I don’t know a lot about Caitlin Johnstone, mostly I know her as a critic of United States foreign policy. What I do know is that she’s right that most people are missing the real dangers of online censorship. She writes: “But far, far more consequential than overt censorship of individuals is censorship by algorithm. No individual being silenced does as much real-world damage to free expression and free thought as the way ideas and information which aren't authorized by the powerful are being actively hidden from public view, while material which serves the interests of the powerful is the first thing they see in their search results.”
>There is no pretension of eliminating unwanted views.
You must be talking about social media networks that aren't Facebook. I haven't used Facebook in years and even I've heard about their polices re 'misinformation.'
>A friend of mine has suggested that we should demand the creation of a national social media infrastructure owned by the state.
Incidentally, I would tell your friend to be careful putting the word 'national' right before 'social,' unless they mean this to be a low-pitch dogwhistle
You're using high-tech toys to avoid talking about what is ultimately a more meaty, less silicon-y problem: Boomers and their descendants don't feel like standing up for principles, so a minority of popular-kid psychopaths has managed to recruit hordes of hyenas that can achieve anything via loud screeching.
Much of what they want to achieve takes the form of "I don't like him! Make him stop talking!"
Leftists know something about hormones now, don't they? The root of our problems is the human biomass. If you can tell me why adult male testosterone levels have dropped 50% in the last half century, I can tell you why we've gotten more cowardly, conformist, and, literally, weaker.
Maybe I'm channelling Noam Chomsky a bit here, but I'm increasingly see this as a feature not a bug. The internet meant that the control that corporations and the establishment had over the media was loosened significantly - anyone could now publish news, no gatekeeping and no filter! However, the centralisation of content within a few social media companies and the current enthusiasm for preventing the spread of misinformation presents an opportunity for fact checkers to regain control over the narrative and once again decide what is and is not acceptable to say in public - and why use tools as crude as banning if subtle means are far more effective? The fact-checkers will obviously have to be respectable mainstream types, and so will scrutinise ideas and perspectives they disagree with far more harshly, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they come from.
I don't think it'll ever be possible to fully control speech on the internet, but I definitely expect that the range of ideas that the average person will be exposed to will narrow significantly. I expect the media to mainly consist of slightly-left of centre mainstream platforms (US Democrats) and explicitly anti-censorship (read:"far-right") alternative platforms (US Republicans). I actually expect the alternative platforms to be more open to far-left ideas, partly for the "free speech" cred it offers, partly because there's overlap in criticisms of the establishment, but mostly because it's a good way to scare the base with how crazy the socialists are.
Not sure what to expect for the rest of the world though, non-English audiences will probably be completely ignored unless someone deliberately tries to set that up.
>There is no pretension of eliminating unwanted views.
You must be talking about social media networks that aren't Facebook. I haven't used Facebook in years and even I've heard about their polices re 'misinformation.'
>A friend of mine has suggested that we should demand the creation of a national social media infrastructure owned by the state.
Incidentally, I would tell your friend to be careful putting the word 'national' right before 'social,' unless they mean this to be a low-pitch dogwhistle
You're using high-tech toys to avoid talking about what is ultimately a more meaty, less silicon-y problem: Boomers and their descendants don't feel like standing up for principles, so a minority of popular-kid psychopaths has managed to recruit hordes of hyenas that can achieve anything via loud screeching.
Much of what they want to achieve takes the form of "I don't like him! Make him stop talking!"
Leftists know something about hormones now, don't they? The root of our problems is the human biomass. If you can tell me why adult male testosterone levels have dropped 50% in the last half century, I can tell you why we've gotten more cowardly, conformist, and, literally, weaker.
Reasons for algorithmic filtering:
1. Breaking limitations of human attention (Paradox of Choice, Hick's Law etc.)
2. Condensation of social consensus (Language models & Knowledge Graph formation)
Reasons against algorithmic filtering:
1. Lack of transparency in filtering (AI black box model)
2. Inability to do counterfactual research (see https://desystemize.substack.com for more)
3. Lack of decentralization and factions of information (contra Revipedia)
Maybe I'm channelling Noam Chomsky a bit here, but I'm increasingly see this as a feature not a bug. The internet meant that the control that corporations and the establishment had over the media was loosened significantly - anyone could now publish news, no gatekeeping and no filter! However, the centralisation of content within a few social media companies and the current enthusiasm for preventing the spread of misinformation presents an opportunity for fact checkers to regain control over the narrative and once again decide what is and is not acceptable to say in public - and why use tools as crude as banning if subtle means are far more effective? The fact-checkers will obviously have to be respectable mainstream types, and so will scrutinise ideas and perspectives they disagree with far more harshly, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they come from.
I don't think it'll ever be possible to fully control speech on the internet, but I definitely expect that the range of ideas that the average person will be exposed to will narrow significantly. I expect the media to mainly consist of slightly-left of centre mainstream platforms (US Democrats) and explicitly anti-censorship (read:"far-right") alternative platforms (US Republicans). I actually expect the alternative platforms to be more open to far-left ideas, partly for the "free speech" cred it offers, partly because there's overlap in criticisms of the establishment, but mostly because it's a good way to scare the base with how crazy the socialists are.
Not sure what to expect for the rest of the world though, non-English audiences will probably be completely ignored unless someone deliberately tries to set that up.