The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

> Looking back at the rise of fascism and the Holocaust in her 1951 book...

She learned the wrong lessons from her study of the rise of fascism. The correct lesson is 'if you botch the economy badly enough, voters will explore every option to try and get some relief'. Including voting in Nazis. The Nazis (with a parallel to Trump) are a sign of some large group feeling profound economic distress and being rather unhappy with politics as usual.

And there is a basic premise in the middle of that article that you quote: that the author is morally pure enough to determine what is good and bad in the marketplace of ideas. That possibility was tested extensively in the 20th century. There isn't anyone who can do that. They tried lots of people, none of them worked out. If we create a method for anointing some truths reliable and some 'twisted' then it is going to become controlled by corrupt people and then do more harm than good. Free speech is by far the most reliable way of identifying bad ideas as bad.

I take your meaning as, what we see on social media is not Free Speech, it is advertising subsidized Commercially Promoted Speech. That also means that preventing the promoted distribution is not limiting Free Speech (although as a private business they could do that with some liability as well).

Basically, the people complaining that their speech is being blocked were allowed to select the terms for debate based on their chosen meanings. Maybe the meaning of Free Speech as standing on a box in the town square needs to be taken back... but the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech so it seems like that boat has sailed (for commercial and political reasons).

Artists in the soviet era had to employ all kinds of allegories and humor to communicate their experience without being reprimanded by KGB censors. I'll take free speech over assigning any group the power to arbitrate what is considered "disinformation".

Guess what are two most frequent reason for site blocking and prosecution of dissidents in Russia? Articles 280 (Calls to extremism), 282 (actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, humiliation of human dignity).

So you say on VK (one of russian social networks), "Corrupt mayor from the ruling party is a crook and must be prosecuted"... well, you are inciting hatred to the ruling party. With luck you'll get 2 years of suspended sentence.

"The age of disinformation" is the crucial fulcrum on which the entire premise rests. There is not more disinformation today than there was in days past. In fact, it is easier to check and see if something is true (not using self professed fact checkers and the priesthood of truth and fact, but by looking around and using your mental faculties) than it was when I was a teenager.

How many of you are old enough to remember bullshit like "if you ask a cop if they're a cop they have to tell you" or "you heard about the kid who's intestines got sucked out of his butthole in a swimming pool"? I remember people telling you things and you just went with it. It used to be very easy to lie. People made stuff up all the time, and said things that someone else made up that they believed.

To use the European context and Nazi Germany example, there is a big difference between then and now. That time was very much like my adolescence was with regard to access to information. Disinformation can spread wildly in an environment where people cannot verify it.

Currently, I could probably unilaterally get the equivalent of a university education in any field for free if I were so inclined, just by searching around on the internet. We do not live in an age of disinformation, we live in an age of unbelievable information availability, power structures and hierarchies once existed to enable the dissemination of information, and the ones that currently exist are beginning to show their cracks, simply because information can be effortlessly obtained at miniscule cost. I honestly believe we are living through social upheaval as a direct result of this revolution, and we haven't even seen the beginning. Making the majority literate was very, very hard. Making the next few generations well educated is something so easy it is probably best to just let people do it for themselves. I truly believe we will not need formal education within 100 years, people will just want to learn things and learn them at a whim.

I don't usually like to attribute motive, but I find it suspicious that it is the very institutions and organizations hammering away at this premise that stand to lose the most from this information revolution we are beginning to undergo. It is very convenient when the old entities with a grip on what people know and don't know happen to be the ones telling you not to trust your own judgment and defer to their own.