
Tech and Liberty - feross
https://stratechery.com/2019/tech-and-liberty/
======
loudmax
The fundamental problem is the near monopoly powers enjoyed by a select few
social media and tech companies. If Facebook and Twitter's social networks
were federated like email, it wouldn't matter whether they refuse to propagate
one opinion or another. Unhappy users or anyone who feels silenced could
simply switch to a different provider.

The problem isn't that Facebook or Twitter are allowing or not allowing free
speech on their private networks. The problem is that their private networks
have become so central to public discourse that they have undue authority over
public speech. No private company should be in a position where they can
silence speech to begin with.

I'm not arguing that these companies be broken up, either. What I am arguing
is that they open up their networks to interact with other services using an
open protocol such as Mastadon or Matrix. By the government if necessary.

~~~
stickfigure
_open up their networks to interact with other services using an open protocol
such as Mastadon or Matrix_

And here is where the two camps of Facebook-haters will go to war with each
other:

* The decentralization mavens want open protocols and distributed control.

* The privacy mavens want to control information as it flows through the network, preventing friends from oversharing "your" data.

These two camps are mortal enemies, but they apparently haven't figured it out
yet. You cannot share data with open protocols and still maintain control of
that data.

~~~
matheusmoreira
The privacy mavens are going to lose. Controlling what can and can't be shared
is just like copyright enforcement. If they want privacy, the answer is to not
share information at all or share only with trustworthy people. If some post
leaks, all bets are off. There is nothing they can do about it and that's how
it should be.

~~~
devnulloverflow
> copyright enforcement.

Ahh, but copyright won the last war, by moving to centralised platforms. The
privacy mavens are going to lose, but they are going to lose to Big Brother,
not to decentralisation.

~~~
matheusmoreira
They won by making services that are good enough for most people to not bother
infringing, not by enforcing copyrights. Now they're getting greedy and
fragmenting the market, making life needlessly difficult for consumers. I have
no doubt lots of people will turn to "piracy" because of that.

------
lliamander
This describes precisely my own reaction to Munroe's comic.

I mean, it's certainly true that discussion forums benefit from moderation to
remove trolls. However, Munroe myopically assumes that the only people being
de-platformed are trolls.

Even if some of the people being de-platformed are provocateurs, the fact is
that there's still a difference between excluding people from what is
essentially a private club (as most online discussion forums are) and
excluding people from the public square (which Facebook and Twitter have
essentially become). In the broader social sphere, the differences between
troll and Socratic "gadfly" are difficult if not impossible to discern.

~~~
dave_b
Progressives of the past were all about the principle of free speech. Now that
they have the power to control the public space, all they seem to care about
are the technicalities of the first amendment.

Arguments like that in the comic revel in enforcing groupthink because the
author thinks it will be used in a way he finds favorable. If you take a step
back, it’s obvious that every censorious organization has very strong reasons
for silencing badthinkers, and they use the same type of self-righteous
language when justifying it. Just look at how The Chinese government talks
about Hong Kong.

edit: Point being, either you uphold the _principle_ of free speech, as argued
in the linked article, or you end up with those who control the platforms
dictating their own worldview. They will always come up with some smug
justification for why society will fall apart if they don’t, and anyone who’s
silenced deserves it anyway.

~~~
thundergolfer
I’m confused by your first paragraph. In what way do progressives control the
public space? Republicans are far more powerful than progressives in all
branches of government (and remember Democrat != progressive).

Corporations obviously dominate corporate space, which is a large sphere of
life in the USA, and not at all “public space”.

So what’s left?

~~~
dave_b
By “public space,” I meant the predominant avenues for public discourse (maybe
not the best choice of words). Mainstream media, tech platforms, and
universities are the specific things I had in mind.

~~~
KozmoNau7
The mainstream media is overwhelmingly owned by the rich elite, with deep
connections to conservative politics.

The idea that the mainstream media is somehow overwhelmingly progressive is
something conservatives like to parrot, but I've never found it to have any
basis in truth. The "leftist" big media outlets are really centrist, at best.

~~~
lliamander
> The mainstream media is overwhelmingly owned by the rich elite, with deep
> connections to conservative politics.

I'm going to have to ask for a citation for that. Unless you are suggesting
that supporting the interests of the rich elite is an essentially conservative
position (a claim which both the rich elite and conservatives would deny).

If you look at the politics of all the people (executives and rank-and-file)
working in the institutions of media, entertainment, and academia, you'll find
that a significant majority are left of center _given the generally accepted
notions of left and right as they are used in contemporary American politics_.

~~~
thundergolfer
> politics of all the people (executives and rank-and-file) working in the
> institutions of media, entertainment, and academia, you'll find that a
> significant majority are left of center

Where is the evidence of this? I know of no surveying so broad as to include
the executives and 'rank-and-file' in media and entertainment.

Even _if_ your claim is supported, we have 2 problems. The first is basically
the "vegan waiters at steak restaurants" retort, which is to suggest that
below the top executive level of the hierarchy employees have increasingly
little power over their organisation, such that those at the bottom are like
vegan waiters at steak restaurants who have no power to change the menu
despite their politics.

The 2nd problem is basically that "left of center" != "progressive". The
majority of the ostensibly left-leaning medial is still broadly pro things
that progressives are against. Some examples would include single-payer
healthcare, animal rights, public higher education, the Green New Deal, and
anti-imperialism.

------
Barrin92
It's quite funny how stereotypical American Ben's blog is. The most important
idea that is made explicit in the post (but not justified) is that of the
marketplate of ideas, or that 'connecting people' (Zuckerberg) provides
meaning, and that speech and an increase in information is a means to mount
resistance against the powers that be.

one alternative view was presented by Baudrillard in 1985, talking about the
'uncertainty of reality'.

> _" [It] results not from the lack of information but from information itself
> and even from an excess of information. It is information itself which
> produces uncertainty, and so this uncertainty, unlike the traditional
> uncertainty which could always be resolved, is irreparable. … Overinformed,
> it [the masses] develops ingrowing obesity. For everything which loses its
> scene (like the obese body) becomes for that very reason ob-scene.

The silence of the masses is also in a sense obscene. For the masses are also
made of this useless hyper-information which claims to enlighten them, when
all it does is clutter up the space of the representable and annul itself in a
silent equivalence. And we cannot do much against this obscene circularity of
the masses and of information. The two phenomena fit one another: the masses
have no opinion and information does not inform them"_

His point being that it is not a lack of discourse but precisely our constant
rehashed and fractured discourse and feedback loops between what is real and
representations of the real that make either indistinguishable from another.
Viewed through this lens speech is not liberation, it's merely participating
and destabilizing truth and feeding the very system that it is supposed to
criticize. Autocratic lone empires without resistance always fall down, real
systems of control allow for their antagonists to persist within them, without
of course ever accomplishing anything other than simulating resistance. Think
of the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial.

~~~
amadeuspagel
This sort of bullshit is exactly why people despise post-modernism. Because
most speech doesn't accomplish anything, it's ok if people aren't allowed to
speak at all?

~~~
barrkel
That's not what that means. But ironically, you appear to be demonstrating its
truth.

------
TomMckenny
The decision to run ads for money is itself highly political: it completely
undermines the idea of free competition of ideas solely on their merits by
heavily advantaging those ideas backed by money.

And if a lie can win out over the truth, this would be the mechanism that does
it. It is certainly not coherent to complain about a "mob" "shouting" down an
idea while trying to out shout them through money.

The points on monopoly are valid and serious. But the focus on a single de-
facto monopoly, Facebook, undermines and muddles the point.

There are other de-facto and even real monopolies in broadcast media that are
more influential and far more restrictive in content, Sinclair for one. I can
not see how one could coherently oppose Facebook's de-facto monopoly while
ignoring others that are actual monopolies, unless we make some arbitrary
distinction on the technology used: radio and TV can monopolize but not web
based technologies.

And lest one think that there are orders of magnitude difference between the
TV/radio monopolies and Facebook, I will point out that:

1 We (the users of this site) are self selecting technologists and are much
more focused on web issues while being far less dependent on non-web based
media than the vast bulk of the population.

2 The intentional effects of broadcast monopolies on voting patterns are so
large as to be easily measurable. Facebook's intentional influence, if it even
exists, is certainly not obvious.

3 Twitter is in fact only read by a tiny segment of the population: The number
of US man-hours spent listening to talk radio on monopoly owned stations
vastly exceeds the number spent on Twitter where at least there is some
possibility of accidentally seeing a contrary opinion.

So yes monopolizing is a serious problem and desperately needs fixing and it
is vastly wider than web.

------
program_whiz
Its crazy how at the time, people argued that since there was no power given
in the constitution to do something, that it would never happen (i.e. writing
down that speech was protected was unnecessary since there was no power to
reulate it). Its interesting how the system has figured out the "loopholes" in
the document and used it to essentially control everything that wasn't
expressly forbidden (and even have power over those things to some degree --
e.g. weapons, speech, religion).

I guess it turned out Hamilton was partially right, since it has eventually
been interpreted as an implicit right of the government to regulate everything
not explicitly given as a right. But at the same time, I can imagine without
the "protection" ammendments, we'd probably still have even more rules and
regulations (I doubt implicit mention of powers was the instigating factor).

~~~
chrisco255
Well the 10th amendment specifically says this: The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So we only delegate to the federal what is specifically enumerated in the
Constitution. And the enumeration of certain rights does not preclude the
existence of other rights not specifically listed.

~~~
JeffL
And the interstate commerce clause had come to mean that the federal
government can do almost anything.

------
igammarays
The First Amendment was written at a time when the constraints of the
available technology created "natural" boundaries as to what kind of speech
could spread in a society. The very fact that publishing an opinion
anonymously (edit: I should say without peer-review of any sort), at scale,
was nearly impossible, prevented the development of many sordid, dark, and
"evil" thoughts from reaching the point of public discourse. I would argue
that this sort of "natural limit" on certain kinds of speech is a biologically
evolved defence mechanism against some of the darkest capabilities of human
minds - if we didn't have it, some of our darkest tendencies would go
unchecked affecting the overall healthiness and survivability of the
population. We are a social species, and our physiological wellbeing is deeply
tied to social acceptance.

The unique problem of the internet is that it allows bad ideas to infect,
fester, and mutate in the minds of others at a speed never seen before,
without the natural safeguards that we've always had: peer-review and social
acceptance. That leads to a spill-over of bad ideas into the public discourse
which, in turn, resets society's definition for what kind of ideas are
acceptable. A few rapid cycles of this, and we got our Post Truth World - it's
not that truth doesn't exist anymore, but rather the speed at which the public
discourse could verify, analyze, and accept ideas is simply not fast enough to
keep up with the pace of new ideas that can reach the public discourse. In
short, the immune system is overwhelmed, both at the individual and societal
level, and we have a raging pandemic.

Yes, I am not an American, and I am arguing that the uniquely American
religion of defending the "right" to "free speech" is misplaced in the era of
the internet. This is one of the reasons I get a fall-of-Rome feeling in
America.

~~~
HBKXNCUO
What are some of these "dark" "evil" "bad ideas" you believe are infecting,
festering, and mutating in minds thanks to the internet?

~~~
concordDance
Given that the world-view commonly called "progressive" currently dominates,
I'd expect the most "dark" views to be those which contradict (or seem to
contradict) fundamental tenet of progressivism: the idea that everyone should
be equally valued.

~~~
HBKXNCUO
If that's the case, those ideas dominated humanity for virtually all of human
existence and still dominate in many parts of the world, so it seems strange
to suggest the internet is somehow responsible for them circulating today. Is
the claim that absent the internet those ideas would have been wiped out by
now?

------
devnulloverflow
It's interesting to see how Hamilton's arguments against a bill of rights
hinges on the idea that the government doesn't have power unless the
Constitution _grants_ power to the government.

> Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not
> be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

The US constitution (like others) is indeed formally structured around
enumerated powers. But such limitations are have been deeply unfashionable for
decades -- and the great and the good have found various end-runs around it
(such as the US commerce clause).

The anti-federalists were right not to trust Hamilton.

------
babesh
This affirmation of Zuckerberg's position based on the First Amendment makes
no sense. The Zuckerberg position is that he chooses to censor everyone except
politicians. Furthermore, it is he who gets to decide the veracity of everyone
except politicians (and thus what to censor). He also gets to decide who is a
politician.

He sure is powerful. It looks like he is mostly trying to maximize the amount
of power he holds.

------
zenexer
While this article was an interesting take, it doesn't really provide a clear
path forward. It points out a variety of problems, contradictions, and
dangerous assumptions, but the reasoning presented falls short of offering
solutions.

For example, the section titled _Fixing Facebook_ irks me. Where's the fix? It
just goes on to point out more problems. The conclusion of both the article
and section begins with: _" To that end, the fact that this debate is even
occurring is evidence of the problem..."_

That's not to demean the usefulness of the article: it articulates a series of
related issues and thoroughly explains why they are problematic. But I don't
see any path to a solution embedded in the logic presented.

While I understand that the first step in solving a problem is to understand
it, this is a very abstract, historically-anchored view of the situation in
isolation, so its utility as a practical analysis from which solutions could
be derived is questionable. This article serves an intellectual purpose, but I
fail to see how it is likely to lead to a solution that will remain remotely
tenable when other factors are taken into account. The only derivative
solution I see here is that culture needs to change, rather than law--whether
it be the values of our culture or a collective migration away from
centralized, monopolistic communication platforms. While cultural change might
be a good long-term goal, it's something that can only happen over the course
of multiple generations, which makes it impractical when a short term solution
is needed.

------
0wis
The whole point lies on the definition of what is a social media. In what it
is different to everything that happened before.

The more I think about it, the more I find addictiveness to be a key
component. It is contrarian to the assumption of free-will. It was also a
problem for TV.

Will the next media make people even more look like zombies that can’t resist
to consume ? Which form will it take ? VR headsets worlds ?

------
haecceity
The people focused on free speech are missing the point. There is no market
place of ideas. The premises of discourse in mass media are guided by
corporate/government leaders. The ideas that align with the premise are
allowed to circulate. Inconvenient facts are ignored or dismissed. This is
accomplished by self censorship by leaders in mass media.

People are realizing that the social media is another lever of control. This
is the game Facebook is playing. Liberty is just the post hoc rationalization
for the masses.

------
aSplash0fDerp
Liberty: the quality or state of being free

This is where the Internet blurs international borders, meaning netizens are
mingling with a mix of individuals and organizations that do not possess
freedom or liberty.

Unless we know the source or the origin of any said content online, its just
as easy to disregard the information/context, rather than parroting data
placed on social media by bots, international PR firms, foreign governments or
other unknown individuals.

When it comes to social media, it should be no surprise that compliance,
filtering content and policing users will lean towards the lowest common
denominator, since there are fewer individuals with liberty than without.

Perhaps we'll see a localized or domestic addition to the Internet in the
future where, for example in America, it is assumed that an individual has not
forfeit their liberty, freedom or privacy, meaning they have not had their
rights compromised when using public platforms. Unfortunately, it seems like
many US citizens have forfeit their basic rights for a few hand-outs and
unfulfilled promises, so local platforms may be just as tainted.

------
pchristensen
For anyone interested in this, I recommend following the Center for Humane
Technology. Their podcast
([https://humanetech.com/podcast/](https://humanetech.com/podcast/)) talks
about many aspects of this in a very intelligent and technical manner.

I particularly recommend Episode 3 with Yael Eisenstat - [https://your-
undivided-attention.simplecast.com/episodes/wit...](https://your-undivided-
attention.simplecast.com/episodes/with-great-power-comesno-responsibility) \-
w/transcript - [http://humanetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CHT-
Undivid...](http://humanetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CHT-Undivided-
Attention-Podcast-Ep.3-With-Great-Power...Transcript.pdf)

Short version - the algorithmic feeds that drive engagement should not be
protected by CDA230 - storing and retrieving user data should be protected,
but platforms should be liable for the content that they amplify and promote.

------
motohagiography
The principle itself is odd. It’s not clear how freedom to speak does not also
cover that of association, and in turn, militating against the freedom of
others. The threat of ostracization is essentially blackmail, and while not
necessarily violent, there isn’t really a more succinct description. The right
to blackmail probably wasn’t intended, but that’s what unpopular views are
subject to today. It just didn’t scale before social media.

------
SamBam
I'm confused by the initial comparison between Hamilton and XKCD

> Alexander Hamilton was against the Bill of Rights, particularly the First
> Amendment. This famous xkcd comic explains why:

They seems to be saying very different things: Hamilton (as I understand it)
is saying the First Amendment is unnecessary (and even dangerous) because the
constitution _already_ provides no power by which to regulate speech. XKCD,
however, is saying the non-government groups have the power to criticize
speech and even ban it from their own platforms.

~~~
smacktoward
It's important to remember the context in which the _Federalist Papers_ were
written.

The Constitution had been written but not yet adopted, and American politics
was divided between Federalists, who believed that the Constitution was fine
as it was and should be adopted without modification, and Anti-Federalists
(see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
Federalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalism)), who felt it gave
too much power to the national government and should thus be rejected. The
Bill of Rights was the compromise solution; it gave the Federalists their
Constitution, but added specific protections against the abuses the Anti-
Federalists feared.

The _Federalist Papers_ were written by Federalists, with the goal of
convincing people that the Constitution would work just fine as it was
written, no modifications required. Hamilton was a Federalist, and his
argument in _Federalist 84_ was part of that effort. In retrospect, however,
given how much of what we today consider to be the genius of the Constitution
is rooted in the Bill of Rights, it seems like in this case at least the Anti-
Federalists had the better argument.

~~~
SamBam
Yes, I realize that. I was merely addressing the first sentence: "Alexander
Hamilton was against the Bill of Rights.... This famous xkcd comic explains
why:"

~~~
smacktoward
Oh, apologies for misreading you then!

On that point, I think the problem is just that _Thompson_ doesn't understand
this context. He's treating Hamilton's objection to an amendment prohibiting
speech as if it arose from a desire for _broader_ protection of speech, rather
than from a desire for no specific protection of speech at all.

Hamilton's argument that a specific protection for speech would be
counterproductive strikes me as having been pretty comprehensively debunked by
the last two centuries of American history, in which the First Amendment has
repeatedly proved to be a critical shield for speech of all sorts of kinds.
America today would look very different if Hamilton had won this argument.

------
paggle
Yes! I'm sick of "de-platforming." Free speech is a much bigger concept than
the First Amendment can provide for. If we believe free speech to be an
important "Good," it deserves more protection than the limited protections the
First Amendment offers.

------
lordleft
A powerful and provocative article. I love the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in
the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which
their wishes safely can be carried out."

I am a bit of a libertarian when it comes to civil liberties -- I flinch at
any circumscription of speech, even when it is noxious. Still, for a very long
time I was troubled by my readings of the rise of Nazism in Weimar Germany.
Weimar was a liberal democracy, albeit a very weak one, and efforts to repress
the Nazis on the basis of their ideas were rejected as a infringement of their
civil liberties. There is a part of me that is afraid of a patently false but
persuasive idea gaining currency in a liberal democracy, when it ought to have
been quelled in the cradle somehow. But maybe the lesson to be taken from the
rise of Nazism is that it was not merely the ideas promulgated by the Nazis
that propelled Hitler to power, but the cunning and brutal employment of
paramilitary force -- that it was not just tracts, but truncheons that made
Nazi Germany a real force.

~~~
smacktoward
You're describing Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

 _> I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance
of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational
argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly
be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by
force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the
level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may
forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is
deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or
pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to
tolerate the intolerant._

For me, the clearest way out of the paradox of tolerance is the dictum that
"the Constitution is not a suicide pact" (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact)).
The price of admission to the sphere of tolerance established by the
Constitution is (or ought to be, anyway) the willingness to extend the same
tolerance to others. If your goal is to overthrow the Constitutional order and
replace it with a dictatorship, a theocracy, an ethno-state, etc. etc. etc.,
you forfeit the right to shield yourself behind the document you're trying to
tear up.

~~~
stale2002
> forfeit the right to shield yourself behind the document you're trying to
> tear up.

The Supreme Court disagrees with you. They have taken on cases like this, many
times. And they have ruled that one does _not_ forfeit their rights, even if
the person does not believe in those rights.

------
rebuilder
I don't quite understand how one can laud Facebook for refusing to be the
arbiter of truth in one specific instance, when their entire business is based
in large part on filtering what information people do and don't see.

~~~
thundergolfer
To me this is exactly what splits apart the argument in favour of Facebook not
banning lies from politicians.

Corporations like Facebook have a lot of power to filter the content on their
platforms, and they do it all the time. How and when they do that filtering is
down to incentives and power. There is no free speech principle being upheld
on Facebook.

A great example of how power and incentives influences corporate filtering,
Twitter has a ban on inciting violence but publicly elected officials may be
exempted. Twitter doesn’t like violence, but it doesn’t hold non-violence as a
principle, same as Facebook not liking lies but not really being interested in
honesty as a principle. Corporations like money.

Source: twitter’s ‘Terrorism and violent extremism’ policy

------
steven741
I feel that the biggest problem with social media isn't a matter of liberty
but one of control. Individual consumers don't have enough control over what
they see. For example, if I'd like not to see anything political whatsoever on
my Facebook that right is often not respected. And it should be respected. It
is my account. If someone says something I don't like or don't want to be
affiliated with I should take steps to remove myself from that. If they come
to me after doing this it's Facebook's fault.

~~~
twoquestions
Continuing from this, as they push content on you that you don't want to see,
you become used to it. It's the same as getting used to a new musical genre;
at first it all sounds like noise, but after the 50th or so hour you can hear
the important parts clearly. Repetition legitimizes.

Harnessing that, they (Facebook, other advertisers) can push what ideas they
want you to think into your mind, almost without your even noticing if you're
not paying attention, and work to convince you you're the outlier even if you
reject what they're saying.

You're correct, and the more I think on it the creepier it gets.

------
supercanuck
The idea behind breaking up Facebook, is simply to have Instagram, Whats App,
etc compete as independent entities which would create competition.

That is the check on Facebook's power and lack of accountability.

------
kd3
This discussion is pointless. All these social media platforms can do whatever
they like on their platform. If you really care about freedom of speech and no
censorship, build it into your technology from the ground up so that it is
impossible for anyone to censor anything, and that freedom is guaranteed
because it is a fundamental property and requirement of the system.

------
davidw
This is an interesting and important debate.

I'd love to see a round table with someone like this, and, say, the people
behind Sleeping Giants, and maybe a few others.

Noteworthy: some guy filed paperwork to run for office in California in order
to run false FB ads - and they won't let him.

------
arminiusreturns
Two points related:

One: Both platforms by providing a platform for public servants... _cough-
laugh_ politicians, there are good arguments to be made that in some cases
they are public forums. I heard this argument put very well by a law podcast
when discussing the "Trump can't block people on twitter" saga.

Two: Given the governments heavy involvement with these companies behind the
scenes, I think there is also a compelling argument that that heavy
involvement could change the view of the companies as purely private. (From
initial funding via CIA VC In-Q-Tel to National Security Letters and other
various entangling structures usually under the banner of "national security")

Great article, just wanted to add those two things.

------
naringas
so: internet technology used to centralize (or concentrate) information is
basically a gateway to tyranny

in purely technical terms, internet technology doesn't necessitate that
information be centralized, it works just fine when it's distributed
(federated architecture).

------
dieterrams2
Political discourse, in Mill's time, was a very different beast than it is
today.

~~~
lliamander
How so? And is it different in a way that invalidate Mill's points?

~~~
dieterrams2
igammarays' comment says what I didn't have time to say:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21455211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21455211)

I don't necessarily think this _invalidates_ Mill's points, but Mill believed
in exceptions[1], and the dynamics of discourse on social media today would
likely give him pause.

1\.
[https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bul...](https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bult.287)

~~~
lliamander
igammarays seems to be most concerned with "bad ideas" being spread by the
recently unfettered access given to the common person to publish to the world
at large. There was probably a similar grievance during the development of the
printing press, and given that many people here would probably disagree with
the "mainstream" ideas of even the recent past, it's hard for me to imagine
how a renewed effort at gatekeeping will really solve the issue.

Given the quote from Mill listed in that article, I expect the biggest quibble
Mill would have with the use of social media not the dissemination of "fake
news", but with how outrage culture has been used to deprive people of their
jobs (e.g. "dongle-gate") or how people have been "doxxed" and then harassed
in person by lawless thugs (e.g. antifa showing up at Tucker Carlson's house).

Lastly, the Supreme Court decision cited in your article was addressed by the
dissenting opinion quoted in the Stratechery article.

~~~
dieterrams2
I only reference the article for its quote from Mill, in which truth-value is
a concern in a situation Mill happened to think warranted the suppression of
falsehoods.

Since Mill ultimately justified his beliefs in terms of utilitarianism, I do
think the echo-chamber effect of social media and the proliferation of fake
news would make him rethink things.

Of course, what matters isn't so much what Mill would think (we could
speculate all day over what conclusions he would come to), but what the best
social policy is. And while Ben cites the usual opinions on the subject, I
don't think he's made a sufficient effort to grapple with the different
media/discourse environment we live in today. That doesn't mean he must
necessarily come to a different conclusion, but it's a mistake not to give it
more consideration.

~~~
lliamander
> I only reference the article for its quote from Mill, in which truth-value
> is a concern in a situation Mill happened to think warranted the suppression
> of falsehoods.

Mill's main reason for conceding an exception to the freedom of speech wasn't
the falsehood of the speech, but the threat of mob action. I stand by my
statement: Mill would be more concerned about cancel culture rather than fake
news. Of course, the latter can feed into the former, but again the question
comes down to whether we are looking at genuine incitement.

> And while Ben cites the usual opinions on the subject, I don't think he's
> made a sufficient effort to grapple with the different media/discourse
> environment we live in today. That doesn't mean he must necessarily come to
> a different conclusion, but it's a mistake not to give it more
> consideration.

I disagree? That's a difficult criticism to respond to given it's vagueness:
like trying to put fog in a box. You could criticize Ben for his lack of
originality, but I think there is value in reiterating a truth, even an
obvious truth, in a clear and persuasive manner.

As for his thoughtfulness, are you perhaps just nonplussed that he sounds more
certain of his convictions than you think he should be? Outside specific
criticisms of his arguments, I'd have to say his position seems well thought
out. I'd say that even if I thought he was wrong.

~~~
dieterrams2
> Mill's main reason for conceding an exception to the freedom of speech
> wasn't the falsehood of the speech,

I didn’t say it was his main concern?

Mill’s reasoning ultimately rests on what principles he believes would result
in the best outcome, from a utilitarian perspective. The point I’m making is
that he wasn’t some free speech absolutist, but that an assessment of
harm/utility undergirds his thinking, and that the different media environment
would be something Mill would have to grapple with. And it could lead to an
exception.

> I disagree? That's a difficult criticism to respond to given it's vagueness:
> like trying to put fog in a box. You could criticize Ben for his lack of
> originality, but I think there is value in reiterating a truth, even an
> obvious truth, in a clear and persuasive manner.

> As for his thoughtfulness, are you perhaps just nonplussed that he sounds
> more certain of his convictions than you think he should be? Outside
> specific criticisms of his arguments, I'd have to say his position seems
> well thought out. I'd say that even if I thought he was wrong.

You seem more concerned with defending Ben than thinking through what needs to
be considered in this issue. Which is fine, I guess, but whether Ben has done
an admirable job or not isn’t really what I care about.

~~~
lliamander
> Mill’s reasoning ultimately rests on what principles he believes would
> result in the best outcome, from a utilitarian perspective. The point I’m
> making is that he wasn’t some free speech absolutist, but that an assessment
> of harm/utility undergirds his thinking, and that the different media
> environment would be something Mill would have to grapple with. And it could
> lead to an exception.

I suppose that's possible, but outside a specific argument as why Mill should
change his mind, I'm hard pressed to think he would.

You're right that he wasn't an absolutist, but in my experience a sufficiently
advanced utilitarian philosophy is virtually indistinguishable from a
deontological one. This stems from the obvious limitations in human ability to
perform the ethical calculations required by utilitarianism.

> You seem more concerned with defending Ben than thinking through what needs
> to be considered in this issue.

No, I'm trying to elicit a concrete criticism or argument that I can engage
with. I happen to agree with Ben's position: so don't just tell me I'm not
thinking about the issues, tell me why I'm _wrong_.

------
AdeptusAquinas
Best part of this article is the linked medium post by Pat Ker. That was a
good read: [https://medium.com/@patkerr/why-i-think-xkcd-is-wrong-
about-...](https://medium.com/@patkerr/why-i-think-xkcd-is-wrong-about-free-
speech-ab9361e0be26).

Less 'XKCD is wrong and stupid!' and more 'its not the full picture'

~~~
harimau777
The way that I tend to think of it is that democracy is a type of society not
just a form of government. That is a society is democratic not so much because
they vote but because they follow ideals such as freedom of speech and self
determination.

~~~
AdeptusAquinas
That's probably more of a distinction between individualism and collectivism,
than democracy per se.

------
zackmorris
"Liberty and justice for all" means that liberty isn't the only thing we
should be talking about. We are in a time of great injustice in the US (and
the rest of the world), perhaps even higher than during the Gilded Age and the
robber barons because we have such extreme wealth inequality today. I'm of the
opinion that concentrated wealth is the embodiment of injustice.

When we talk about Facebook and Twitter and free speech through the lens of
liberty, then it's hard to come to any consistent conclusion about the best
course of action. Yes I see the nuances of comparing speech and money, or
speech and political speech. But there is no way to have censorship or no
censorship and satisfy all parties.

I suggest that we add justice to the equation. Then, it's plain to see that
Donald Trump was not elected purely democratically (he lost the popular vote),
that there was evidence of tampering in the predominantly blue states that
typically elect democrats (possibly by foreign parties like Russia), and that
social media had an outsized role in the spread of propaganda (mainly Facebook
and its laissez faire stance on fact checking free speech). I don't think that
I'm stretching the truth here by any measure. And this dysfunction in our
present-day system led to the improbable election of someone who was probably
more interested in the publicity stunt of running for office than actually
winning. I think we can also safely say that there are unhappy parties on both
sides of the isle.

What does a just solution look like? Well.. it gets tricky. Typically that
would be decided by the Supreme Court, but through a series of injustices
(like Mitch McConnell blocking Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland), the
court is potentially biased. This is not the first time that this has
happened, as presidents and congresses have changed the number of justices in
order to impose their own biases:

[https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-the-supreme-
cou...](https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-the-supreme-court-have-
nine-justices)

So we are left with the court of public opinion, which is probably a good
thing. So I'll put in my vote, that I think democracy is incompatible with
concentrated wealth (injustice). Which means that I support the limiting of
campaign funds to some agreed upon amount (roughly $2800 per person per
candidate with several exceptions):

[https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-
committees/candidate...](https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-
committees/candidate-taking-receipts/contribution-limits/)

Which could be accomplished with an amendment to overturn the 2010 Citizens
United decision:

[https://movetoamend.org](https://movetoamend.org)

And that I favor the public funding of elections so that the average person
has similar publicity as someone with millions of dollars from PACs.

This limiting/balancing of dark money in politics would largely negate the
influence of private social media companies like Facebook and Twitter and make
all of this somewhat of a moot point. If it were to happen, then I would lean
towards uncensored political ads (similar to what we've had in the past) while
still leaving candidates and PACs open to libel lawsuits. I trust the dignity
of the general public to make their own political decisions, regardless of
their affluence or education or any other aspect of their demographic.

------
tracker1
And when cancel culture starts threatening to burn down a building that hosts
a free speech conference? (One that includes a black speaker that has
deraticalized dozens of racist extremists.) Where does that fall?

edit:

Also, where is the line between journalism, opinion and platform. Laws
protecting platforms are not meant to shield editorial opinion. There is
already a concept of private space in public service, why are social media
sites not considered similar here?

I'm okay with people expressing their opinions.. I'm quite fine with it and
happy to see more of it. But there's a difference between that, and masked
thugs showing up armed.

~~~
mieses
the only thing that seems certain is that thugs will burn things down.

