Itās not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media::One personās content moderation is anotherās censorship when it comes to Democratsā and Republicansā views on handling misinformation.
Yes it solves it. Companies are not required to carry your voice around the world, which is what their platforms do. Stop equating guaranteed amplification with your freedom of speech. Itās wrong and dumb. Iāve lived in countries that actually restrict speech and whatever the Facebook mod did to you is NOTHING. The only reason Americans even fall into this stupid way of thinking is because their speech is so free. When your speech has never truly been restricted you have no idea what that freedom even means.
Iām not necessarily in favor of āguaranteed amplificationā, as you put it. Anyone is free to yell whatever ideas they have on a street corner. Barring some specific exceptions, that is free speech. I understand why a for-profit company might not want to amplify any means everything someone decides to spew out. Weāve designed an un-free capitalist system though where some people do have guaranteed amplifiers, and others do not. Thatās the problem Iām more interested in solving. Itās not forcing any one company to be forced to amplify any specific idea, but rather to make sure that centralized authorities, be they governments, social media companies, etc canāt in unison stamp out those ideas. I think decentralized platforms like this are somewhat key to that goal, even with individual instances having full moderation and federation control.
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Those two statements of yours seem in opposition to one another. In your second statement youāre calling out that some people have guaranteed amplifiers while others donāt and say thats a problem. However your first statement says youāre not in favor of guaranteed amplifiers for everyone.
The only logical third outcome I can make out that would make those two statement NOT contradictory is if you donāt want guaranteed amplifiers for ANYONE, but I donāt think youāre saying that.
Can you clarify who you believe should have guaranteed amplifiers?
Iām not looking for guaranteed amplifiers. Iām looking for an outcome where anyone can find an amplifier if thatās what they want. No party should be required to amplify anyone else. Itās possible in this situation that someone could fail to find an amplifier, but Iād like to minimize that by just having many platforms with different incentives such that it is unlikely that they would all align against any one persons message.
The fediverse is built on this concept. Every instance can moderate their own users and communities, and choose which other instances to federate with. Itās unlikely that a specific user would be unable to find an instance that accommodates them, even if larger instances wonāt. This contrasts with traditional social media where there is a sole for-profit entity that controls the entire network, able to completely remove people and ideas they donāt want.
How is that not a guaranteed amplifier?
So if a personās message is something clearly abhorrent like āwhite supremacyā advocating violence against other races, youāre hopeful there is a platform that person can amplify their voice with their ideas to the general public?
My guess is that as the user increases the level of their bigotry, if the instance still allows is, that instance will be de-federated by nearly everyone. So they have their own echo chamber at that point. How is this different than what groups like that have done for decades prior to the internet with a private newsletter mailed out? This is essentially the situation we have at present.
What are you advocating that would change this?
ādesigned an un-free capitalist system though where some people do have guaranteed amplifiers, and others do not.ā
This is simply bullshit. Facebook has the same rules for everybody.
I donāt get why people like you donāt seem to understand that if you use someone elseās system that has rules you have to follow those rules.
No you donāt have free speech on fb. No it is not the same thing as āyelling on a cornerā.
You people have made up a concept of what you think free speech is that isnāt reflected in reality in any way.
No one owes you an unfettered voice on any platform.
If you want to talk about corporate ownership of media, and how corporate media platforms are so powerful that they become the only thing that matters, thereās plenty to rail against there. It just doesnāt have anything to do with free speech. Here we are discussing how important it is not to let institutions squash ideas. Again, totally not even in the offing. The reality is that social media simply wants to moderate nazi hatred, while conservatives cry āfree speech!ā
Thereās plenty of free media out there, including this platform weāre talking on. Thereās no freedom of speech issue here. In my day we just said fuck the mods. We didnāt clutch our pearls and presume we had a god given right to say whatever we want wherever we want.
You canāt walk into Davies Symphony Hall and cry freedom of speech because you want to be heard by the crowd that came for the orchestra.