site banner
felipec  unbelief  1mo ago (felipec.substack.com)   1806 thread views

Freedom of speech has been poisoned and we need to reframe it

felipec.substack.com

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?

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think the soundproof room in a dungeon is another false equivalency. But for the sake of a civil argument let’s agree on the loudspeaker question. Do we actually think some people are getting a helping hand through a shiny new loudspeaker, with the twin express aims of promoting their ideas and drowning out ideas someone doesn’t like? Or is it just the case that people whose ideas get more reach have skilfully figured out the content algorithm game?

Personally I think that it’s convenient for some people to claim that they’re being throttled by some nefarious group of actors, rather than build the skills necessary to be more successful in the algorithm.

I think the second reality is much more likely, but that turns down the dial on conspiratorial thinking. Messy reality is scarier than a perception of victimhood, which appeals because it moves the locus of control away from you and me.

TLDR - it’s more attractive for us to believe our freedom of speech is being limited by bad actors than accept that we’re not skilled enough or our ideas aren’t very good.

Do we actually think some people are getting a helping hand through a shiny new loudspeaker, with the twin express aims of promoting their ideas and drowning out ideas someone doesn’t like? Or is it just the case that people whose ideas get more reach have skilfully figured out the content algorithm game?

If you look at any public statements made by Google, pre-acquisition Twitter etc. they are absolutely clear that they are attempting to promote trusted, authoritative sites (as judged by them). There is a reason that google medical searches always route to Healthline and WebMD: ever since the 'Google Medic Update' google has routed medical, financial and disaster-related queries to trusted and usually governmental partners.

Google also engages in strategic banning, throttling and promotion of information:

Tackling misinformation online is an ongoing challenge that Google continues to invest in, including researching novel approaches to the problem. For the past several years, Jigsaw, a unit within Google focused on threats to open societies, has collaborated with researchers from universities of Cambridge and Bristol and American University to study the effectiveness of a tactic called prebunking. While a more commonly known tactic, “debunking” seeks to correct false claims already in popular discourse, prebunking helps individuals build psychological resilience to misleading narratives before they ever encounter them.

Prebunking works by alerting individuals to attempts to manipulate them, along with the false claims or tactics likely to be used to do so, coupled with a thorough refutation of those claims or tactics. The approach is highly flexible and can be adapted to a wide range of media, from a simple billboard to long-form narrative content. Academic research has shown it to be effective against a variety of false narratives, from white supremacist hate speech to COVID vaccine misinformation. In the fall of 2022, Jigsaw ran a large-scale trial of prebunking seeking to counter anti-refugee narratives in Central and Eastern Europe following the mass influx of Ukrainians in the wake of Russia’s invasion of the country.

We will continue to fight this pernicious problem by taking a flexible approach to tackle misinformation across different products, taking action at scale, elevating trustworthy information* and equipping people with skills to detect misinformation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231001021910/https://safety.google/intl/en_us/stories/fighting-misinformation-online/

Google literally says here that they are promoting some material in order to drown out and make ineffective other material. I can't even say that all of this is wrong, I am not necessarily keen on a laissez faire approach to e.g. selling medical products in all cases. But it is absolutely manipulation of the discourse by promoting favoured voices and banning, shadow-banning or drowning out others.

The Dept. of Health also cites communiques from Facebook, Twitter and TikTok to state that:

Some technology platforms have improved efforts to monitor and address misinformation by reducing the distribution of false or misleading posts and directing users to health information from credible sources

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-misinformation-advisory.pdf (page 6)

I can't even say that all of this is wrong

Exactly. Things like the Trusted News Initiative. I don’t like this, and we should not trust every word the mainstream media says, or even trust ANY of it blindly, but it’s a damn right more preferable than loads of far left and far right crackpots producing their own propaganda and all of it being given equal billing with FT, BBC, NYT, Economist etc.

I don’t like this, and we should not trust every word the mainstream media says, or even trust ANY of it blindly, but it’s a damn right more preferable than loads of far left and far right crackpots producing their own propaganda and all of it being given equal billing with FT, BBC, NYT, Economist etc.

Why is it preferable? Because such propaganda might lead to people believing absurdities and following them off a cliff?

To clarify: I’m not saying mainstream media as the only info source is preferable. I’m saying it’s preferable to give preferential visibility to respected media sources, manned by journalists and editors with bona fides and track records of truth-seeking, and with investigative teams given the latitude to do the legwork that real journalistic work entails, over Alex Jones and InfoWars.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats