Tech and Liberty

You're describing Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

For me, the clearest way out of the paradox of tolerance is the dictum that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...). The price of admission to the sphere of tolerance established by the Constitution is (or ought to be, anyway) the willingness to extend the same tolerance to others. If your goal is to overthrow the Constitutional order and replace it with a dictatorship, a theocracy, an ethno-state, etc. etc. etc., you forfeit the right to shield yourself behind the document you're trying to tear up.

It's important to remember the context in which the Federalist Papers were written.

The Constitution had been written but not yet adopted, and American politics was divided between Federalists, who believed that the Constitution was fine as it was and should be adopted without modification, and Anti-Federalists (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism), who felt it gave too much power to the national government and should thus be rejected. The Bill of Rights was the compromise solution; it gave the Federalists their Constitution, but added specific protections against the abuses the Anti-Federalists feared.

The Federalist Papers were written by Federalists, with the goal of convincing people that the Constitution would work just fine as it was written, no modifications required. Hamilton was a Federalist, and his argument in Federalist 84 was part of that effort. In retrospect, however, given how much of what we today consider to be the genius of the Constitution is rooted in the Bill of Rights, it seems like in this case at least the Anti-Federalists had the better argument.

I only reference the article for its quote from Mill, in which truth-value is a concern in a situation Mill happened to think warranted the suppression of falsehoods.

Since Mill ultimately justified his beliefs in terms of utilitarianism, I do think the echo-chamber effect of social media and the proliferation of fake news would make him rethink things.

Of course, what matters isn't so much what Mill would think (we could speculate all day over what conclusions he would come to), but what the best social policy is. And while Ben cites the usual opinions on the subject, I don't think he's made a sufficient effort to grapple with the different media/discourse environment we live in today. That doesn't mean he must necessarily come to a different conclusion, but it's a mistake not to give it more consideration.

"Liberty and justice for all" means that liberty isn't the only thing we should be talking about. We are in a time of great injustice in the US (and the rest of the world), perhaps even higher than during the Gilded Age and the robber barons because we have such extreme wealth inequality today. I'm of the opinion that concentrated wealth is the embodiment of injustice.

When we talk about Facebook and Twitter and free speech through the lens of liberty, then it's hard to come to any consistent conclusion about the best course of action. Yes I see the nuances of comparing speech and money, or speech and political speech. But there is no way to have censorship or no censorship and satisfy all parties.

I suggest that we add justice to the equation. Then, it's plain to see that Donald Trump was not elected purely democratically (he lost the popular vote), that there was evidence of tampering in the predominantly blue states that typically elect democrats (possibly by foreign parties like Russia), and that social media had an outsized role in the spread of propaganda (mainly Facebook and its laissez faire stance on fact checking free speech). I don't think that I'm stretching the truth here by any measure. And this dysfunction in our present-day system led to the improbable election of someone who was probably more interested in the publicity stunt of running for office than actually winning. I think we can also safely say that there are unhappy parties on both sides of the isle.

What does a just solution look like? Well.. it gets tricky. Typically that would be decided by the Supreme Court, but through a series of injustices (like Mitch McConnell blocking Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland), the court is potentially biased. This is not the first time that this has happened, as presidents and congresses have changed the number of justices in order to impose their own biases:

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-the-supreme-cou...

So we are left with the court of public opinion, which is probably a good thing. So I'll put in my vote, that I think democracy is incompatible with concentrated wealth (injustice). Which means that I support the limiting of campaign funds to some agreed upon amount (roughly $2800 per person per candidate with several exceptions):

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...

Which could be accomplished with an amendment to overturn the 2010 Citizens United decision:

https://movetoamend.org

And that I favor the public funding of elections so that the average person has similar publicity as someone with millions of dollars from PACs.

This limiting/balancing of dark money in politics would largely negate the influence of private social media companies like Facebook and Twitter and make all of this somewhat of a moot point. If it were to happen, then I would lean towards uncensored political ads (similar to what we've had in the past) while still leaving candidates and PACs open to libel lawsuits. I trust the dignity of the general public to make their own political decisions, regardless of their affluence or education or any other aspect of their demographic.

I don't see anything political on my Facebook, but it's taken probably over a full year of blocking groups and unfollowing people to get there. I wish I could get a list of the groups I blocked and share it.