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Tech and Liberty

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Re: Tech and Liberty

#61

Post by mindslight »

SamBam wrote: post #2

I'm confused by the initial comparison between Hamilton and XKCD > Alexander Hamilton was against the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. This famous xkcd comic explains why: They seems to be saying very different things: Hamilton (as I understand it) is saying the First Amendment is unnecessary (and even dangerous) because the constitution already provides no power by which to regulate speech. XKCD, ho…

"Demonstrates" would have been a better word choice than "explains".

The XKCD comic myopically references the 1st Amendment for the promotion of simplistic authoritarianism. Whereas without an explicit 1st Amendment, Freedom of Speech would have been forced to be held generally by society, rather than making for a legalistic red herring.

Alternatively, Freedom of Speech could have simply vanished. A good way of addressing that question would be to look look for rights that the Founders held as obvious, yet were not codified - how did they fare over time?

IMO the entirety of the Constitution suffers from the same basic flaw wherein the Founders did not foresee layered-complexity creating contradictions. This is understandable, given they preceded Gödel.

For example - "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial". Yet by actually trying to exercise this right today, you mortally up the ante of your charges. To me, this seems like a failing test case.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#62

Post by zenexer »

While this article was an interesting take, it doesn't really provide a clear path forward. It points out a variety of problems, contradictions, and dangerous assumptions, but the reasoning presented falls short of offering solutions.

For example, the section titled Fixing Facebook irks me. Where's the fix? It just goes on to point out more problems. The conclusion of both the article and section begins with: "To that end, the fact that this debate is even occurring is evidence of the problem..."

That's not to demean the usefulness of the article: it articulates a series of related issues and thoroughly explains why they are problematic. But I don't see any path to a solution embedded in the logic presented.

While I understand that the first step in solving a problem is to understand it, this is a very abstract, historically-anchored view of the situation in isolation, so its utility as a practical analysis from which solutions could be derived is questionable. This article serves an intellectual purpose, but I fail to see how it is likely to lead to a solution that will remain remotely tenable when other factors are taken into account. The only derivative solution I see here is that culture needs to change, rather than law--whether it be the values of our culture or a collective migration away from centralized, monopolistic communication platforms. While cultural change might be a good long-term goal, it's something that can only happen over the course of multiple generations, which makes it impractical when a short term solution is needed.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#63

Post by lliamander »

dieterrams2 wrote: post #53
lliamander wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Mill's main reason for conceding an exception to the freedom of speech wasn't the falsehood of the speech, but the threat of mob action. I stand by my statement: Mill would be more concerned about cancel culture rather than fake news. Of course, the l…

> Mill's main reason for conceding an exception to the freedom of speech wasn't the falsehood of the speech, I didn’t say it was his main concern? Mill’s reasoning ultimately rests on what principles he believes would result in the best outcome, from a utilitarian perspective. The point I’m making is that he wasn’t some free speech absolutist, but that an assessment of harm/utility undergirds his thinking, and that t…

> Mill’s reasoning ultimately rests on what principles he believes would result in the best outcome, from a utilitarian perspective. The point I’m making is that he wasn’t some free speech absolutist, but that an assessment of harm/utility undergirds his thinking, and that the different media environment would be something Mill would have to grapple with. And it could lead to an exception.

I suppose that's possible, but outside a specific argument as why Mill should change his mind, I'm hard pressed to think he would.

You're right that he wasn't an absolutist, but in my experience a sufficiently advanced utilitarian philosophy is virtually indistinguishable from a deontological one. This stems from the obvious limitations in human ability to perform the ethical calculations required by utilitarianism.

> You seem more concerned with defending Ben than thinking through what needs to be considered in this issue.

No, I'm trying to elicit a concrete criticism or argument that I can engage with. I happen to agree with Ben's position: so don't just tell me I'm not thinking about the issues, tell me why I'm wrong.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#64

Post by daseiner1 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #18

It's quite funny how stereotypical American Ben's blog is. The most important idea that is made explicit in the post (but not justified) is that of the marketplate of ideas, or that 'connecting people' (Zuckerberg) provides meaning, and that speech and an increase in information is a means to mount resistance against the powers that be. one alternative view was presented by Baudrillard in 1985, talking about the 'unc…

"We do not lack communication. On the contrary, we have too much of it. . . . We lack resistance to the present" - Gilles Deleuze, 1994

Re: Tech and Liberty

#65

Post by thundergolfer »

dave_b wrote: post #44
lliamander wrote: post #25

This describes precisely my own reaction to Munroe's comic. I mean, it's certainly true that discussion forums benefit from moderation to remove trolls. However, Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being de-platformed are trolls. Even if some of the people being de-platformed are provocateurs, the fact is that there's still a difference between excluding people from what is essentially a private club (as m…

Progressives of the past were all about the principle of free speech. Now that they have the power to control the public space, all they seem to care about are the technicalities of the first amendment. Arguments like that in the comic revel in enforcing groupthink because the author thinks it will be used in a way he finds favorable. If you take a step back, it’s obvious that every censorious organization has very s…

I’m confused by your first paragraph. In what way do progressives control the public space? Republicans are far more powerful than progressives in all branches of government (and remember Democrat != progressive).

Corporations obviously dominate corporate space, which is a large sphere of life in the USA, and not at all “public space”.

So what’s left?

Re: Tech and Liberty

#66

Post by babesh »

This affirmation of Zuckerberg's position based on the First Amendment makes no sense. The Zuckerberg position is that he chooses to censor everyone except politicians. Furthermore, it is he who gets to decide the veracity of everyone except politicians (and thus what to censor). He also gets to decide who is a politician.

He sure is powerful. It looks like he is mostly trying to maximize the amount of power he holds.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#67

Post by thundergolfer »

rebuilder wrote: post #20

I don't quite understand how one can laud Facebook for refusing to be the arbiter of truth in one specific instance, when their entire business is based in large part on filtering what information people do and don't see.

To me this is exactly what splits apart the argument in favour of Facebook not banning lies from politicians.

Corporations like Facebook have a lot of power to filter the content on their platforms, and they do it all the time. How and when they do that filtering is down to incentives and power. There is no free speech principle being upheld on Facebook.

A great example of how power and incentives influences corporate filtering, Twitter has a ban on inciting violence but publicly elected officials may be exempted. Twitter doesn’t like violence, but it doesn’t hold non-violence as a principle, same as Facebook not liking lies but not really being interested in honesty as a principle. Corporations like money.

Source: twitter’s ‘Terrorism and violent extremism’ policy

Re: Tech and Liberty

#68

Post by commandlinefan »

lliamander wrote: post #25

This describes precisely my own reaction to Munroe's comic. I mean, it's certainly true that discussion forums benefit from moderation to remove trolls. However, Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being de-platformed are trolls. Even if some of the people being de-platformed are provocateurs, the fact is that there's still a difference between excluding people from what is essentially a private club (as m…

> Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being de-platformed are trolls.

These are always the “I’m on the right side of history” people: they all change their tune as soon as they find themselves on the receiving end of an unjust cancel campaign.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#69

Post by commandlinefan »

smacktoward wrote: post #41
_xnmw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those ideas were still subject to a much greater level of peer review before they could be redistributed. You couldn't get a broadsheet or pamphlet in front of millions of eyes without the implicit approval of tens of thousands of voluntary distributors.

You keep saying "peer review" but I'm not sure how it applies here. The main way information was distributed in the era of the Federalist Papers was through newspapers, and at the time newspapers were almost entirely enterprises set up by political activists to advance the line of their particular faction. The Federalist Papers were written by several prominent members of the Federalists (see https://en.wikipedia.org…

> There was no "peer review"

Further, social media posts like Tweets are _more_ “peer reviewed” than old-timey revolutionary pamphlets: you don’t have much reach on the platform unless people are re-tweeting and following you, so only popular (though not necessarily good) posts get any distribution.

Re: Tech and Liberty

#70

Post by commandlinefan »

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #56
_xnmw wrote: post #15

The First Amendment was written at a time when the constraints of the available technology created "natural" boundaries as to what kind of speech could spread in a society. The very fact that publishing an opinion anonymously (edit: I should say without peer-review of any sort), at scale, was nearly impossible, prevented the development of many sordid, dark, and "evil" thoughts from reaching the point of public disco…

What are some of these "dark" "evil" "bad ideas" you believe are infecting, festering, and mutating in minds thanks to the internet?

One only has to look at which viewpoints get censored to get a pretty good idea which ideas the pro-censorship crowd thinks are the dark, dangerous and evil ones.
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