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I disagree that "enlightened" societies don't rely on mediating access to information as the defining tool of control; our difference of opinion is perhaps that

by mjamil 5y ago

I disagree that "enlightened" societies don't rely on mediating access to information as the defining tool of control; our difference of opinion is perhaps that you think of this purely as limiting information spread, where I think of it also as shaping the information for their own ends. The governments of the UK and the USA, to state two examples you mentioned, have used these tools effectively as propaganda channels repeatedly to sell their vision of armed conflict. The second Iraq war wasn't that long ago. I'll make a tangentially related argument: Starting with the printing press, and through the advent of telephone, radio, television, and now the Internet (mainly via the Web), controlling messaging via these media (or controlling these media directly at times) has been as much a tool of control for those in power in democratic societies as in autocratic ones.

smsm42 5y ago
USA is literally founded on this principle: Congress shall make no law /.../ abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press And while it talks about the Congress, it is clear why the founders considered it to be necessary - the principal value of the free and unabridged speech to forming a free society is tremendous. True, in an armed conflict, speech has been used as a weapon, and it is also true that the reality of US government has often fallen short of the noble ideals laying at its foundation. But until recently, it has been a widely recognized principle that unmediated and un-gated access to speech and expression - be it audio, printed, electronic or any other means of speech - is a vital cornerstone of a modern free society. Unfortunately, recently certain part of political and cultural establishment decided they want to "move past" these antiquated ideas of equality and appoint themselves as gatekeepers of speech - "for our common benefit and the benefit of the society", of which they are but selfless servants, to be sure. The new Twitter CEO is, unfortunately, one of these people, and has unashamedly promoted this approach personally. Thus, we can expect only redoubling of effort from his side to suppress and remove speech that he considers "harmful" and discussion of topics he considers not up for discussion. Fortunately, there's an easy way to deal with it. As David Chappelle noted recently, "twitter is not a real place" - and doesn't need to be elevated to the position of society's gatekeeper, but rather demoted to society's cesspool. They proved themselves not up to the task to maintain robust free discourse platform - let them rot in their own bubble.
- azekai 5y ago
  >As David Chappelle noted recently, "twitter is not a real place" - and doesn't need to be elevated to the position of society's gatekeeper, but rather demoted to society's cesspool. They proved themselves not up to the task to maintain robust free discourse platform - let them rot in their own bubble. Agreed. Part of that is the 'hot take' represented by the limited characters of a tweet are inimical to nuance. So much of it is just people taking turns 'dunking' on each other, and it gets increasingly heated and rage inducing. Add to that an inflammatory algorithm, where outrage drives interaction, and of course you have a cesspit. Part of the good thing about the old internet is when you have to construct a blog to share your thoughts, you have to be driven to actually, y'know, build something. It also has the added benefit of being relatively closed off. Now everyone has easy access to an empty field with which to yell into the void... and it turns out with that low bar and high inter-connectedness comes a lot of yelling.
- bakuninsbart 5y ago
  Both you and the person two comments above have overtly rose-tinted glasses on the proclaimed ideas of the so-called "free societies".The founding fathers did not accidentally deny their slaves the right to free speech and a free life. It is no accident that no woman nor a man without property signed the constitution. Public discourse has been dominated by white, rich men since the inception of the US, and history is full of examples of active suppression of speech by women and minorities. This doesn't go against the notion that a world in which the reach of speech is controlled by large tech companies is quite dystopian either, I just really don't wanna go "back to the good old times" either.
  - smsm42 5y ago
    We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. So I am not sure how it's relevant - sure, people in the past had got a lot of things wrong. They thought diseases come from bad smells, eating arsenic can cure you, and yes - some of them also thought owning slaves is ok. Now we know better about these things. We don't have slavery anymore - at least in the West (curiously, nobody seems to give a tweet about it still existing in other parts of the world?) That doesn't mean they got everything wrong - some things they did get right, even though they came short in implementing them - just as we do. They were imperfect people - just as we are. It doesn't mean because there was slavery in the past we can't have free speech now - that makes no sense. It's just a collection of non-sequiturs - "founders were imperfect by our ideals 250 years forward, we should reject literally everything that was done" - and what? > Public discourse has been dominated by white, rich men since the inception of the US, and history is full of examples of active suppression of speech by women and minorities. And to fix that, we need more active suppression of speech, surely? Makes total sense, right? Because if rich, white men suppressed speech, and it was bad, then if we have now rich people, a small number of whom would be not white, not male and one or two maybe even non-binary transgender - if those people would be actively suppressing speech, then of course it'd be great. What a bunch of nonsense! > I just really don't wanna go "back to the good old times" either. Nobody wants that. Where would you get the idea? Of course people that want free speech don't mean they want to give up antibiotics and painkillers, stop driving cars, forgo electricity, never have a proper dental work, and do any other things that were done 250 years ago that we don't do anymore. Why would they? They just want to speak freely and discuss the ideas freely. It's not and never been the package deal - either we have slavery and free speech, or we have neither. In fact, it is the opposite - of course, if we have slavery, we can't have full freedom, as you correctly noted, free speech has to be free for everybody - any gender, any race, any societal stature. Big Tech is completely opposed to this.

by mjamil 5y ago

smsm42 5y ago

USA is literally founded on this principle: Congress shall make no law /.../ abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press And while it talks about the Congress, it is clear why the founders considered it to be necessary - the principal value of the free and unabridged speech to forming a free society is tremendous. True, in an armed conflict, speech has been used as a weapon, and it is also true that the reality of US government has often fallen short of the noble ideals laying at its foundation. But until recently, it has been a widely recognized principle that unmediated and un-gated access to speech and expression - be it audio, printed, electronic or any other means of speech - is a vital cornerstone of a modern free society. Unfortunately, recently certain part of political and cultural establishment decided they want to "move past" these antiquated ideas of equality and appoint themselves as gatekeepers of speech - "for our common benefit and the benefit of the society", of which they are but selfless servants, to be sure. The new Twitter CEO is, unfortunately, one of these people, and has unashamedly promoted this approach personally. Thus, we can expect only redoubling of effort from his side to suppress and remove speech that he considers "harmful" and discussion of topics he considers not up for discussion. Fortunately, there's an easy way to deal with it. As David Chappelle noted recently, "twitter is not a real place" - and doesn't need to be elevated to the position of society's gatekeeper, but rather demoted to society's cesspool. They proved themselves not up to the task to maintain robust free discourse platform - let them rot in their own bubble.

azekai 5y ago
>As David Chappelle noted recently, "twitter is not a real place" - and doesn't need to be elevated to the position of society's gatekeeper, but rather demoted to society's cesspool. They proved themselves not up to the task to maintain robust free discourse platform - let them rot in their own bubble. Agreed. Part of that is the 'hot take' represented by the limited characters of a tweet are inimical to nuance. So much of it is just people taking turns 'dunking' on each other, and it gets increasingly heated and rage inducing. Add to that an inflammatory algorithm, where outrage drives interaction, and of course you have a cesspit. Part of the good thing about the old internet is when you have to construct a blog to share your thoughts, you have to be driven to actually, y'know, build something. It also has the added benefit of being relatively closed off. Now everyone has easy access to an empty field with which to yell into the void... and it turns out with that low bar and high inter-connectedness comes a lot of yelling.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
Both you and the person two comments above have overtly rose-tinted glasses on the proclaimed ideas of the so-called "free societies".The founding fathers did not accidentally deny their slaves the right to free speech and a free life. It is no accident that no woman nor a man without property signed the constitution. Public discourse has been dominated by white, rich men since the inception of the US, and history is full of examples of active suppression of speech by women and minorities. This doesn't go against the notion that a world in which the reach of speech is controlled by large tech companies is quite dystopian either, I just really don't wanna go "back to the good old times" either.
- smsm42 5y ago
  We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. So I am not sure how it's relevant - sure, people in the past had got a lot of things wrong. They thought diseases come from bad smells, eating arsenic can cure you, and yes - some of them also thought owning slaves is ok. Now we know better about these things. We don't have slavery anymore - at least in the West (curiously, nobody seems to give a tweet about it still existing in other parts of the world?) That doesn't mean they got everything wrong - some things they did get right, even though they came short in implementing them - just as we do. They were imperfect people - just as we are. It doesn't mean because there was slavery in the past we can't have free speech now - that makes no sense. It's just a collection of non-sequiturs - "founders were imperfect by our ideals 250 years forward, we should reject literally everything that was done" - and what? > Public discourse has been dominated by white, rich men since the inception of the US, and history is full of examples of active suppression of speech by women and minorities. And to fix that, we need more active suppression of speech, surely? Makes total sense, right? Because if rich, white men suppressed speech, and it was bad, then if we have now rich people, a small number of whom would be not white, not male and one or two maybe even non-binary transgender - if those people would be actively suppressing speech, then of course it'd be great. What a bunch of nonsense! > I just really don't wanna go "back to the good old times" either. Nobody wants that. Where would you get the idea? Of course people that want free speech don't mean they want to give up antibiotics and painkillers, stop driving cars, forgo electricity, never have a proper dental work, and do any other things that were done 250 years ago that we don't do anymore. Why would they? They just want to speak freely and discuss the ideas freely. It's not and never been the package deal - either we have slavery and free speech, or we have neither. In fact, it is the opposite - of course, if we have slavery, we can't have full freedom, as you correctly noted, free speech has to be free for everybody - any gender, any race, any societal stature. Big Tech is completely opposed to this.