3 ms·

That’s a solution that works for 150-year-old universities, not for little indie publishers. If we don’t have solutions that work for obscure and unpopular idea

by neilk 4y ago

That’s a solution that works for 150-year-old universities, not for little indie publishers. If we don’t have solutions that work for obscure and unpopular ideas - like Susie Bright in the 1980s - what good is the right to free speech? I wish that regulation was the answer, but back in the day, government censorship was the problem. Which also fell disproportionately on small and weak organizations. In the 80s and 90s, in Canada, there were Supreme Court cases about small LGBT-identified bookstores routinely having their orders seized by Customs on obscenity grounds. EDIT: I don’t know what I believe any more. We know that censorship falls heavily on on unpopular speech from marginalized people, no matter whether it’s government or private industry. On the other hand, without censorship or regulation, it seems to be true that content providers and adtech will turn about 10-15% of the population insane with far-right conspiracy theories.

shadowgovt 4y ago
There's no single uniform right answer, and the tech community got away with naively believing their might be one for decades because they actually didn't have the social clout for the median person to care what was going on in online fora. But the tension between free speech, censorship, information, and misinformation is as old as communication itself, and there's more to be learned on the subjects from history than from the YouTube Terms of Service.
stickfigure 4y ago
> content providers and adtech will turn about 10-15% of the population insane with far-right conspiracy theories. I have some of these people in my family tree. Adtech, content providers, censorship, etc are all irrelevant. Those 10-15% are going to find their nutjob content no matter where it lives. The content doesn't make them crazy, they make themselves crazy by filtering their memetic exposure to stuff that confirms their biases. Kicking it off of youtube does not prevent them from finding it, it just confirms their suspicion that there's a conspiracy trying to stop them from hearing "the truth".

by neilk 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago

There's no single uniform right answer, and the tech community got away with naively believing their might be one for decades because they actually didn't have the social clout for the median person to care what was going on in online fora. But the tension between free speech, censorship, information, and misinformation is as old as communication itself, and there's more to be learned on the subjects from history than from the YouTube Terms of Service.

stickfigure 4y ago

> content providers and adtech will turn about 10-15% of the population insane with far-right conspiracy theories. I have some of these people in my family tree. Adtech, content providers, censorship, etc are all irrelevant. Those 10-15% are going to find their nutjob content no matter where it lives. The content doesn't make them crazy, they make themselves crazy by filtering their memetic exposure to stuff that confirms their biases. Kicking it off of youtube does not prevent them from finding it, it just confirms their suspicion that there's a conspiracy trying to stop them from hearing "the truth".