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

on.substack.com

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

#381

Post by detaro »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #360

I really like substack as a platform. They seem to be not as aggressive on monetisation as medium. On my blog I don't want my users be tracked and I want to offer my content for free. Their stance on free speech here I also applaud. Unfortunately substack is not yet as good on the discovery side.

> Unfortunately substack is not yet as good on the discovery side.

I think there's a good chance that that is what for now has kept it from turning into the low-quality mess that medium is. Overly pronounced discovery features easily lead to a downward spiral.

(longer earlier comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29863937 )

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

#382

Post by amendenment »

jrimbault wrote: post #316
colordrops wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech by our definition in the US is a sacred and mostly irreducible "holy" thing, as being the very first amendment of the constitution. There is no true democracy without free speech. Free speech is a fundamental atom of a healthy and fair democracy. There is almost never a case where restriction of speech isn't abused to give one individual or group political advantage over another.

> very first amendment So, it's not , it's just the first change to an already existing document. The first article of your constitution describes the legislatives institutions. I (vaguely) know that, I'm not even American.

It is precisely because it is the first amendment in the bill of rights, that demonstrates how highly the value is held. Any other "change" could have been first, but freedom of speech was chosen. The founders were not going to otherwise ratify the constitution without the bill of rights. I find it a bit pointless to say you are not American and vaguely know something in order to demonstrate that you understand the constitution better despite not being so, if you vaguely don't know that the constitution was not ratified without the bill of rights.

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

#383

Post by ajsnigrutin »

I mean.. let's be fair... censorship and propaganda has just got biger in the last few years, mostly because trum pointed it out... but we all remember the "iraq has WMDs" and other stuff even before trump.

The thing that saddens me the most is treating anyone who just wants pure, raw data as a skeptic:

- X infected by covid today --- how many of those are expected to be asymptomatic, how many will have a "mild cold", how many will get a high fever and be useless for a week, how many will be hospitalized, and how many will die? - Y hospitalized *with* covid... how many of those are there because they can't brethe, and how many have an appendicits? No official number (atleast here) makes that distinction... if 70% of the patients would be there, covid or not, and the hospitals are at 200% capacity, then covid is not an issue - Z deaths *with* covid... if you die in a car crash 20 days after a covid test, you're counted as a covid death... ...

"back in the time", the journalists would be asking the politicians (and usually representatives of random health organizations and expert groups handling this epidemic) for this data, and bothering them, until they got it... and now? Just asking about the raw numbers marks you as an antivaxxer, commenting about these thins is basically limited to a few (eg. reddit) threads/subreddits (and just commenting in those will get you banned from a bunch of other subreddits, even the ones you never participated in).

tldr: even if I don't care about the opinion pieces, asking for raw data should be the first thing journalists do, and not a thing that gets random people banned

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

#384

Post by prehistoricdog »

EarlKing wrote: post #227
ziroshima wrote: post #4

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.

> best of intentions .......what does Marcellus Wallace look like?

wh-what?

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

#385

Post by dools »

native_samples wrote: post #356
jimkleiber wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

This happens because there's a lot of cultural bias towards being centrist, being perceived as the reasonable middle. People like that a lot, it feels good, so whenever such people try to describe political disputes it's tempting to try and describe both parties as the same when arguably they're not. This Substack article is a good case in point. It makes it sound like there's two sides, both demanding censorship, an…

Absolutely. This is "leftist bullies" and "white genocide" and "reverse racism" all wrapped up with a bow on it.

There's already a term: "both sidesism". It's the perfect term.

But I'll tell you what: when the Blues Brothers and New York rioters in Seinfeld were chasing down Nazis, that shit was NOT controversial.

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

#386

Post by tapland »

yunohn wrote: post #375
zriha wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists have been serving the interests of moneyed elites since well over a hundred years. It's good that they finally have some competition, even if it means that flat earthers also get a voice. Well, I wouldn't agree with you, as journalists (and here I mean real journalists) are often members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct. Random people on Facebook or influencers doesn't have tha…

> members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct Laws exist, so there are no crimes? > Thanks to investigative journalists, you have things like Pandora papers. Yes, but that’s their point - not everyone is exposing things, because the elites control the media. Do remember that the Panama Papers whistleblower got mysteriously car-bombed. Here’s a viral modern-day example: https://www.vox.com/polic…

Just a week or so ago in Sweden public service hadn't published any articles on the government having lied about the existence of meeting protocols and memos from covid meetings.

It was out of the ordinary seeing them report only after that decision itself became a topic.

Not publishing is a very powerful tool, and no journalist is forced by the code of conduct to publish what their employer doesn't want.

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

#387

Post by dools »

raxxorrax wrote: post #371
dools wrote: 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…

The "political right" (which doesn' really include classical conservatives) is correct on the topic to err on the side of freedom in regards to information. I believe there is freedom to be gained through individualism and collectivism both, but the topic of censorship doesn't touch that in my opinion. It is as you said, this even connects people that have different beliefs about sensible policy.

Yes, I think what you've said encapsulates my personal opinion (not from the OP but what I believe nonetheless): that classical conservatism is no longer the "right wing", that it has been entirely supplanted by libertarianism.

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

#388

Post by meheleventyone »

yunohn wrote: post #375
zriha wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists have been serving the interests of moneyed elites since well over a hundred years. It's good that they finally have some competition, even if it means that flat earthers also get a voice. Well, I wouldn't agree with you, as journalists (and here I mean real journalists) are often members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct. Random people on Facebook or influencers doesn't have tha…

> members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct Laws exist, so there are no crimes? > Thanks to investigative journalists, you have things like Pandora papers. Yes, but that’s their point - not everyone is exposing things, because the elites control the media. Do remember that the Panama Papers whistleblower got mysteriously car-bombed. Here’s a viral modern-day example: https://www.vox.com/polic…

> Laws exist, so there are no crimes?

More if you don’t trust journalists to be honest when they at least try to establish norms of behaviour you should trust some random person even less. Both are amenable to corruption.

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

#389

Post by marcus_holmes »

zriha wrote: post #331

First online media that removed editor for the homepage and put an algorithm to decide which article is more important than other (based on clicks and shares), we got Kardashians, flat earth believers and everything went sideways. As someone who is 15 years in comms, public relations and media relations, for me, influencers were journalists, not some kid with 1 million followers on Instagram or TikTok. Now they are i…

I'm watching "Dopesick" at the moment, and I'm beginning to understand why people don't trust medical professionals and Big Pharma.

Any call to trust journalists should be met with hoots of derision - I've worked with journalists and they (as a general rule) are not interested in "the truth", or in balance, but in creating a good story that will generate interest and go over well on Twitter.

There is a fundamental conflict of interest in Western society: people who are supposed to be trustworthy and are trusted to act for the public good are also allowed, even encouraged, to make as much money as they can from that position. Until we solve this, we are right to not trust too much.

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

#390

Post by bambax »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #374
bambax wrote: post #310

The reason Substack has "content guidelines" is because they want to make their own laws. If they only followed the law, they would only need to remind users what's illegal and what's not. And so they have to go to great lengths to explain those laws that they are making, and why they exist, and how they're enforced, etc. And of course they present them as necessary and reasonable, and "the only way". > We will conti…

> currently accepts antivax What is antivax? Some things which EU governments accept as law is deemed antivax in Canada (recognizing immunity from past infections)... M-W dictionary recently updated antivax to include those opposed to vaccine mandates. But now entire governments are dropping vaccine passports and not implementing mandates at all... So what exactly does antivax mean and why should Substack not allow d…

That's not my point. My point is that Substack pretending to defend "free speech" is deeply misleading, and probably delusional, if they believe it themselves.

Substack is not a white knight of liberty, it's the product of a time and a place, and as such is subject to external forces (the customs of said time&place). When those change, so will Substack, theories about "freedom" notwithstanding.

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