While tankie communists understood right from the get-go that capitalist speech is dangerous (something that is painfully evident now that the world is burning on the funeral pyre of profit), the oppressive system they set up to stifle that speech immediely served corruption and lies and tyranny. When the people are being beaten by a stick, they’re not much happier if the stick is called Behemoth pulling the peasants’ plow.
That’s the catch 22 here, how the solution might make the problem worse.
I’ve expressed earlier how I’m not a fan of unbridled free speech; like Eric Idle I don’t believe in free speech for facists or abusers.
I remember the so-called campus snowflakes who were seen as the biggest hreat to free speech ever just for trying to protest a fascist who was literally doxing local students from the stage, who was going beyond just expressing ideas or an ideology. How the right wing wailed and sobbed agaist these leftist so called safe-spacers while not saying peep one once the right started a real censorship wave. Because it’s free speech for me but not for thee.
So y’all know I am not about to crawl up on a free speech extremism hill any time soon.
It’s just that when I imagine the most powerful moderation tools in the world in the hands of Musk and Trump and GQP, I shudder. It’s already damnatio memoriae on all that is good and just.
That’s not to completely give in to a failure of imagination of how we can try to make things better. As a positive example, we’ve seen Fedi block iterate to something that’s nuanced and customizable and not just a mindless cut&paste. (And Fedi, which is more our chill living room for art and hobbies than a political soap box, especially doesn’t need to become a nazi bar.)
Starting a platform without considering moderation is irresponsible. That’s not what I’m saying here.
I’m just trying to be intellectually honest about the two pitfalls here: In additions to the aforementioned “what if the bad guys get their hands on the controls”, there’s also technical obstacles.
Last Week Tonight is a great show but their episode a few years back on misinformation was not entirely thought through. They are completely right that misinformation is the main driver of what’s destroying the world and they were proven right now that the infocalypse won the American election, but how would you even stop it? Their examples of campaign on WhatsApp… That’s citizens sending stuff to each other over e2ee. What are you even going to do?