could be murdered or beaten for being pro-union in the 1900s-1910s. I bring out these examples not to try and add some whataboutism, but rather to try and connect the Spotify/Tech company case to a broader historical context. Yes, these things are bad, and it may also be bad that we're seeing that consolidation today. It's important to be educated about historical precedents, about who had the authority and who was silenced, about which groups held power of which others, and about how we should holistically look at the problem of limiting public discourse. Far too often I see people narrowly focus on the now, focus on specific recent events and say, "This is an unprecedented shut down of discourse." (And to be clear, this comment is not aimed at you, skohan, but more broadly.) Or, "This is not who we are as a nation!". When in fact, looking through the historical record, we've absolutely been disallowing certain discourse in pretty much every decade for at least the last century. It may be that it's a different group this time, it may feel novel to folks because they are young and haven't experienced it firsthand, it may feel different because the underlying technologies are different, but fundamentally there is a throughline of shutting down discussions when 'the powers that be' dislike it, and we should be, imo, discussion that broader trend as much as the moment now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
- BryantD 6y ago
  This is a much better, less snarky version of my point elsewhere in the thread. I do think that tech control of discourse is an important thing to watch. I don't yet believe that it's impossible for people with extreme views to find a host; I am right now looking at a Google Podcasts page hosting an unquestionably white supremacist, Holocaust-denying podcast. When I was younger, you had to go find yourself a dingy mimeographed snail mail catalog of books to get a copy of Ragnar Redbeard's book. It's way easier these days. But yes. Even if you think that the danger of conspiracy theories is such that it warrants restraints on free speech, it is also true that you should be extremely concerned with how those restraints are determined and enforced. That said, if you're not looking at trends over decades, you are likely to overreact to the short term.