The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html
395 comments
Is it really necessary to make users scroll ten ticks before they get to see the article text?
Given how much the issue of free speech comes up here on HN -- especially regarding Twitter, Facebook, and politics -- I think this is a really important article for people to read.
It's long, but is extremely nuanced and shows that the issue is far more complex than just "the solution to offensive speech is more speech".
One key takeaway is in the middle:
> [Free speech is] a fundamentally optimistic vision: Good ideas win. The better argument will prove persuasive. There’s a countertradition, however. It’s alert to the ways in which demagogic leaders or movements can use propaganda, an older term that can be synonymous with disinformation. A crude authoritarian censors free speech. A clever one invokes it to play a trick, twisting facts to turn a mob on a subordinated group and, in the end, silence as well as endanger its members. Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt focused on the use of propaganda to “make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.”
> In other words, good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas. “Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing,” the philosopher Jason Stanley and the linguist David Beaver argue in their forthcoming book, “The Politics of Language.”
But most of all the article shows that the history of free speech in the US is not simple at all -- and that our current view of it is very different from the period of 1949-1987 when broadcasters were subject to the "fairness doctrine", which I think most people today aren't even aware of.
It's long, but is extremely nuanced and shows that the issue is far more complex than just "the solution to offensive speech is more speech".
One key takeaway is in the middle:
> [Free speech is] a fundamentally optimistic vision: Good ideas win. The better argument will prove persuasive. There’s a countertradition, however. It’s alert to the ways in which demagogic leaders or movements can use propaganda, an older term that can be synonymous with disinformation. A crude authoritarian censors free speech. A clever one invokes it to play a trick, twisting facts to turn a mob on a subordinated group and, in the end, silence as well as endanger its members. Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt focused on the use of propaganda to “make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.”
> In other words, good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas. “Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing,” the philosopher Jason Stanley and the linguist David Beaver argue in their forthcoming book, “The Politics of Language.”
But most of all the article shows that the history of free speech in the US is not simple at all -- and that our current view of it is very different from the period of 1949-1987 when broadcasters were subject to the "fairness doctrine", which I think most people today aren't even aware of.
This is a pretty good read and fairly nuanced.
IMHO free speech needs accountability and massive increases in education resources to be effective.
Without accountability, the loudest voices can set what is true to many. This congregates power into the already powerful, until new means of information dissemination are created to allow new voices. However those too will need the same accountability or will fall to the same issues. You can see this with the rise of every new medium for information. From newspapers to books to movies and music to each new major social media platform.
Without education resources, there is a much lowered threshold for people accepting information provided to them as truth. We need to globally, but especially in America, increase education of the sciences and critical thinking. Maybe it's too late for entire generations today but the future can be very bright.
Unfortunately the premise of the title will most likely provoke an emotional response from many, to which the concept of unfettered free speech is inalienable, even the discussion of the problematic side effects it can create.
IMHO free speech needs accountability and massive increases in education resources to be effective.
Without accountability, the loudest voices can set what is true to many. This congregates power into the already powerful, until new means of information dissemination are created to allow new voices. However those too will need the same accountability or will fall to the same issues. You can see this with the rise of every new medium for information. From newspapers to books to movies and music to each new major social media platform.
Without education resources, there is a much lowered threshold for people accepting information provided to them as truth. We need to globally, but especially in America, increase education of the sciences and critical thinking. Maybe it's too late for entire generations today but the future can be very bright.
Unfortunately the premise of the title will most likely provoke an emotional response from many, to which the concept of unfettered free speech is inalienable, even the discussion of the problematic side effects it can create.
Free speech is always a problem. But the problems of not having free speech are worse.
> In the 2010 Citizens United decision, the court’s conservative majority opened the door to allowing corporations (and unions) to spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy, as long as they donated to interest groups and political-action committees rather than to campaigns.
Unsurprising to see Emily Bazelon deeply distort Citizens United. That case wasn’t about “unlimited money.” The entity that was prosecuted was a small 501(c)(4) non-profit (the same category as the NAACP or ACLU), who made a movie critical of Hilary Clinton too close to the election. The government’s lawyer admitted, that under the government’s theory of the first amendment, nothing would preclude the government from prosecuting a corporation that spent corporate treasury money to publish a book: https://www.ifs.org/blog/citizens-united-its-all-about-the-b....
In fact, had Citizens United gone the other way, the Trump administration would be able to tell Google and Twitter they can’t use corporate funds to moderate political content. There is a reason the ACLU was in the conservative side in that case.
That the media has for a decade created a Twilight-Zone reality to make the public believe that Citizens United was about money and not a political movie should call into question the article’s whole premise. Do you really trust these gatekeepers of “the Truth” to yield the government’s power to police speech?
Unsurprising to see Emily Bazelon deeply distort Citizens United. That case wasn’t about “unlimited money.” The entity that was prosecuted was a small 501(c)(4) non-profit (the same category as the NAACP or ACLU), who made a movie critical of Hilary Clinton too close to the election. The government’s lawyer admitted, that under the government’s theory of the first amendment, nothing would preclude the government from prosecuting a corporation that spent corporate treasury money to publish a book: https://www.ifs.org/blog/citizens-united-its-all-about-the-b....
In fact, had Citizens United gone the other way, the Trump administration would be able to tell Google and Twitter they can’t use corporate funds to moderate political content. There is a reason the ACLU was in the conservative side in that case.
That the media has for a decade created a Twilight-Zone reality to make the public believe that Citizens United was about money and not a political movie should call into question the article’s whole premise. Do you really trust these gatekeepers of “the Truth” to yield the government’s power to police speech?
A problem is the inherent asymmetry in the ease with which one can create a believable lie and the difficulty of ensuring that its refutation reaches everywhere the lie has reached.
You can easily tie up the fact checkers and refuters with what amounts to a denial of service attack.
Should one curtail free speech ? My opinion is no, but one needs to realize what we sign up for when we do that.
You can easily tie up the fact checkers and refuters with what amounts to a denial of service attack.
Should one curtail free speech ? My opinion is no, but one needs to realize what we sign up for when we do that.
> Facts and transparency are the intended pillars of the modern First Amendment
I don’t think we can ascribe intentions that easily. Speech is also the way people process their emotions, clarify their thoughts, get into dialogue with other people and form a dialectic to discover the truth. If people can’t fight their with words, they will fight with their swords, because they will lose hope of integrating their world-view with others.
I am also bothered the word facts getting thrown out that easily. We are all exploring an infinite problem space with limited knowledge and processing power we have. This has 2 consequences a) no one can have the epistemological monopoly on truth and b) one could definitely deceive themselves and others with factual information that otherwise doesn’t give the complete picture.
Which means, there is no terminal place for reality, and we always need to be in the process of integrating new data, including the perspective of others.
Author bends over backwards to ultimately manufacture consent for censorship, but the problem has never been about misinformation. It is not even about the volume of content to sift true with new media. It is the new platforms themselves with their perverse incentinves.
When we read twitter, we think we are interacting with people. But just like fish not seeing the water, we don’t see the medium, and the fact that the largest entity we are interacting with is the AI that keeps curating the content we see for one and only goal: engagement.
Behind the curtains, the biggest applied psychology experiment is being run by the best paid PhDs of the world; your every interaction is processed through the lens of every single heuristic you have and their failure modes (fallacies, biases) are exploited in the name of engagement.
The result is of course we going crazy, because no one, not even the most self-disciplined stoic, can defend against prolonged exposure to this machine and preserve their rationality.
So to assume the answer to this madness is to restrict speech is not only futile but also harmful. It is empowering the filtering role these platforms play, and will definitely drive us crazier.
Instead I propose this solution; marketplace of ideas now has to incorporate the marketplace for AIs that curate those ideas to be complete. Make it mandatory for any sufficiently large content curator to have alternative recommendation engines users can pick from. Then watch people chosing ones that doesn’t make them enraged at the expense of engagement, that rewards curious, honest intellectual discourse, that doesn’t reward impulsivity etc.
Those recommendation engines are the hidden parties in our speech, constantly whispering “have you heard so and so said this” and carrying around the most enraging but engaging stuff, because it can make a few cents showing you ads everytime you let it speak. We need to make and pick ones that has the best interest of people in mind, not just shareholders’.
I don’t think we can ascribe intentions that easily. Speech is also the way people process their emotions, clarify their thoughts, get into dialogue with other people and form a dialectic to discover the truth. If people can’t fight their with words, they will fight with their swords, because they will lose hope of integrating their world-view with others.
I am also bothered the word facts getting thrown out that easily. We are all exploring an infinite problem space with limited knowledge and processing power we have. This has 2 consequences a) no one can have the epistemological monopoly on truth and b) one could definitely deceive themselves and others with factual information that otherwise doesn’t give the complete picture.
Which means, there is no terminal place for reality, and we always need to be in the process of integrating new data, including the perspective of others.
Author bends over backwards to ultimately manufacture consent for censorship, but the problem has never been about misinformation. It is not even about the volume of content to sift true with new media. It is the new platforms themselves with their perverse incentinves.
When we read twitter, we think we are interacting with people. But just like fish not seeing the water, we don’t see the medium, and the fact that the largest entity we are interacting with is the AI that keeps curating the content we see for one and only goal: engagement.
Behind the curtains, the biggest applied psychology experiment is being run by the best paid PhDs of the world; your every interaction is processed through the lens of every single heuristic you have and their failure modes (fallacies, biases) are exploited in the name of engagement.
The result is of course we going crazy, because no one, not even the most self-disciplined stoic, can defend against prolonged exposure to this machine and preserve their rationality.
So to assume the answer to this madness is to restrict speech is not only futile but also harmful. It is empowering the filtering role these platforms play, and will definitely drive us crazier.
Instead I propose this solution; marketplace of ideas now has to incorporate the marketplace for AIs that curate those ideas to be complete. Make it mandatory for any sufficiently large content curator to have alternative recommendation engines users can pick from. Then watch people chosing ones that doesn’t make them enraged at the expense of engagement, that rewards curious, honest intellectual discourse, that doesn’t reward impulsivity etc.
Those recommendation engines are the hidden parties in our speech, constantly whispering “have you heard so and so said this” and carrying around the most enraging but engaging stuff, because it can make a few cents showing you ads everytime you let it speak. We need to make and pick ones that has the best interest of people in mind, not just shareholders’.
It's ironic that Emily Bazelon, the author of this essay, is the granddaughter of the late influential federal judge David Bazelon. Judge Bazelon was a well-known progressive and a well-known free speech proponent. Although his granddaughter shares his broadly progressive worldview, her position on this issue is different.
The evolution from David to Emily reflects that of the US left as a whole. Most people like to praise free speech as a theory. In practice, it is a tool for those who don't occupy the commanding heights of a culture to push back against those who do. When the New Left was ascendant in the 1960s and 1970s, promotion of free speech was an important component of its rise to cultural power. Now that its intellectual descendants occupy the commanding heights, they view it as a threat rather than an asset.
The evolution from David to Emily reflects that of the US left as a whole. Most people like to praise free speech as a theory. In practice, it is a tool for those who don't occupy the commanding heights of a culture to push back against those who do. When the New Left was ascendant in the 1960s and 1970s, promotion of free speech was an important component of its rise to cultural power. Now that its intellectual descendants occupy the commanding heights, they view it as a threat rather than an asset.
I kinda disagree with her characterization of the whole "coup attempt" thing, which she presents as "totally fabricated", "without evidence", etc. Which is true - some people sitting in a room wargaming isn't a coup or a plot to take over the country in and of itself. It's not a crime to do that. But the steelman "extremist" (her word) argument is that the publication of the WaPo essay (and Hillary Clinton saying Biden "should not concede under any circumstances", and this essay itself, etc) represents the elite using free speech to establish a Schelling point, or common knowledge, of how to dispute the election. By now anyone with any political awareness knows, and knows that anyone-with-any-political-awareness knows, that the election results won't be known for weeks or months after the election. And that mail-in ballots are going to decide the election. And that Trump is suppressing votes. It's a kind of manufacturing of consent for the intellectual elite who hate Trump. But to them this sort of thing is totally invisible - that kind of speech is good and important for democracy, because it establishes a collective template for coordination-free cooperation to ensure Trump is not reelected. It's the other kind of speech that is bad.
I can see why a writer for the NYT would find it palatable to call for limitations on free speech, since her speech would not end up being censored.
The legal concept of "free speech" originally meant "speak truth to power".
Highlight on truth and power.
Now it's being co-opted to allow for propaganda, disinformation and even far-right apologists.
Highlight on truth and power.
Now it's being co-opted to allow for propaganda, disinformation and even far-right apologists.
Why do we need the term “disinformation?” Deeply suspicious of this word. Seems to let politicians ignore allegations without having to declare them as false.
This is another "we have to kill free speech to save it" spiel. I don't find these arguments convincing and the use of Hannah Arendt is particularly egregious. Hannah Arendt was not (and never claimed to be) a philosopher. She was a political theorist who tried, in her own words, to "look at politics with eyes unclouded by philosophy".
> Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt focused on the use of propaganda to “make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.”
The author uses this quote to stand for "in other words, good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas". But that's not at all what Arendt was saying. She believed that, in the end, the truth will come out:
> Under normal circumstances the liar is defeated by reality, for which there is no substitute; no matter how large the tissue of falsehood that an experienced liar has to offer, it will never be large enough, even if he enlists the help of computers, to cover the immensity of factuality. The liar, who may get away with any number of single falsehoods, will find it impossible to get away with lying on principle. This is one of the lessons that could be learned from the totalitarian experiments and the totalitarian rulers' frightening confidence in the power of lying--in their ability, for instance, to rewrite history again and again to adapt the past to the "political line" of the present moment or to eliminate data that did not fit their ideology. Thus, in a socialist economy, they would deny that unemployment existed, the unemployed person simply becoming a non-person
> The result of such experiments when undertaken by those in possession of the means of violence are terrible enough, but lasting deception is not among them.
The power required to eradicate the truth, she writes, "would amount to omnipotence". Hitler, Stalin, and other totalitarian leaders undermined their own governments in their attempt to destroy the truth and rule through terror. For Arendt, all political power flows from consensus. She believed, contrary to Mao's quip about "political power growing from the barrel of a gun," that violence and coercion cannot create political power but can only undermine it.
That sounds optimistic to me. By encouraging the citizenry to simultaneously believe everything and nothing, these regimes undermined themselves.
The article sees strong defense of free speech as naivete:
> It’s a fundamentally optimistic vision: Good ideas win. The better argument will prove persuasive.
I don't agree with this interpretation of modern liberalism. The modern liberal position on free speech is not optimistic, it's resigned. The argument is not "everything that rises must converge" but, rather, we are stupid, limited beings, so what right have we to interfere with other stupid, limited beings? This position amounts to a recognition of the limitations of human rationality, not a celebration of it.
It has been personally sad to me to witness the left turning on free speech. When I was a kid, it was the lefties who defended free speech. It was Chomsky who said "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards". Now that I'm a little older, I realize that, mostly, people just defend free speech when they stand to benefit from it (i.e. when they aren't in the position to censor).
These days the left has a lot of cultural power and many on the left are bowing to the temptation to use that power to censor the opposition.
> Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt focused on the use of propaganda to “make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.”
The author uses this quote to stand for "in other words, good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas". But that's not at all what Arendt was saying. She believed that, in the end, the truth will come out:
> Under normal circumstances the liar is defeated by reality, for which there is no substitute; no matter how large the tissue of falsehood that an experienced liar has to offer, it will never be large enough, even if he enlists the help of computers, to cover the immensity of factuality. The liar, who may get away with any number of single falsehoods, will find it impossible to get away with lying on principle. This is one of the lessons that could be learned from the totalitarian experiments and the totalitarian rulers' frightening confidence in the power of lying--in their ability, for instance, to rewrite history again and again to adapt the past to the "political line" of the present moment or to eliminate data that did not fit their ideology. Thus, in a socialist economy, they would deny that unemployment existed, the unemployed person simply becoming a non-person
> The result of such experiments when undertaken by those in possession of the means of violence are terrible enough, but lasting deception is not among them.
The power required to eradicate the truth, she writes, "would amount to omnipotence". Hitler, Stalin, and other totalitarian leaders undermined their own governments in their attempt to destroy the truth and rule through terror. For Arendt, all political power flows from consensus. She believed, contrary to Mao's quip about "political power growing from the barrel of a gun," that violence and coercion cannot create political power but can only undermine it.
That sounds optimistic to me. By encouraging the citizenry to simultaneously believe everything and nothing, these regimes undermined themselves.
The article sees strong defense of free speech as naivete:
> It’s a fundamentally optimistic vision: Good ideas win. The better argument will prove persuasive.
I don't agree with this interpretation of modern liberalism. The modern liberal position on free speech is not optimistic, it's resigned. The argument is not "everything that rises must converge" but, rather, we are stupid, limited beings, so what right have we to interfere with other stupid, limited beings? This position amounts to a recognition of the limitations of human rationality, not a celebration of it.
It has been personally sad to me to witness the left turning on free speech. When I was a kid, it was the lefties who defended free speech. It was Chomsky who said "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards". Now that I'm a little older, I realize that, mostly, people just defend free speech when they stand to benefit from it (i.e. when they aren't in the position to censor).
These days the left has a lot of cultural power and many on the left are bowing to the temptation to use that power to censor the opposition.
I really hope people take this article seriously and not just knee jerk react to the idea that unobstructed free speech is totally perfect. The idea that there should be no consequences for spewing vitriol and using lies to back it up is insane. It's been demonstrated time and time again that people can't fact check every single statement and this fact is used by malicious actors to manipulate people to their ends.
Its also really strange because for every other system we have, we accept legislatively enforced boundaries. There are constraints around the manufacturing of drugs, food products, vehicles, etc. We have regulations around pollution.
Even for abstract ideas, we socially agree on norms. Nobody would think it's acceptable to just called somebody the n word (or some other derogatory word) in the work place. Healthy companies tend to get rid of 'brilliant jerks' who yell or bully other employees, despite their technical competence. Why? Because we understand that this attitude creates a corrosive environment that is fundamentally not beneficial for the good of the group. We even understand this in personal relationships. We break up with people who lie to us and manipulate us.
Its also really strange because for every other system we have, we accept legislatively enforced boundaries. There are constraints around the manufacturing of drugs, food products, vehicles, etc. We have regulations around pollution.
Even for abstract ideas, we socially agree on norms. Nobody would think it's acceptable to just called somebody the n word (or some other derogatory word) in the work place. Healthy companies tend to get rid of 'brilliant jerks' who yell or bully other employees, despite their technical competence. Why? Because we understand that this attitude creates a corrosive environment that is fundamentally not beneficial for the good of the group. We even understand this in personal relationships. We break up with people who lie to us and manipulate us.
Society is misdiagnosing the issue here.
It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement.
As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage and divide because that's what's engaging.
Limiting speech will not cause this issue to go away. It's bigger than just misinformation. The core issue is the underlying system that values engagement over all things. That is, the advertising system.
Companies that make their money selling ads while providing content to engage have a perverse incentive to make society worse. This is the bad seed that needs removal.
This business model should be illegal. It's already trivially unethical.
It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement.
As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage and divide because that's what's engaging.
Limiting speech will not cause this issue to go away. It's bigger than just misinformation. The core issue is the underlying system that values engagement over all things. That is, the advertising system.
Companies that make their money selling ads while providing content to engage have a perverse incentive to make society worse. This is the bad seed that needs removal.
This business model should be illegal. It's already trivially unethical.
It's not just the "right to free speech" anymore. It's now also the "right to have your speech broadcasted to a selection of people in a way that depends on what they might think is relevant to them." So complicated stuff.
We have a few issues here:
1. What should be the role, if any, of governments in censorship? The US supposedly has a rule of "none". But there are exceptions. Some kinds of porno. Threats against individuals. Incitement to riot. All of which can be over-used to chill speech.
2. What should be the role of private companies? This is tied in with the role of monopolies. If there were 50 Facebook or Twitter like services, none with more than 20% market share, this would not be a problem. Maybe this is an antitrust problem.
3. Should anonymous speech be as protected as thoroughly as non-anonymous speech? The US has a tradition of protecting anonymous speech. This is partly because the Federalist Papers, and "Common Sense", were published under pseudonyms. Much of the problems with "fake news", from whatever direction, come from concealed sources. Spam, in all media, comes from anonymous sources. Of course, if you publish under your own name, you may face harassment and reprisals.
Those are questions worth thinking about.
1. What should be the role, if any, of governments in censorship? The US supposedly has a rule of "none". But there are exceptions. Some kinds of porno. Threats against individuals. Incitement to riot. All of which can be over-used to chill speech.
2. What should be the role of private companies? This is tied in with the role of monopolies. If there were 50 Facebook or Twitter like services, none with more than 20% market share, this would not be a problem. Maybe this is an antitrust problem.
3. Should anonymous speech be as protected as thoroughly as non-anonymous speech? The US has a tradition of protecting anonymous speech. This is partly because the Federalist Papers, and "Common Sense", were published under pseudonyms. Much of the problems with "fake news", from whatever direction, come from concealed sources. Spam, in all media, comes from anonymous sources. Of course, if you publish under your own name, you may face harassment and reprisals.
Those are questions worth thinking about.
"The age of disinformation" is the crucial fulcrum on which the entire premise rests. There is not more disinformation today than there was in days past. In fact, it is easier to check and see if something is true (not using self professed fact checkers and the priesthood of truth and fact, but by looking around and using your mental faculties) than it was when I was a teenager.
How many of you are old enough to remember bullshit like "if you ask a cop if they're a cop they have to tell you" or "you heard about the kid who's intestines got sucked out of his butthole in a swimming pool"? I remember people telling you things and you just went with it. It used to be very easy to lie. People made stuff up all the time, and said things that someone else made up that they believed.
To use the European context and Nazi Germany example, there is a big difference between then and now. That time was very much like my adolescence was with regard to access to information. Disinformation can spread wildly in an environment where people cannot verify it.
Currently, I could probably unilaterally get the equivalent of a university education in any field for free if I were so inclined, just by searching around on the internet. We do not live in an age of disinformation, we live in an age of unbelievable information availability, power structures and hierarchies once existed to enable the dissemination of information, and the ones that currently exist are beginning to show their cracks, simply because information can be effortlessly obtained at miniscule cost. I honestly believe we are living through social upheaval as a direct result of this revolution, and we haven't even seen the beginning. Making the majority literate was very, very hard. Making the next few generations well educated is something so easy it is probably best to just let people do it for themselves. I truly believe we will not need formal education within 100 years, people will just want to learn things and learn them at a whim.
I don't usually like to attribute motive, but I find it suspicious that it is the very institutions and organizations hammering away at this premise that stand to lose the most from this information revolution we are beginning to undergo. It is very convenient when the old entities with a grip on what people know and don't know happen to be the ones telling you not to trust your own judgment and defer to their own.
How many of you are old enough to remember bullshit like "if you ask a cop if they're a cop they have to tell you" or "you heard about the kid who's intestines got sucked out of his butthole in a swimming pool"? I remember people telling you things and you just went with it. It used to be very easy to lie. People made stuff up all the time, and said things that someone else made up that they believed.
To use the European context and Nazi Germany example, there is a big difference between then and now. That time was very much like my adolescence was with regard to access to information. Disinformation can spread wildly in an environment where people cannot verify it.
Currently, I could probably unilaterally get the equivalent of a university education in any field for free if I were so inclined, just by searching around on the internet. We do not live in an age of disinformation, we live in an age of unbelievable information availability, power structures and hierarchies once existed to enable the dissemination of information, and the ones that currently exist are beginning to show their cracks, simply because information can be effortlessly obtained at miniscule cost. I honestly believe we are living through social upheaval as a direct result of this revolution, and we haven't even seen the beginning. Making the majority literate was very, very hard. Making the next few generations well educated is something so easy it is probably best to just let people do it for themselves. I truly believe we will not need formal education within 100 years, people will just want to learn things and learn them at a whim.
I don't usually like to attribute motive, but I find it suspicious that it is the very institutions and organizations hammering away at this premise that stand to lose the most from this information revolution we are beginning to undergo. It is very convenient when the old entities with a grip on what people know and don't know happen to be the ones telling you not to trust your own judgment and defer to their own.
The core issue is actually by allowing companies to harvest hyper individualized information about you, so then they can then design algorithms to maximize engagement by exploiting our psychology, and thus harvest our attention and clicks...
Literally if we just started to pay for stuff we’d see this problem improved. The consequences of the current model is that the internet has become the modern equivalent of a welfare state, in the sense that our experiences are sponsored by our wealthy corporate benefactors. Clearly not a good recipe for civic engagement.
So, as consumers we should pay for things if we want to have nice stuff, and also businesses simply shouldn’t be able to follow literally every person in the world around, as they stroll around the internet, and write down and share what they’re looking at. That could be done by creating liability around data collection/protection, as in the case if HIPPA, or outright banning the technology that enables ad tech at scale. I’m sure people here have much better ideas than this, I’m just offering an ethos.
Also the internet itself should be treated as a public utility. The sad thing is by not paying, we’re still paying, just in less direct ways, since the ad tech that sponsors our internet lives still has to get money from somewhere...
Edited for clarity
Literally if we just started to pay for stuff we’d see this problem improved. The consequences of the current model is that the internet has become the modern equivalent of a welfare state, in the sense that our experiences are sponsored by our wealthy corporate benefactors. Clearly not a good recipe for civic engagement.
So, as consumers we should pay for things if we want to have nice stuff, and also businesses simply shouldn’t be able to follow literally every person in the world around, as they stroll around the internet, and write down and share what they’re looking at. That could be done by creating liability around data collection/protection, as in the case if HIPPA, or outright banning the technology that enables ad tech at scale. I’m sure people here have much better ideas than this, I’m just offering an ethos.
Also the internet itself should be treated as a public utility. The sad thing is by not paying, we’re still paying, just in less direct ways, since the ad tech that sponsors our internet lives still has to get money from somewhere...
Edited for clarity
If we look at the issue from the other side, the problem with censorship is the central idea of a civilizing mission on the belief that government and only government can really artfully determine who ought to speak to the masses in the interest of the expansion of knowledge.
The misguided belief in the superiority of government wisdom about who should speak to many has happened before. With radio it was unlicensed radio stations that corrupted youths with rebellious thoughts and strange music. With TV and movies it was commercial publisher corrupting youths with violence and nudity. Now with the Internet it is bubbles that corrupt youths with disinformation and falsehoods.
The enthusiasm for radio censorship is dead. TV censorship died relative recently. Internet censorship however is starting to gain popularity, but I strongly suspect it will crash in a few decades just like radio and TV did. Future people will look back on the misguided belief in the superiority of a handful companies and wonder how it ever could gain popularity.
The misguided belief in the superiority of government wisdom about who should speak to many has happened before. With radio it was unlicensed radio stations that corrupted youths with rebellious thoughts and strange music. With TV and movies it was commercial publisher corrupting youths with violence and nudity. Now with the Internet it is bubbles that corrupt youths with disinformation and falsehoods.
The enthusiasm for radio censorship is dead. TV censorship died relative recently. Internet censorship however is starting to gain popularity, but I strongly suspect it will crash in a few decades just like radio and TV did. Future people will look back on the misguided belief in the superiority of a handful companies and wonder how it ever could gain popularity.
That's ironic coming from the nyt, with their heavily biased front page. Even people who agree 100% with the nyt's point of view should be offended by it. I'm more interested in facts than confirmation bias of what I believe. I don't consider them a reliable source of news.
Note that an article can be disinformation even if all the information in the article is correct - by simply cherry-picking which facts to present. An example from several years ago: "Half of All Corporations Paid No Income Tax" which was factually correct. Another fact omitted from the many articles on this was "half of all corporations lost money". Income tax is not owed when losing money.
Note that an article can be disinformation even if all the information in the article is correct - by simply cherry-picking which facts to present. An example from several years ago: "Half of All Corporations Paid No Income Tax" which was factually correct. Another fact omitted from the many articles on this was "half of all corporations lost money". Income tax is not owed when losing money.
Prescient reminder of someone being murdered because of their application of free speech from today: https://www.ft.com/content/51fdc6f1-15ef-4dfb-949c-1b1d18601...
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/10/17/attentat-d...
> "In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most merciful, (...) to Macron, the leader of the infidels, I ' executed one of your hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad, calm his fellow human beings before a harsh punishment is inflicted on you.
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/10/17/attentat-d...
> "In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most merciful, (...) to Macron, the leader of the infidels, I ' executed one of your hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad, calm his fellow human beings before a harsh punishment is inflicted on you.
When the press asks for curbs on free speech we’re in trouble as a society.
It seems like the author is bending over backwards to advocate _some_ censorship over unfettered free speech.
Yet, I don't see free speech as being the issue here at all. The truth is that when a significant percentage of the population holds regressive views, they'll seek out and amplify people who pander to those views to the exclusion of all others.
This has gotten more irritating for the moderate mainstream with the advent of internet, but the root of the problem always is the presence of a core critical mass of the electorate that espouses those views.
Yet, I don't see free speech as being the issue here at all. The truth is that when a significant percentage of the population holds regressive views, they'll seek out and amplify people who pander to those views to the exclusion of all others.
This has gotten more irritating for the moderate mainstream with the advent of internet, but the root of the problem always is the presence of a core critical mass of the electorate that espouses those views.
The promise of the internet and social media was that it would broaden people's horizons. That has certainly failed so far, but I wonder if it is at all possible to create a social media platform that drives genuine, deep interaction.
I think it would have to be based on curated, pseudo-anonymous conversations with some strong ground rules.
Information is cheap. As recently as 20 years ago, the best source of general knowledge was a set of encyclopedias, at home if you could afford it, or at a library if you could not. Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is generally as good as encyclopedias were, and far more broad. You could tell a similar story about the news, and many other things.
What does it mean when information is cheap? I'm not an expert, but I think it means that propaganda is cheap too. I wish people were better able to recognize propaganda and brain washing.
The truth does not battle falsehoods with facts, but with emotions. Hate, anger, fear, and distrust are used to prepare the soil for the seeds of propaganda.
It seems like the brain is hardwired to find 'interesting' things, like counterfactuals. Conspiracy theories are the ultimate counterfactual. I admit that I find conspiracy theories to be interesting as well; but I use them to inform my opinion about motivation, not facts.
I think it would have to be based on curated, pseudo-anonymous conversations with some strong ground rules.
Information is cheap. As recently as 20 years ago, the best source of general knowledge was a set of encyclopedias, at home if you could afford it, or at a library if you could not. Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is generally as good as encyclopedias were, and far more broad. You could tell a similar story about the news, and many other things.
What does it mean when information is cheap? I'm not an expert, but I think it means that propaganda is cheap too. I wish people were better able to recognize propaganda and brain washing.
The truth does not battle falsehoods with facts, but with emotions. Hate, anger, fear, and distrust are used to prepare the soil for the seeds of propaganda.
It seems like the brain is hardwired to find 'interesting' things, like counterfactuals. Conspiracy theories are the ultimate counterfactual. I admit that I find conspiracy theories to be interesting as well; but I use them to inform my opinion about motivation, not facts.
Restrictions on free speech inevitably lead to some form of censorship, and any form of censorship inevitably leads to the population being subjected to some 'official' version of 'truth'. This 'truth', however, is carefully curated to coerce the population to act in a certain way.
So when Twitter or Facebook start 'fact checking' posts, you shouldn't say 'Twitter is a private company, 1st amendment doesn't apply to it', you should grab pitchforks and put their censorship efforts to rest.