[kadendogthing]

Not only is this analogy bad (sunlight helps plenty of bad things grow, things even detrimental to our survival as a species), but it assumes that you're dealing with rational actors. Stop naively assuming this. It's a bad assumption. There are people out there who will argue in bad faith and have no interest in reasoning or truth. And there are people who will fall victim to those bad ideas. Religion, terrorist factions, general cults, hell we can barely keep our own actions in check while we actively harm the environment.

The idea that if you just say the right, True (TM) thing then people will flock to it so not only naive it's so obviously wrong if you look at a laymen's perspective on basically any subject. It's also just a waste of time for the subjects typically in question. The communication of ideas has changed. It's a chaotic free for all. We've over done it. It's time to have a serious and reasonable conversation about the current state we find ourselves in, least we shoot ourselves in the foot with blind, headstrong optimism about ideals that don't much the reality of human nature.

In before someone references 1984 blindly and displays the ever-popular dystopia-prediction fetish that's so prevalent in these conversations.

[mrkstu]

I think the onus is on those who would silence debate to prove the immediate harm they are advocating isn't the worse alternative. There is a reason why prior restraint on speech is almost impossible to compel in American courts.

I find it curious that those who apparently are in such a rush to suppress Bad (TM) ideas adopt the worst ideas of fascists in order to do so.

[kadendogthing]

>I think the onus is on those who would silence debate to prove the immediate harm they are advocating isn't the worse alternative.

We've always relied on editorial control for the most part in all of our mediums to make sure that the information being disseminated is reasonably accurate and fit for public consumption. It's not a fascist idea and has absolutely nothing to do with fascism or any type of propaganda for any political party. There's no need to be so absurdly hyperbolic over what is quite frankly, a common sense mechanism when dealing with the proliferation of ideas.

We know that disinformation spreads faster than the truth on several new, internet media platforms these days. The onus is on the people who would so eagerly disregard common sense filters that have been time tested, for them to prove that the danger and harm currently being caused by this new wave of disinformation in every single subject matter will be worth it now, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future. Take the following:

* Vaccines, health.

* Environment

* Economics

* General politics.

In which subject are the ideals your espousing helping us? Because in each of those subjects I can point you towards real life, damaging consequences that have come about because of unfettered Bad (TM) ideas that spread over modern mediums.

This isn't a theoretical problem. It's happening right now, today.

[notyourday]

How is this argument differ from the following one:

(setup - 1950 but we have facebook/twitter/youtube/instagram)

Most of the population thinks that people promoting same sex relationships are just hell bent on destroying the good and wholesome America and demand that the leaders of LGBT of the time be deplatformed from that twitter/facebook/youtube/etc.

[kadendogthing]

How is the argument the same? You can't just ask me to do all the work for you while you just presume your statement is factual with no supporting evidence. Though I've gone ahead and responded because I feel very passionate about this issue.

To answer the heart of your point: any kind of editorial/screening system isn't perfect. We'll get things wrong. We always have, always will. It's still better than what's happening right now on these mediums where we know some portion of the population are "getting things wrong" and we're just allowing it to happen in a free fall fashion. "Do nothing" is never the answer, never has been and probably never will be.

To address your specific example: It's not based on what most of the population thinks. Qualified opinions are a thing. We can talk about what makes a qualified opinion, with your example or any other subject. Notably we see these types of opinions in your example gaining momentum because we're allowing certain groups of people unfettered access to an audience. It's really a bad example in my opinion, but I understand and sympathize with the point you're trying to make.

Unfiltered, unstructured information from unqualified sources tends to prey on our darker nature more often than it appeals to our better senses as people. To kind of expand on implementing practical systems around how we actually function as humans, in a lot of ways the "bad" part of human nature is why we've structured many western governments with explicit separation of powers with checks and balances. There are just some things we gravitate towards as humans that just aren't "good." James Madison in fact said the state was just a reflection of human nature, for the previous reasons. In a lot of ways, we have historically treated information dissemination in the same manner, checking and preventing the worst of our nature when broadcasting and consuming information via editorial controls and trusted, proven sources.

[notyourday]

> To address your specific example: It's not based on what most of the population thinks. Qualified opinions are a thing. We can talk about what makes a qualified opinion, with your example or any other subject. Notably we see these types of opinions in your example gaining momentum because we're allowing certain groups of people unfettered access to an audience. It's really a bad example in my opinion, but I understand and sympathize with the point you're trying to make.

Who qualifies the opinion? The opinion of those that wanted gays muzzled in 1950s were very qualified opinions.

Hell, during the Obama's first term in the office he publicly opposed gay marriage as the President of the United States.

Notice that your comment is being slowly greyed out and my question is already in the negative with you being the only person who actually responded rather than attempt to downvote it into oblivion. And this is on HN, not Reddit.

[marknutter]

Prove to me that you argue in good faith and are a rational actor.

[kadendogthing]

I thought it'd at least be a few responses before someone went for the typical "got'em" style of response that inevitably relies on Missing the Point, but I guess not.

I don't need to prove that to you. Even in your own odd request, you didn't even make the feeble attempt to pretend that you're running a popular media platform. We are talking about extremely popular platforms that inherently give credence to any view points espoused on those platforms, view points that can have far reaching effects. To give you a very specific area that we're touching on, it's internet demagoguery.

Editorialization is not censorship, nutter.

[mrkstu]

I don't in any way expect that Twitter has reviewed a tweet for content and approves of the content therein. Equally so for Facebook et al.

The platforms ubiquity makes them the Hydes Park / Public Square of the modern age- if anything they should be regulated to be content neutral rather than be encouraged to silence certain viewpoints.

[Vraxx]

That's just not true though when you consider that these platforms have algorithms that will determine which posts get more visibility than others (trending is the most obvious of these). I don't think this would be even half as much of a debate if we had an electronic platform that could actually be the modern public square of the US, but instead we have only private entities attempting to provide this, and they are decidedly not protectors of free speech (that would be our government). The extension of this is that even if the government did provide such a platform, there would likely still need to be rules because as much as you like to think we have unfettered free speech, you still can't stand in the middle of the public square and call for the death of another individual or you can't shout "FIRE" in a movie theater when there is none.

If we actually had a government run system, we could ensure things like accountability for your ideas that you self publish in such a public square because the government itself would have the servers that contain the data. The constitution would limit the government from censoring this platform, but it wouldn't limit the government from implementing more effective methods of processing abuses of free speech such as libel by having an immediate record of what was said. My main point here is that it's easier to agree on what if any free speech limitations should apply if there isn't this proxy layer of "Well corporations can do whatever they want with their servers" and "Well these laws don't apply to what they said because nobody is speaking in the domain that freedom of speech applies to"

[orthecreedence]

> If we actually had a government run system

We do! Buy a domain, point to your home server, and go to town. Any unlawful messages you spew will be met with seizure of your domain and/or servers, but otherwise you're free to promote or discuss any ideas you see fit.

If you're talking about a government-run social network, that's an interesting idea. I was actually talking about this with someone a few days ago, but with regard to a government run (or government funded) news/journalism publication that reported on facts (as opposed to felings and clickbait).

I think these government-run services would eventually become victim to people's calls for them to be removed...either they are too biased, or not biased enough. A social network in particular...I cannot imagine a social network built and run by the government that ANYBODY would actually want to use.