6 ms·

i used to be into hardline freedom of speech... now i acknowledge that real life nuances are a lot more complicated. censorship is messy and complicated and us

by a-dub 5y ago

i used to be into hardline freedom of speech... now i acknowledge that real life nuances are a lot more complicated. censorship is messy and complicated and usually involves a dangerous concentration of power, sure... but truly free and anonymous speech that can originate from places that are immune to it's effects or can be falsely attributed for the purposes of subversion can also result in a dangerous concentration of power. what's the difference between a censored truth and a chorus of convincing lies originated anonymously that buries the truth?

akira2501 5y ago
And this is something you believe is best solved through censorship of individuals by large tech companies?
- J5892 5y ago
  I believe tech companies should have the freedom to decide who gets to post on their own platforms, regardless of the size/reach of the platform. To restrict that freedom would be a direct restriction of freedom of speech.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    Legally? Sure. Ethically? Not unless they make is very clear what they are doing. Well I mean, how clear it has to be I guess would vary with the level of restriction?
- a-dub 5y ago
  i'm arguing that the situation is more complicated. we live in a world that is still somewhat e-communication naive, while the internet has completely rewritten the rules of the game bringing e-communication into focus. when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could anonymously participate in the local political process. that would have been crazy talk! so i think maybe there may be some weirdness in terms of keeping the peace in the short term as more naive generations die off and more saavy generations come up. i also think that maybe some ideas we thought were principles were actually implementation strategies built for a very different world and that perhaps we'll need to look at what the underlying principles were and how they might be upheld in a world without information borders. perhaps freedom of speech, which was written with the idea of preventing government from getting too powerful and controlling people, would need to be reduced to the idea of any entity amassing undue power by consolidating information capabilities to control people. from that, maybe you build up a freedom of speech paired with a required assertion of identity... but honestly, i don't know. it sure does seem that the old principles were written for a different game though.
  - EvanAnderson 5y ago
    > when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could anonymously participate in the local political process. that would have been crazy talk! I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. I understand that you said "anyone in the world". I'm certainly not a scholar of American history, but surely there were European influences being exerted (and likely anonymously, too) on the Colonies around the time of the Federalist Papers. Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new, for sure.
    - a-dub 5y ago
      > Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new, for sure. yeah i suppose you're right, foreign intelligence operations designed to influence local politics have existed long before the internet. i think maybe the difference is, it can now be done at scale on a grassroots level at substantially reduced cost. mix that with massive populations that are naive to common internet discussion traps and well, here we are.
    - evgen 5y ago
      > I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. They were not. They were published by three well-known political figures under a pseudonym that was widely known among their peers. Everyone knew it was one of three, and in most cases everyone who mattered in the discussion knew that Hamilton was the most likely author of most of them.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      >I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. You are probably thinking of the Anti-Federalist Papers.
      - EvanAnderson 5y ago
        I know Cato" and other Anti-Federalistis published anonymously (or pseudonymously, as the case may be) as well. My point was that anonymous political speech in the United States has a long history.
jimmygrapes 5y ago
Just kinda spit balling here so forgive the lack of empathy, but it seems to me like the overall System is perfectly capable of correcting itself when people succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them. Yeah we don't want anyone to get harmed, sure sure, yeah, of course, that would be simply... awful. Yet... we learn best from failure, correct? In other words, at some point every concerned individual needs to let those insistent/destined to fail to do so, and let others learn from their mistakes. Everyone's gotta stop trying to save everyone else.
- J5892 5y ago
  I don't disagree with this, but there's a threshold in which the misinformation becomes the prevailing "truth" for a portion of the population, and is no longer able to self-correct. If there is a force actively working towards this as a goal, do you not think that force should be actively opposed?
  - hhggffdd 5y ago
    The problem here is each political leaning will say the same of the other regarding misinformation - which is always subjective. The only difference is that one side has staked their existence on upholding free speech, to never silence the other, but not vice-versa. It’s not a fair fight. I always think: “how do you get to Hitler’s Germany”. And it doesn’t come from the group that upholds free speech. It comes from the group that says censorship has become an unfortunate necessity. We should respect those that hold true to principles that do a disservice to themselves.
  - porknubbins 5y ago
    I agree with the concerns you bring up but isn’t framing this as a free speech/censorship” problem too broad when the main concern is propaganda/misinformation being essentially broadcast (and amplified by engagement algorithms) over quasi monopolistic tech platforms?
- nuerow 5y ago
  > (...) but it seems to me like the overall System is perfectly capable of correcting itself when people succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them. For this hypothesis to be valid, you'd require a population which: a) had decent critical thinking, b) consumed reliable information from reliable sources, c) wasn't targeted by bad actors who hijack information channels to saturate it with disinformation, d) wasn't radicalized to the point where even basic health and safety precautions are attacked as being partisan politics. What we have been seeing for the past year or so is that the system is unable to self-correct if attacked hard enough. Also, we also that the system indeed has some capacity to self-heal if the volume of disinformation is actively tuned down.
drewcoo 5y ago
There is a parable something like this: The child looks at the forest and sees the forest. The adult looks at the forest and sees all the trees and plants and wildlife and features of the land. The old person looks at the forest and sees the forest. It's possible to lose sight of what really matters when overwhelmed with nuance.
mindslight 5y ago
It's still an open question of whether we're actually seeing the result of too much free speech, or whether we're seeing the result of overly centralized powers popularizing extreme viewpoints to drive engagement. Faceboot et al have essentially installed themselves as middlemen into everyone's interpersonal relationships, and have thus hijacked our sense of social proof.
- hhggffdd 5y ago
  It all boils down to ad revenue and clicks. It’s no coincidence that all this started happening the same time old media was threatened by the digital age.
specialist 5y ago
Ditto. And then Paradox of Tolerance happened IRL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Banning speech and censorship are impractical. But something has to give. Now I'm pondering leveling up defamation tort. Like how Alex Jones just got pwned for endangering the lives of the Sandy Hook parents. Personal responsibility. Say whatever you want. But then you own it. Real life consequences. All the Freedom Speeches™ zealots, pretending that bots, sockpuppets, and corporations are people. Pretending that inciting a riot is okey dokey. Pretending that life is fair, with no power imbalances. So my blog with 100 yearly visitors is the same as the outrage machine. Parroting slippery slope tropes, eschewing balance and judgement, as though the train hasn't already jumped the track.
- busterarm 5y ago
  You watch too much TV news. Any argument that appeals to fear and relies on boogeymen is trying to short-circuit the logical, rational parts of your brain. They're trying to make you part of the mob. You would do well to take such arguments and their prophets and burn them with hot coals. Literally tar and feather them and run them out of town.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
nec4b 5y ago
Which censoring society is a role model for you?

by a-dub 5y ago

akira2501 5y ago

And this is something you believe is best solved through censorship of individuals by large tech companies?

J5892 5y ago
I believe tech companies should have the freedom to decide who gets to post on their own platforms, regardless of the size/reach of the platform. To restrict that freedom would be a direct restriction of freedom of speech.
- drdeca 5y ago
  Legally? Sure. Ethically? Not unless they make is very clear what they are doing. Well I mean, how clear it has to be I guess would vary with the level of restriction?
a-dub 5y ago
i'm arguing that the situation is more complicated. we live in a world that is still somewhat e-communication naive, while the internet has completely rewritten the rules of the game bringing e-communication into focus. when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could anonymously participate in the local political process. that would have been crazy talk! so i think maybe there may be some weirdness in terms of keeping the peace in the short term as more naive generations die off and more saavy generations come up. i also think that maybe some ideas we thought were principles were actually implementation strategies built for a very different world and that perhaps we'll need to look at what the underlying principles were and how they might be upheld in a world without information borders. perhaps freedom of speech, which was written with the idea of preventing government from getting too powerful and controlling people, would need to be reduced to the idea of any entity amassing undue power by consolidating information capabilities to control people. from that, maybe you build up a freedom of speech paired with a required assertion of identity... but honestly, i don't know. it sure does seem that the old principles were written for a different game though.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  > when the us constitution was written, it wasn't written with the idea in mind that anyone in the world could anonymously participate in the local political process. that would have been crazy talk! I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. I understand that you said "anyone in the world". I'm certainly not a scholar of American history, but surely there were European influences being exerted (and likely anonymously, too) on the Colonies around the time of the Federalist Papers. Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new, for sure.
  - a-dub 5y ago
    > Far-reaching anonymous political speech isn't a new thing. The speed and ease of disseminating speech is new, for sure. yeah i suppose you're right, foreign intelligence operations designed to influence local politics have existed long before the internet. i think maybe the difference is, it can now be done at scale on a grassroots level at substantially reduced cost. mix that with massive populations that are naive to common internet discussion traps and well, here we are.
  - evgen 5y ago
    > I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. They were not. They were published by three well-known political figures under a pseudonym that was widely known among their peers. Everyone knew it was one of three, and in most cases everyone who mattered in the discussion knew that Hamilton was the most likely author of most of them.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    >I thought the Federalist Papers were published anonymously. You are probably thinking of the Anti-Federalist Papers.
    - EvanAnderson 5y ago
      I know Cato" and other Anti-Federalistis published anonymously (or pseudonymously, as the case may be) as well. My point was that anonymous political speech in the United States has a long history.

jimmygrapes 5y ago

Just kinda spit balling here so forgive the lack of empathy, but it seems to me like the overall System is perfectly capable of correcting itself when people succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them. Yeah we don't want anyone to get harmed, sure sure, yeah, of course, that would be simply... awful. Yet... we learn best from failure, correct? In other words, at some point every concerned individual needs to let those insistent/destined to fail to do so, and let others learn from their mistakes. Everyone's gotta stop trying to save everyone else.

J5892 5y ago
I don't disagree with this, but there's a threshold in which the misinformation becomes the prevailing "truth" for a portion of the population, and is no longer able to self-correct. If there is a force actively working towards this as a goal, do you not think that force should be actively opposed?
- hhggffdd 5y ago
  The problem here is each political leaning will say the same of the other regarding misinformation - which is always subjective. The only difference is that one side has staked their existence on upholding free speech, to never silence the other, but not vice-versa. It’s not a fair fight. I always think: “how do you get to Hitler’s Germany”. And it doesn’t come from the group that upholds free speech. It comes from the group that says censorship has become an unfortunate necessity. We should respect those that hold true to principles that do a disservice to themselves.
- porknubbins 5y ago
  I agree with the concerns you bring up but isn’t framing this as a free speech/censorship” problem too broad when the main concern is propaganda/misinformation being essentially broadcast (and amplified by engagement algorithms) over quasi monopolistic tech platforms?
nuerow 5y ago
> (...) but it seems to me like the overall System is perfectly capable of correcting itself when people succumb to "misinformation" to the point it harms them. For this hypothesis to be valid, you'd require a population which: a) had decent critical thinking, b) consumed reliable information from reliable sources, c) wasn't targeted by bad actors who hijack information channels to saturate it with disinformation, d) wasn't radicalized to the point where even basic health and safety precautions are attacked as being partisan politics. What we have been seeing for the past year or so is that the system is unable to self-correct if attacked hard enough. Also, we also that the system indeed has some capacity to self-heal if the volume of disinformation is actively tuned down.

drewcoo 5y ago

There is a parable something like this: The child looks at the forest and sees the forest. The adult looks at the forest and sees all the trees and plants and wildlife and features of the land. The old person looks at the forest and sees the forest. It's possible to lose sight of what really matters when overwhelmed with nuance.

mindslight 5y ago

It's still an open question of whether we're actually seeing the result of too much free speech, or whether we're seeing the result of overly centralized powers popularizing extreme viewpoints to drive engagement. Faceboot et al have essentially installed themselves as middlemen into everyone's interpersonal relationships, and have thus hijacked our sense of social proof.

hhggffdd 5y ago
It all boils down to ad revenue and clicks. It’s no coincidence that all this started happening the same time old media was threatened by the digital age.

specialist 5y ago

Ditto. And then Paradox of Tolerance happened IRL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Banning speech and censorship are impractical. But something has to give. Now I'm pondering leveling up defamation tort. Like how Alex Jones just got pwned for endangering the lives of the Sandy Hook parents. Personal responsibility. Say whatever you want. But then you own it. Real life consequences. All the Freedom Speeches™ zealots, pretending that bots, sockpuppets, and corporations are people. Pretending that inciting a riot is okey dokey. Pretending that life is fair, with no power imbalances. So my blog with 100 yearly visitors is the same as the outrage machine. Parroting slippery slope tropes, eschewing balance and judgement, as though the train hasn't already jumped the track.

busterarm 5y ago
You watch too much TV news. Any argument that appeals to fear and relies on boogeymen is trying to short-circuit the logical, rational parts of your brain. They're trying to make you part of the mob. You would do well to take such arguments and their prophets and burn them with hot coals. Literally tar and feather them and run them out of town.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

nec4b 5y ago

Which censoring society is a role model for you?