I've written about freedom of speech extensively in all manner of forums, but the one thing that has become clear to me lately, is that people are genuinely uninterested in the philosophical underpinnings of freedom of speech. Today they would rather quote an XKCD comic, than John Stuart Mill's seminar work On Liberty.
Because of this, I've decided to try to reframe the original notion of freedom of speech, into a term I coined: Open Ideas.
Open Ideas is nothing more than what freedom of speech has always been historically: a philosophical declaration that the open contestation of ideas is the engine of progress that keeps moving society forward.
Today the tyranny of the majority believes freedom of speech is anything but that. They believe that "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences", despite the fact that such term came from nowhere, has no author, and in addition all great free speech thinkers argued precisely the opposite. The great thinkers argued that if people are afraid of expressing unpopular opinions, that is functionally the same as government censorship: ideas are suppressed, society stagnates, and progress is halted.
So far I have not yet heard any sound refutation of any of these ideas. All people do is repeat the aforementioned dogmatic slogan with zero philosophical foundation, or mention First Amendment details, which obviously is not equal to freedom of speech.
How is anything I've stated in any way an inaccurate assessment of what is happening?
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Notes -
Some people seem to equate “freedom of speech” with “freedom of reach”. You can say whatever you want. That doesn’t mean what whatever you say must be published by loudspeaker media institutions and promoted by social media algorithms.
This is a straw man, because nobody is saying anything remotely close to that.
If I say something controversial about COVID-19, freedom of speech would dictate that I shouldn't be banned from Facebook for it. That not "freedom of reach", that's "let my friends and family who have accepted me read what I wrote".
Same thing on YouTube, reddit, X/Twitter, and so on. My followers follow me for a reason.
But more importantly: why should I be fired from my job because of something I posted on social media? This has nothing to do with "freedom of reach", this is punishing people for challenging established dogma.
Agree with this, for sure. When I say “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach”, I don’t at all mean you should be thrown off the platform. What I do mean is the platform has no obligation to algorithmically promote what you say to other people on the internet.
The people who follow you is an interesting question, and a much thornier one for Internet user preferences.
There’s too much content, and we “follow” too many accounts, for reverse-chronological content to work. If it ever worked, it certainly cannot work now, with AI helping everyone pump out 10x to 100x more content and content variations than before. So there’s just too much. Some sorting algorithm is required but…
I hate the algorithms. They act like crack and plug me in intravenously (figuratively speaking) to the brain-rotting content I can’t stop myself from consuming. I know I am better off without the algorithms (as they’ve evolved in 2022-25). In 2016-21, the algorithms brought me interesting, heterodox ideas and content, and I was psychologically and epistemologically better off as a result. That has flipped since 2022 on almost every platform. (YouTube seems to be an exception.)
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