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Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

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Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we want to ensure we are only exposed to content from rich people, and our immediate friends? Politicians have plenty of money to publish whatever divisive crap they want. It might be technically free speech... but would it really help anyone in practice or just censor poor people?

It was the case in the age of TV and no one complained no?

Nobody complained, and maybe things were a little better... but cigarette companies seemed to have plenty of money without people's best interest in mind.

What if someone invents a very bad product, and you effectively censor warnings about it?

I guess the way around it would be donations built into the platform, but then you're back to people sharing crap.

Anything that makes more popular posts more likely to disappear than less popular posts is going to feel like central control by whoever has money, I don't think that will increase trust.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the case in the age of TV and no one complained no?

Nobody complained, and maybe things were a little better... but cigarette companies seemed to have plenty of money without people's best interest in mind. What if someone invents a very bad product, and you effectively censor warnings about it? I guess the way around it would be donations built into the platform, but then you're back to people sharing crap. Anything that makes more popular posts more likely to disapp…

I think central control by whoever has money is inevitable in any case right? This is the nature of society - money buys power, power makes money. If we will be pretending it can possibly not be the case we will just be shooting ourselves in the foot, because life can't be built based on lies.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#263
post #240

The funny thing is that everyone commenting here thinks that we're headed towards an authoritarian nightmare, but for different reasons. It's not until you sit with someone and nut out what they mean by "authoritarian" and "censorship" and so on that you realise you're completely morally and politically opposed to them. This shallow political take is what allows so many strange bedfellows to unite on the "political r…

I was noticing that pattern as well, many people seem to be hurling the same insult but from opposite sides. In a way, it worries me, because the words lose their theoretical meaning and stand more for the assumed malevolence of the other side.

If I could wish one thing on the world at this moment it would be for us to realize that most of the people who we believe are attacking us don't actually believe that they are attacking us, just as they believe we are attacking them and we don't believe that we are.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just search for "fake face masks" on google and they came right up https://www.google.com/search?q=fake+face+mask&tbm=isch

They sell a product that potentially puts people in real danger. Choosing not to wear a mask is fine. An immunocompromised person can choose to cross the street when they see you. This product, allowing you to pretend to wear a mask in order to get close to people that don't want to be near maskless people is evil. And a "Rittenhouse Walks" t-shirt? I'm glad they've been de-platformed. Good riddance!

This is a great example of censorship aligning with your biases. Today. A central theme to the discussion here is that, tomorrow, this censorship will likely not align with your biases. How will you feel about it then?

We have millennia of practical examples of the fact that ceding the power to speak will always hurt us all in the end. It will eventually be used to silence you and whatever you believe is moral and just. This is why we must be willing to accept speech we don't like. Especially speech we don't like, because that's the speech which is removed first.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#265

No doubt, these censors and would-be censors have the best of intentions. But you've really got your head up your own ass if you convince yourself that you are protecting people by deciding the information that is appropriate for them to be exposed to. I just don't understand the shortsightedness, the naivete, or the willingness to discard the principle of free speech.

Except that it works. In fact it works for a population of 5 times our size (China). So it seems to me that the only people who have their heads up their asses are us, who seem to think that censorship is a childs model for maintaining power and influence. In our technological society censorship can work better than ever before. Frankly, imo, in the absence of effective accountability for ones' words or deeds, censor…

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Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#266
post #244

No doubt, these censors and would-be censors have the best of intentions. But you've really got your head up your own ass if you convince yourself that you are protecting people by deciding the information that is appropriate for them to be exposed to. I just don't understand the shortsightedness, the naivete, or the willingness to discard the principle of free speech.

Imagine you have free speech. Yay! Now what? Why was this so important again? Free speech is not an end goal. It's a tool that serves a purpose. In the relationship between a powerful government and a collection of individually vulnerable citizens, it pushes the power balance farther toward the individual. Is the goal to give all the power to the individual? No, that's not the goal. The goal is to have some sort of e…

I really appreciated reading your post. So much of what I read online and then come to even believe myself pushes me towards one extreme or the other. I almost argue I need to do A or B. Again and again, something nudges me back to realizing it's a balance, an oscillation between the two sides, never fully settled, always with a little bounce and overshooting.

Reading your post helped me feel calm and at ease, nudging me back towards this realization. So thank you.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#267

I was trying to find those “fake face masks” just so someone knew what I was talking about, and apparently they were all deplatformed from Google searches. I didn’t want to buy one, just reference it. But nada. Found it on DuckDuckGo and it’s now my default search engine. It’s just so offensive they think they should control what I’m exposed to. Creepy and offensive. Google has lost its mission of making the worlds i…

I heard about "Proud Boys" a couple of years ago and went looking for more information to find out about their group so I could have an informed position on the subject. Google removed their website.

I understand Google feeling compelled to remove extreme and illegal content, but this is not that. Google removed them for political and/or moral reasons. DuckDuckGo let me find the website and form my own opinions. Imagine how many other websites Google is withholding for political and moral reasons? How much of our general knowledge is now carefully shaped and curated by Google, because that's what they allow us to see?

I also moved to DuckDuckGo. A search engine which removes the things you're looking for "for your protection" is no search engine at all.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#268
The US has survived a lot of extreme speech. The Communist Part of the United States existed through the entire Cold War, and while they were sometimes hassled, they continued to publish their newspaper and pamphlets. They still have a web site. The American Nazi Party used to have a big sign on their HQ: "White Man Fight - Smash the Black Revolution Now". I walked by it as a kid. The sign stayed up until one of their members shot their leader. The Klu Klux Klan was an out and out extremist organization, but no one suggested in their heyday they should be muzzled. Just prosecuted for killing people. Even censorship of pornography mostly ended.

The pushback began in the 1980s, with the Meese Report on pornography. The authors were looking hard for something to criminalize, and hit on child pornography.[1] Not just making it, but possessing it. That was a new thing at the time.

The next big pushback was on Holocaust denial, first criminalized in Germany in 1985 and in France in 1990. A few other countries have followed, although not the US. This has gradually broadened into European laws against "hate speech", which is often political and very much a matter of opinion. While it seems to be settled law that the US government cannot prohibit hate speech, there's a lot of pressure on private organizations to do so.[2]

A new problem is overuse of the "big lie" technique.[3] For decades, nobody in a country with a free press tried that much, because it didn't work. The people pushing the lie were quickly discredited. That obstacle seems to have been overcome. That's leading to a new era of censorship merely for being wrong.

And that's the way it is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography#History

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#269
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because their interests are opposed to mine doesn't mean I can't trust them. Teacher's unions can use their poor performance as a justification for increasing their own pay which comes straight out of my pocket and yet I'm able to trust them. I'm evaluating their deeds, not their motivations. Calling something a non-profit doesn't magically make it pure. The Red Cross and Goodwill have plenty of problems, as do…

You asked what substack is trying to do, and I think I gave the only accurate answer. That said, your point is well-taken. I think one of my other comments already captures my thoughts on the point your making; let's move there to discuss: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30093683

While accurate, it isn't a full answer. Substack does provide profits for venture capitalists, but it does so by fulfilling a particular market demand - demand for a censorhsip-free (or censorship-lite) platform. It is a somewhat niche demand, obviously - but it is the only aspect that differentiates them from facebooks of the world.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#270

I say Bah to the entire censorship debate! My critique of Substack is that our lesson from the last ten years is simple: speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. Our problem isn't censorship. Our problem is that our political/economic/relig…

But if you ban profit-seeking speech that is also a kind of censorship, and a rather open-ended one. Plus you’ve now banned speech on the wrong kind of platform. I mean, if you think that’s a solution fine, but then don’t claim to be against censorship.
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