There's a portion of the far left and the up-and-coming gen-zalpha that takes on a dictatorial "censorship is okay for things we dislike" attitude. They don't realize that in the 90's and 00's free speech was a place of refuge for liberals to escape from evangelical attacks on everything from LGBT rights to Pokemon.
They also don't appreciate that the "come one and all" nature of the internet back then led to many people crossing the fences and experiencing viewpoints they'd never seen or heard before. This is an atmosphere we desperately need to return to.
Present day censorship, "gotcha" moderation, and algorithmic manipulation of emotion have led to hyper polarization. We should 1) deescalate the intrusion of these systems and remove them from our day-to-day experience and 2) reinforce the fundamental rights we all deserve.
Social media networks with over 100,000,000 daily active users should not be considered as "private companies with a right to free speech through censorship". They are effectively public squares that we have all elected and chosen to share. Right and left alike.
Public companies tend to censor to protect profits, but small individuals (such as Reddit moderators and Fediverse instance maintainers) do it from either a position of laziness or political retribution. The latter is a form of disgust and hatred for fellow humans and should be called out as such, even if the other party is guilty of the same.
I've seen the free speech argument twisted into "right wing figures trying to force their views into everyone's feed", but that need not be the case. There are tools for individuals to block. And if we'd finally divorce ourselves from platforms and federation and escape to true p2p social networking, we'd all have maximum individual control: we could institute any blocking, boosting, ingestion, sharing, and ranking criteria we wanted. Many amongst the left obsesses over what the right is doing (and vice versa), which tells me people enjoy rubbernecking rather than tuning out. It's a game of "neener-neener" high school football rivalry.
But back to the core point - you shouldn't get to choose who people talk to if you're not a first party in that conversation. You shouldn't get to choose who can publish openly or who can read public broadcasts. If you want to keep your words private, share them in private. Your choices should be limited to blocking what you personally dislike at your own consumption level, and it should be that way for everyone. Because that's fair.
The pendulums of politics will swing. One day liberals will need the free speech refuge again. Preserve it now even if you want to get rid of it. Question yourself if you find yourself wanting to mute or persecute others. If you're angry with my words right now, please ask yourself why you want the other party to shut up.
I want to emphasize that I do not agree with the far right. But I will fight with my last breath to preserve the right to free speech for us all. If we lose it, we will slide into tyrannical oppression from those in power.
I wish we could all just get along. I know that's not going to happen in my lifetime, but we should make best attempts at deescalation and maintaining open communication with one another. Conversation can be a bridge.
They also don't appreciate that the "come one and all" nature of the internet back then led to many people crossing the fences and experiencing viewpoints they'd never seen or heard before. This is an atmosphere we desperately need to return to.
Present day censorship, "gotcha" moderation, and algorithmic manipulation of emotion have led to hyper polarization. We should 1) deescalate the intrusion of these systems and remove them from our day-to-day experience and 2) reinforce the fundamental rights we all deserve.
Social media networks with over 100,000,000 daily active users should not be considered as "private companies with a right to free speech through censorship". They are effectively public squares that we have all elected and chosen to share. Right and left alike.
Public companies tend to censor to protect profits, but small individuals (such as Reddit moderators and Fediverse instance maintainers) do it from either a position of laziness or political retribution. The latter is a form of disgust and hatred for fellow humans and should be called out as such, even if the other party is guilty of the same.
I've seen the free speech argument twisted into "right wing figures trying to force their views into everyone's feed", but that need not be the case. There are tools for individuals to block. And if we'd finally divorce ourselves from platforms and federation and escape to true p2p social networking, we'd all have maximum individual control: we could institute any blocking, boosting, ingestion, sharing, and ranking criteria we wanted. Many amongst the left obsesses over what the right is doing (and vice versa), which tells me people enjoy rubbernecking rather than tuning out. It's a game of "neener-neener" high school football rivalry.
But back to the core point - you shouldn't get to choose who people talk to if you're not a first party in that conversation. You shouldn't get to choose who can publish openly or who can read public broadcasts. If you want to keep your words private, share them in private. Your choices should be limited to blocking what you personally dislike at your own consumption level, and it should be that way for everyone. Because that's fair.
The pendulums of politics will swing. One day liberals will need the free speech refuge again. Preserve it now even if you want to get rid of it. Question yourself if you find yourself wanting to mute or persecute others. If you're angry with my words right now, please ask yourself why you want the other party to shut up.
I want to emphasize that I do not agree with the far right. But I will fight with my last breath to preserve the right to free speech for us all. If we lose it, we will slide into tyrannical oppression from those in power.
I wish we could all just get along. I know that's not going to happen in my lifetime, but we should make best attempts at deescalation and maintaining open communication with one another. Conversation can be a bridge.