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The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

nytimes.com

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Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#241

Post by dcolkitt »

cortesoft wrote: post #178
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #81

I come from a country where a free speech was never really a thing, and I tell you, americans, this: you don't value it enough. 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 T…

Can't I believe both things? I believe that Free Speech is one of the most important rights we have, but I also believe that people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm. While it would be nice to believe that "the solution is simple more free speech", and that the truth will win out in the end, is not fully backed up by the evidence. Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to m…

> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work,

Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune?

I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen?

Even in a world filled with crafty lies, open speech is the obvious solution. It's much harder to deceive 300 million people than it is to deceive a small agency responsible for "arbitrating truth". Yeah, a lot of people will still screw up and get the wrong answer.

But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth. A world with centrally managed opinion is not very robust, and likely to see truths die out completely.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#242

Post by virmundi »

jacquesm wrote: post #179
SamReidHughes wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is, people reading only the New York Times, HuffPo, CNN, etcetera, are completely engulfed in a disinformation environment. They're basically abuse victims.

As opposed to those who feast on the likes of Breitbart and Murdoch... pull the other one please.

How about no one should eat the same food group all the time? I get news from here (leftist), reddit (averaged to moderate when all my subs are taken into consideration), Google News (more leftist than not), and 9GAG/Imgur when they post political social stuff. Fairly well rounded.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#243

Post by refurb »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #219
nradov wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was particularly bizarre when Facebook anointed Snopes as an official fact checker, and then Snopes proceeded to "fact check" posts by the Babylon Bee as "fake news". (The Babylon Bee is a humor web site and clearly labeled as such.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Babylon_Bee

News stories from satire sites routinely get shared across social media with little context and, very importantly, without anyone clicking on them to check out the source. It may seem absurd to "fact check" them, but it really isn't, particularly ones that aren't very well-known to a wide audience -- which essentially means "anything but the Onion and even they get quoted straight-faced on occasion".

If we start censoring everything people might misinterpret we might as well just throw in the towel at that point.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#245

Post by refurb »

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #26

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…

Matt Taibbi writes about this a lot. Free speech used to be a cornerstone of liberal/progressive values. In only 50 short years that's been abandoned to prevent the "fomenting of discord".

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#247

Post by aaron-santos »

Hammershaft wrote: post #204
jseliger wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement. Try teaching non-elite undergrads sometime, and particularly assignments that require some sense of epistemology, and you'll discover that the vast majority of people have pretty poor personal epistemic hygiene—it's not much required in most people, most of the time, in most jobs. We evolv…

Are undergrads from elite universities any different from your experience?

It's likely worse. Their ability to rationalize may be higher.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#248

Post by refurb »

crazygringo wrote: post #57
015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #26

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…

> 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. But isn't the article arguing the exact opposite? It warns that those in power now use the shield of "free speech" to push propaganda and lies in order to undermine truth and democracy and thereby attempt to preserve power. Which is not something anyone saw coming, and which deserves to be tre…

The only way that argument makes sense is if one views their own political in-group as being the arbiters of true - never wrong, never taking the wrong side, never abusing power. If history has shown us anything it's that humans with power are really bad at those things.

What comes across as so hypocritical is that the people calling for restrictions on free speech were the same ones who benefitted from free speech in the past as they sought to push back against the establishment.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#249

Post by hilife89 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #81

I come from a country where a free speech was never really a thing, and I tell you, americans, this: you don't value it enough. 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 T…

Or just stop using their services? I like that we've just sort of accepted that Facebook and Twitter are trans-government institution level monopolies and that there's nothing we can do about it, or have better alternatives. There's no mandatory reason to have a twitter or facebook, there's plenty of ways you can connect with someone. And I'd happily trade online messaging for personal communication especially if I'm concerned about censorship and privacy rights from that institution.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#250

Post by cortesoft »

dcolkitt wrote: post #241
cortesoft wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't I believe both things? I believe that Free Speech is one of the most important rights we have, but I also believe that people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm. While it would be nice to believe that "the solution is simple more free speech", and that the truth will win out in the end, is not fully backed up by the evidence. Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to m…

> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making t…

I never said that the government should be the one to do something... I meant society needs to figure something out, because the evidence seems to be showing that a growing percentage of the population is being influenced by falsehoods.

I agree that a world with a centrally managed opinion is not robust and would see truth die out... my fear is that if we DONT do something about the current propaganda, our government will be taken over by people who don't believe in free speech. I want to do something, within the confines of preserving absolute free speech, to help combat that propaganda.

It isn't enough for some non-negligible percentage of the population knows the truth. Even if almost half the people can see through the lies, the other half could gain control and shut down the people who see through the lies.

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