5 ms·
I'll try to explain why I have an issue with what is happening here. Yes, I agree with almost everything you said. However, the issue is that platforms are con
by istinetz 5y ago
I'll try to explain why I have an issue with what is happening here.
Yes, I agree with almost everything you said. However, the issue is that platforms are consolidated. Depending on your chosen format of content, there are only 2-3 viable platforms to reach people - and for some types of content, only one.
And if those very small number of platforms decide to, or are pressured to, delist content or a content creator, this is bad. Okay, you don't want to call it 'censorship', so lets invent a new term - 'kindacensorship'. Kindacensorship is identical to censorship. It has all the properties of censorship and all the negative effects of censorship.
If we had our present day internet infrastructure in the 1950s, there would have been moral outrage at, for example, gay content. And youtube and twitch and reddit would be kindacensoring all gay creators, and all who say that maybe homosexuality isn't so bad, and everything culturally adjacent to these topics. Because the majority demands it. And the majority would have demanded it, because that was the culture of the 1950s.
Then, all those gay creators would have been forced off all platforms, all internet infrastructure, and from all types of mainstream media - tv, radio, etc. Yes, they could have still written their thoughts, but it is an absolute guarantee that they'd languish in obscurity, reaching only each other, but not the masses.
(If we had our present day internet infrastructure in the 1900s, there would have been moral outrage at people talking about desegragation. Or wanting to abolish the monarchy. Or communism.)
Is it not obvious that this would have been bad? Kindacensorship would have stopped dissenters, would have halted the social evolution. And this is exactly what is happening now. The only reason silencing gay people sounds bad, and silencing Joe Rogan sounds good, is because the one message is culturally acceptable, and the other has not yet passed to the Overton window of acceptability. And if we allow kindacensorhip to grow, we will culturally stagnate. All dissenters will be silenced.
Kindacensorship is identical to censorship in form, and in function. Who cares that it's not the government banning books, and it's a (very) small cabal of technological companies deciding what can and cannot be said? Is this somehow better? I genuinely don't think it is.
And I don't know what I'm proposing, exactly. Not sure I know how I'd renegotiate the social contract. I just know that I'm seeing kindacensorship everywhere and it. is. bad.
- chasing 5y agoThen maybe Joe Rogan shouldn’t have sold his podcast for a large pile of money. Because in doing so he let someone else have control over his speech. If this is a battle you want to fight, I might suggest starting with the book banning efforts by Republicans (the actual government) across many states that’s going on right now.
- naasking 5y agoTo my recollection, Rogan sold to Spotify with the express agreement that he would have complete control over content and publishing. It will be interesting to see what happens now.
- istinetz 5y ago>Then maybe Joe Rogan shouldn’t have sold his podcast for a large pile of money. Maybe he shouldn't have. And yet I am saying, in this world in which he did, Spotify shouldn't censor him. >If this is a battle you want to fight, I might suggest starting with the book banning efforts by Republicans Yes, book banning is also bad, I agree. (???)
- leppr 5y agoOk but in this precise case, podcasts have not fallen to mono/duo/trio-poly yet. Joe Rogan made a decision to take the money and give in to a corporation trying to make a podcast monopoly a reality. Who is to complain when the inevitable abuse of power ensues? If it didn't happen now, when podcasts are still open and standardized, it would've happened later once podcasts became proprietary.
- istinetz 5y agoJoe Rogan perhaps has no grounds to complain. I am complaining, on my behalf, because I want a world where more than one viewpoint is allowed to win.
- jmull 5y ago> I'm seeing kindacensorship everywhere and it. is. bad. Everyone isn't always going to agree with you, and they have their own rights. You're having a hard time articulating what you mean because it doesn't really make sense. If you can force someone to publish and promote something they don't want to, they can force you to publish and promote something you don't want to. The cause of liberty has not been served if this happens.