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“There’s always been this division between your right to speak and your right to have a megaphone that reaches hundreds of millions of people,” she said. One i

“There’s always been this division between your right to speak and your right to have a megaphone that reaches hundreds of millions of people,” she said. One is the freedom of speech, the other is freedom of the press, we as humans have the right to both. Yet never before in history we have had access to the press power of the social media revolution. For a time, the gatekeepers took a hands-off approach, but that time is over. End Internet censorship now. We need platforms where the battle of ideas can be fought and won on a level playing field without the creeping hand of censorship in the name of "combating disinformation" getting in the way. Fact check all you want, may you win the battle of ideas. But talk of censorship, even from MIT, stinks of totalitarianism.

MilnerRoute 5y ago
First, let's explore this a little. Let's say it were possible to lie to a billion people -- a lie that could really and truly end lives. Hypothetically....would you stand back and let this happen? Because that's the problem with the absolutist position against "internet censorship." It denies, ever, the possibility of a harmful kind of speech which should in fact be acted against. People can list lots of examples. (Doxxing. Calls for violence against individuals. Child pornography. Dangerous medical misinformation. Copyrighted information.) Are we really okay with a billion people getting all of these things -- rather than one person being "censored"? And the other problem is we're not talking about a government with a constitution... We're talking about Instagram and Pinterest (and other social media companies). I've heard it said that they very conveniently claimed "We're adopting the same absolutist free speech principles of a country" mostly as a ruse to keep from having to invest in any kind of monitoring of their services.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  > a lie that could really and truly end lives Lies don't end lives, people do. You can't say that a lie "caused" someone to do something. It may have influenced them, but they are ultimately responsible for their actions. More generally, I don't think we should be in the business of policing second or third order effects. Responsibility ultimately ends with the perpetrator of an action. If someone lies to one (or many) people, and some of those people go on to murder: punish the murderers, move on with life. > Doxxing Not sure what's wrong with this TBH - publishing public information shouldn't be a crime. Some sites have anti-doxxing policies, some don't. > Calls for violence against individuals Direct threats of violence are already illegal. People that make them should be arrested. > Child pornography Already illegal - find and imprison the pornographers. We already do rather a good job at this. > Dangerous medical misinformation In addition to the obvious idea that people are responsible for their own worldviews, any process to distinguish "misinformation" from "information" requires an oracle that everyone can agree to trust. We have no such oracle. > Copyrighted information. Reproducing copyrighted material is already illegal and pretty well enforced. > mostly as a ruse to keep from having to invest in any kind of monitoring of their services. Why do you think it's OK to impose these costs onto businesses? Why should companies who effectively provide a digital bulletin board be responsible for policing its contents? Why not have... you know... the police be responsible for policing? Then you can clearly and directly send any complaints about their effectiveness to your local representatives, who will actually be empowered to do something about them.
  - MilnerRoute 5y ago
    We totally agree that many of these things are, indeed, illegal. But if that's the case, then at some point a society is also going to need to consider how it's going to also address the distributing of those things which are illegal. (If something can still really be disseminated to a billion people -- then what was the point of even making it illegal in the first place?) For decades and decades all publishers have been responsible for the content they publish. (See libel laws, just for example.) So it just seems irresponsible to now concede the existence of vast unpatrolled online empires making billions of dollars while simultaneously creating dangerous (and illegal) situations which others will then need to police for them.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      > We totally agree that many of these things are, indeed, illegal. Good! Then we don't need any new laws or policy changes. We just need to empower law enforcement to do their jobs. As I've mentioned, they seem pretty empowered already. Publishers indeed have been responsible for content. Sites like Instagram or Pinterest are hardly publishers however, they're more akin to the bulletin boards that used to be ubiquitous in public places (With Pinterest it's literally in the name). Anyone can post whatever they want without any editorial process. If someone posted a murder contract on such a bulletin board, would the board owner (say your local grocery store) be responsible? Hardly. Vast unpatrolled online empires where people can say whatever they want sounds pretty good to me actually. It's freedom of speech in action. Anything actually illegal or really dangerous is policed pretty well (say compared to TOR, and even there criminals are not immune). Otherwise just leave people be. No one "creates a dangerous situation" just by saying something online. It takes more than that.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
wussboy 5y ago
I would agree with you if humans were good at fact checking and then changing their minds based on those facts. But humans do not work that way and never will. Even you yourself don't work that way because you won't check to see if I'm lying, and if you do and see that I am not and that the research soundly supports my position, you won't change your mind.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> We need platforms where the battle of ideas can be fought and won on a level playing field without the creeping hand of censorship in the name of "combating disinformation" getting in the way. In a world where the Russians have a professional and very active disinformation organization, your "level playing field" looks more like a military conducting a massacre against a civilian population...

MilnerRoute 5y ago

First, let's explore this a little. Let's say it were possible to lie to a billion people -- a lie that could really and truly end lives. Hypothetically....would you stand back and let this happen? Because that's the problem with the absolutist position against "internet censorship." It denies, ever, the possibility of a harmful kind of speech which should in fact be acted against. People can list lots of examples. (Doxxing. Calls for violence against individuals. Child pornography. Dangerous medical misinformation. Copyrighted information.) Are we really okay with a billion people getting all of these things -- rather than one person being "censored"? And the other problem is we're not talking about a government with a constitution... We're talking about Instagram and Pinterest (and other social media companies). I've heard it said that they very conveniently claimed "We're adopting the same absolutist free speech principles of a country" mostly as a ruse to keep from having to invest in any kind of monitoring of their services.

thegrimmest 5y ago
> a lie that could really and truly end lives Lies don't end lives, people do. You can't say that a lie "caused" someone to do something. It may have influenced them, but they are ultimately responsible for their actions. More generally, I don't think we should be in the business of policing second or third order effects. Responsibility ultimately ends with the perpetrator of an action. If someone lies to one (or many) people, and some of those people go on to murder: punish the murderers, move on with life. > Doxxing Not sure what's wrong with this TBH - publishing public information shouldn't be a crime. Some sites have anti-doxxing policies, some don't. > Calls for violence against individuals Direct threats of violence are already illegal. People that make them should be arrested. > Child pornography Already illegal - find and imprison the pornographers. We already do rather a good job at this. > Dangerous medical misinformation In addition to the obvious idea that people are responsible for their own worldviews, any process to distinguish "misinformation" from "information" requires an oracle that everyone can agree to trust. We have no such oracle. > Copyrighted information. Reproducing copyrighted material is already illegal and pretty well enforced. > mostly as a ruse to keep from having to invest in any kind of monitoring of their services. Why do you think it's OK to impose these costs onto businesses? Why should companies who effectively provide a digital bulletin board be responsible for policing its contents? Why not have... you know... the police be responsible for policing? Then you can clearly and directly send any complaints about their effectiveness to your local representatives, who will actually be empowered to do something about them.
- MilnerRoute 5y ago
  We totally agree that many of these things are, indeed, illegal. But if that's the case, then at some point a society is also going to need to consider how it's going to also address the distributing of those things which are illegal. (If something can still really be disseminated to a billion people -- then what was the point of even making it illegal in the first place?) For decades and decades all publishers have been responsible for the content they publish. (See libel laws, just for example.) So it just seems irresponsible to now concede the existence of vast unpatrolled online empires making billions of dollars while simultaneously creating dangerous (and illegal) situations which others will then need to police for them.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    > We totally agree that many of these things are, indeed, illegal. Good! Then we don't need any new laws or policy changes. We just need to empower law enforcement to do their jobs. As I've mentioned, they seem pretty empowered already. Publishers indeed have been responsible for content. Sites like Instagram or Pinterest are hardly publishers however, they're more akin to the bulletin boards that used to be ubiquitous in public places (With Pinterest it's literally in the name). Anyone can post whatever they want without any editorial process. If someone posted a murder contract on such a bulletin board, would the board owner (say your local grocery store) be responsible? Hardly. Vast unpatrolled online empires where people can say whatever they want sounds pretty good to me actually. It's freedom of speech in action. Anything actually illegal or really dangerous is policed pretty well (say compared to TOR, and even there criminals are not immune). Otherwise just leave people be. No one "creates a dangerous situation" just by saying something online. It takes more than that.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

wussboy 5y ago

I would agree with you if humans were good at fact checking and then changing their minds based on those facts. But humans do not work that way and never will. Even you yourself don't work that way because you won't check to see if I'm lying, and if you do and see that I am not and that the research soundly supports my position, you won't change your mind.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> We need platforms where the battle of ideas can be fought and won on a level playing field without the creeping hand of censorship in the name of "combating disinformation" getting in the way. In a world where the Russians have a professional and very active disinformation organization, your "level playing field" looks more like a military conducting a massacre against a civilian population...