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And yet, as the world communicates by way of technological means nowadays, rather than public gatherings and speeches, there is a larger and larger need for fre

And yet, as the world communicates by way of technological means nowadays, rather than public gatherings and speeches, there is a larger and larger need for free speech on tech platforms. I frankly don't see a good solution, because the world is multipolar and subject to different laws regarding free speech. If countries were concerned for the respect of their own boundries of free speech they would begin developing (godawful, I'm sure) alternatives to twitter, facebook, youtube, google, etc. If each country had their own echo chamber, it would make sense if you squint very hard and try to ignore the fact that people wish to communicated across country borders. So yeah, it's not going to change any time soon. I will say this though, while appreciating his thread, he is dead wrong about the idea that the censorship is equal ended. "Nationalism", in the broad sense, irregardless of wether it is left or right leaning economically, is censored across the board far, far greater than "Liberalism".

skippyboxedhero 5y ago
All of these problems existed before. Most of today's democracies have had rules around public gatherings and speeches. The situation with Twitter is, effectively, analogous to the invention of the printing press which started the political pamphleteering industry ("political"...the early state of that industry resembled Twitter, at least in England...lots of accusations of X public person being a secret papist or drinking children's blood...very little real discussion). I am not sure exactly what the solution is (and you are right, that it becomes more complex on a global scale) but, as some of the comments in OP thread inadvertently allude to, a lot of today's moderation is just censorship. At no point in history has been up to companies to do this (in some countries the media is self-regulating, but that is regulation...not deciding that something shouldn't be published because it is "wrong" in some way...that is up to the courts and govt, not the press). The problem is the separation of content creation and distribution...the guy who runs the newspaper stand isn't responsible for the NY Times publishing something that is inaccurate. So I think the goal is parity with existing rules: people are responsible for what they post, not companies (and btw, this applies legally...in the UK, you can be prosecuted criminally for something you post...so quite why these companies need to stick their oar in to "protect" users is unclear).

skippyboxedhero 5y ago

All of these problems existed before. Most of today's democracies have had rules around public gatherings and speeches. The situation with Twitter is, effectively, analogous to the invention of the printing press which started the political pamphleteering industry ("political"...the early state of that industry resembled Twitter, at least in England...lots of accusations of X public person being a secret papist or drinking children's blood...very little real discussion). I am not sure exactly what the solution is (and you are right, that it becomes more complex on a global scale) but, as some of the comments in OP thread inadvertently allude to, a lot of today's moderation is just censorship. At no point in history has been up to companies to do this (in some countries the media is self-regulating, but that is regulation...not deciding that something shouldn't be published because it is "wrong" in some way...that is up to the courts and govt, not the press). The problem is the separation of content creation and distribution...the guy who runs the newspaper stand isn't responsible for the NY Times publishing something that is inaccurate. So I think the goal is parity with existing rules: people are responsible for what they post, not companies (and btw, this applies legally...in the UK, you can be prosecuted criminally for something you post...so quite why these companies need to stick their oar in to "protect" users is unclear).