This isn't a new situation. Free speech debates are as old as civilization itself. The printing press was at least as disruptive as the Internet, precisely because relatively small players could sabotage power of huge organizations such as the Church relatively cheaply.
I think that the old classical liberal principles still apply. A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
We might actually be over the crest of max poisoning in social media. Lots of people have realized that such channels are not to be trusted. This is partly masked by the fact that a lot of new content is still churned out by dedicated players; silent majorities are silent.
Every specific case is different; you can always find some facts which differentiate one instance from the 'general case'. It is not enough to say 'this time is different', one must overcome the presumption that general rules should hold.
I think their point is that being algorithmically induced makes the general rule not hold (which I don't agree - algorithms can be pretty damn bad at achieving what one wants).
Mind you, damn thank you for saying that out loud. People on the internet sure love to jump on the wagon of pointing out the differences of instances from a general case that often aren't even relevant for the argument.
It gave newspapers and magazines the ability to do exactly that, and some absolutely have. It's pretty easy to draw parallels between those and "content creators".
Yes, they are. Almost every one has one or more mobile devices that we carry with us at all times.
These devices have various messaging/social media services that due to social expectations we use to interact with friends, family.
It's very, very hard to laser curate the kind of messaging you get, even if you know how to do it and are willing to do it (for example for some stuff you have to mute friends and family or otherwise block them).
Newspapers were much more hit and miss. You'd have to go out and buy a newspaper, their region was at best national, etc.
In absolute terms, you're right. We interact with media more than we ever have before.
The printing press was huge in relative terms, though. There was no mass media before that. The average person was unlikely to be able to read, much less to own any books. Communicating across even relatively short distances was infeasible. Most of the media they consumed was either from the church or at least regulated by the church.
The printing press was huge because the normal person's sphere of possible influence grew 100x. Much in the way that we've 100x-ed again with things like YouTube. The relative increase in sphere of influence is similar, the absolutes are massively different.
True, but I think there's a saying about quantity having a quality all its own.
The printing press was still running at humanly achievable speeds. The new stuff is super sonic. We can't cope with it. Plus with people living longer and longer and the natural neuroplasticity decrease that comes with age, more and more people are vulnerable.
It's the kind of thing that will need to be regulated very carefully and very strongly, because that's what laws are: barriers for when the human psyche fails. Imperfect barriers, but better than nothing.
> A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
Like the millions of people who unironically watch CNN, FOX, ESPN, MTV and whatever else TeeVee networks are carrying?
> What is insidious, as Ulfkotte confesses, is that typically, intelligence agencies use “unofficial covers”—people working for the agency but not actually on its payroll as agents. It is a broad, loose network of “friends,” doing one another favors. Many are lead journalists from numerous countries. This informality provides plausible deniability for both sides, but it means an “unofficial cover,” as Ulfkotte became, is on his own if captured.
> The American reporter James Foley, allegedly executed by ISIS, found that out. Ulfkotte confirmed to this author that Foley did indeed work for various intelligence organizations, as this newspaper reported on last month. He also stated that if a journalist is accused of spying, such reports are almost always credible.
The point of this article is that journalists are just as fallible to money as everyone else. That the alphabet soup agencies don't mind using journalists for their own ends. To assume that stops with spying is an argument from silence (lol, but to assume that it does go past that is also an argument from silence).
It took a while to be especially effective, both because techniques of propaganda had to be learned, and because the general populace was not literate. As of 1500, population literacy rates in Western Europe were on the order of 10--25%. The climbed to 90%+ in the 19th century, the midpoint of which saw rapid advances in printing technology (iron presses, powered presses, web presses), a sustainable business model (advertising, as it happens). And in the year 1848, Europe basically exploded into revolution, affecting over 50 counries:
More generally, the role of the printing press as an agent of change (social, political, economic) is the subject of Elizabeth Eisenstein's book of the same name:
The question isn't "was this specific level of capabilities available previously" but "did the introduction of new media technologies significantly disrupt the cultures into which they emerged?"
And the case that Eisenstein makes, at book length, is "yes".
She's building off earlier work (notably McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy), and you can find numerous prior and subsequent references.
Newsstands contain dozens of newspapers, typically all owned by only 1 or 2 conglomerates. How is that any different than a Facebook feed which shows hundreds of groups spamming out propoganda, all of which are operated by a much smaller number of entities?
>I think that the old classical liberal principles still apply. A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
I think most Americans are delusional and think "the good guy always win" because of the outcomes of WWI and WWII. The fact that Nazi Germany existed at all, or that democracy is non-existent in the second largest economy in the world should tell you that it's just not accurate to pretend that only the fringe of the population buys into propaganda.
53% of registered Republicans still believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election based on nothing other than propaganda... I think you underestimate how fragile Democracy is and you don't need to look much farther than Moscow.
> I think you underestimate how fragile Democracy is and you don't need to look much farther than Moscow.
Which is exactly why we need to uphold classical liberal principles, as well as speak truth with appropriate nuance.
The best way to deal with a bad idea is with a better idea, not by silencing the bad idea.
I'd have a lot more respect for Google in this case if they, in collaboration with researchers and experts, produced their own well-researched, nuanced, carefully stated arguments against what they disagree with.
Ahh the old paradox of tolerance. What you preach has failed literally every time it has been tried throughout history. You can’t stop intolerance with tolerance, you will lose every time. Full stop. And the irony of preaching tolerance while downvoting me is ripe.
> You can’t stop intolerance with tolerance, you will lose every time. Full stop.
[citation needed]. Popper's personal opinion that you linked to (and that is now used in a much more absolutist way that originally intended by its author, who never intended to cheer for censorship and crackdowns in name of democracy) isn't data and Full stop isn't a proof. Yes, Popper was smart. No, he wasn't an oracle of unquestionable wisdom.
Tell me, how was legalization of marijuana in the U.S. won? After all, chucking people into prison for decades is quite some intolerance. Did the MJ lovers stage an insurrection?
No, they won at the ballot box, which is the tolerant way. Not by reverse oppression of their enemies.
To disprove a sentence that says "every time", one example to the contrary is enough. This is your example. For another, take gay rights. There wasn't a gay revolution that would smite the religious conservatives and crush them.
> You can’t stop intolerance with tolerance, you will lose every time. Full stop.
I'm not proposing full tolerance of the intolerant. Rather, as Karl Popper explained, political institutions within a liberal democratic society are the most appropriate scope within which the people's will regarding what to tolerate is expressed. In other words, contact your representatives about what needs to be outlawed, and until something is outlawed, show liberal tolerance—which absolutely includes refuting bad ideas in public debate.
Regarding YouTube, their choice to deplatform people is their choice -- and it's not against the law, since they own the platform. I certainly disagree with the wisdom behind their choice. It's likely to cause more problems than it solves; but I'm tolerating it even as I argue against it in public debate.
At first pass, I don't see how this applies to people sharing information about vaccines whether personal experience, science, or misunderstood science.
How would you say that people sharing information about vaccines and their effects are intolerant?
How would you say that people not wanting to get vaccinated are intolerant of any particular demographic group? That's not targeting anyone by race, gender, sexual orientation, religion. It's a decision for them self about their person.
I am not an American. I actually live in a country that was a kicking baloon of totalitarian powers for decades.
The first instinct of an autocrat is to strangle free speech of his critics. This has been the case since forever.
For all their errors, societies that do have wide freedom of speech rarely lapse into tyrannies on their own account. The freedom to say that the emperor's new clothes are bullsh*t is precious.
As for your historical examples, Weimar democracy was deeply flawed in that it tolerated party militias and a lot of violence in the streets. Once people are threatened physically, they will seek 'protection' from gangsters. But violence is something very different from actual words.
And China isn't a case of a democracy that was taken over by cunning speeches of its enemies. CCP got into power by winning a civil war.
So we need to apply heavy-handed censorship to silence dissent so that we don’t turn into an authoritarian country like China or Russia where they use heavy-handed censorship to silence dissent.
Exactly. You don't uphold democracy by silencing its critics, either.
Democracy and liberal freedom is best upheld when (a) the government is founded on the principles of liberty and rule-of-law, and (b) the people treasure those principles and refuse to tolerate a government that fails to uphold them.
I think that the old classical liberal principles still apply. A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
We might actually be over the crest of max poisoning in social media. Lots of people have realized that such channels are not to be trusted. This is partly masked by the fact that a lot of new content is still churned out by dedicated players; silent majorities are silent.