"The libertarian argument that YouTube is owned by a private company which is entitled to police content as it wishes is no longer sustainable. We live in a digital world in which a handful of big tech companies have seized control of the public square. As I have argued before, we need a First Amendment for the Internet."
So let me get this straight.
Conservatives no longer support property rights, believe access to broadcast media should be a government enforced entitlement, and support something like a fairness doctrine.
Liberals meanwhile believe certain ideas and forms of expression should be censored, call opponents of this "free speech extremists," and are fine with three or four corporations shaping public discourse.
Do I have this right?
It really does seem as if everyone on all sides lost their minds starting roughly 2012-2014. I could compile quite a long list of examples and not just around this issue.
My hypothesis for a cause is the algorithmic timeline and its kin. We shifted around that time from mostly neutral media for online discussion to the automatic moderation of discussion to drive engagement with the medium itself.
What drives engagement? Negativity, cartoonishly extreme positions, outrage, hate, fear, trolling, etc. Over time everyone has been driven toward... well... those opinions and styles of discourse that most effectively drive engagement.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore
This turned out to be more wishful thinking and less law of nature. Net traffic now seems to readily route itself into walled gardens crowded with gnomes demanding ever stricter speech controls.
The real issue is a group of people have decided it is better to shut down speech, rather than listen to speech they don't like. They justify this by saying free speech is only a government thing. The companies have caved into this group, and listened to their demands.
People and companies should be striving to keep speech free, not looking for ways to shut it down, or limit the avenues.
Whatever happened to "I may not like our what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it."
Hello! I need to finish my college homework, but I have no money to get survey responses…… If you have about a 1-minute spare, please help me do this simple survey with only 5 questions about Youtube recommendation system: https://forms.gle/5nmQFWxMX2P47wqx8 Your response will be appreciated so much! Thank you very very much!
The part where a big social media outcry got their put reinstated sounds so much like the stories we see on HN about developers who get their accounts suspended and resort to Twitter to get their issues resolved.
8 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 11.9 ms ] threadSo let me get this straight.
Conservatives no longer support property rights, believe access to broadcast media should be a government enforced entitlement, and support something like a fairness doctrine.
Liberals meanwhile believe certain ideas and forms of expression should be censored, call opponents of this "free speech extremists," and are fine with three or four corporations shaping public discourse.
Do I have this right?
It really does seem as if everyone on all sides lost their minds starting roughly 2012-2014. I could compile quite a long list of examples and not just around this issue.
My hypothesis for a cause is the algorithmic timeline and its kin. We shifted around that time from mostly neutral media for online discussion to the automatic moderation of discussion to drive engagement with the medium itself.
What drives engagement? Negativity, cartoonishly extreme positions, outrage, hate, fear, trolling, etc. Over time everyone has been driven toward... well... those opinions and styles of discourse that most effectively drive engagement.
Hey, a straw man left battling a straw man right to an audience of edgelord trolls drives engagement and therefore platform ad dollars.
People need to grasp the concept of being manipulated not to think a specific thing but at the "meta" behavioral and cognitive style level.
This turned out to be more wishful thinking and less law of nature. Net traffic now seems to readily route itself into walled gardens crowded with gnomes demanding ever stricter speech controls.