[cgiles]

> The 2016 US Election in particular showed us what happens when a platform takes a "hands off" approach - the platform is absolutely saturated with false, hateful information...

And yet, presumably you were able to employ critical thinking, see past all this, and vote the "right" way despite an alleged deluge of hateful misinformation, as were 48%, a majority, of your fellow voters.

Where is the evidence that the level of misinformation is any higher now than in the past, or that censorship (whether by public or private entities) is suddenly a desirable thing?

History has shown that we didn't need to censor and oppress Communist thought in the US during the Cold War because of its alleged threat, and even because Communist thought was being supported by foreign actors. In the upshot, communism discredited itself just fine, and in the meantime, our censorship made us intellectually and morally poorer. Why should things be any different with the new far right?

[JohnBooty]

This conversation will definitely be easier to follow if you get up to speed first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

    Where is the evidence that the level of misinformation is any higher now than in the past,

See the above overview for a start.

    History has shown that we didn't need to censor and oppress Communist 
    thought in the US during the Cold War because of its alleged threat, 
    and even because Communist thought was being supported by foreign actors

The simalarities to today's situation are easy to see, but they are dwarfed by the differences.

1. "Communists" had no way to create and disseminate information on such a massive scale, in a manner that is nearly indistinguishable from good-faith actors. There's no analog for that in the Cold War's "Red Scare".

2. During the Red Scare, the possibility of Russia infiltrating and influencing the US to any real degree was laughable. It's not laughable now. It demonstrably happened and is happening.

3. "Censorship" is when a person is not allowed to express their views. That is not what is being proposed here. This is about refusing to hand a megaphone to bad actors.

Reality does not conform to your ideals of an egalitarian marketplace of ideas. Content farms with modest funding and modest staffs can outproduce and out-influence millions of regular voices. Relying upon the populace to suddenly become savvy is not realistic. Either we need to turn this into a full-scale information war of competing content farms and state-scale misinformation campaigns, or platform providers need to combat things at that level.

    And yet, presumably you were able to employ critical thinking, see past 
    all this, and vote the "right" way despite an alleged deluge of hateful 
    misinformation, as were 48%, a majority, of your fellow voters.

Sure, yeah.

I also have an IQ in the 90-99th percentile range, a degree in computer science and have been immersed in online culture since before web browsers existed.

The vast majority of the human race does not have those sorts of advantages. Realize that the HN demographic is not representative of the entire human race.

[cgiles]

Generally, your points are well taken. The only quibble I have on a factual basis is here:

> 3. "Censorship" is when a person is not allowed to express their views. That is not what is being proposed here. This is about refusing to hand a megaphone to bad actors.

Censorship, historically, was preventing objectionable books from being published. In many forms of censorship, there was nothing theoretically preventing an author of objectionable books from handwriting them and distributing them privately, so long as they didn't draw too much attention to themselves. The historical censors could have made an identical argument to yours: they were merely depriving the objectionable view of a "megaphone" (the publisher), not eliminating the view entirely.

But given what you have asserted above about the importance of breadth of reach for views, it would seem to me that preventing a view from being widely disseminated in any practical way to people who would otherwise freely choose to read or hear the view is the very essence of censorship.

But more broadly, my real problem with your viewpoint is perfectly exemplified here:

> I also have an IQ in the 90-99th percentile range...

> Relying upon the populace to suddenly become savvy is not realistic.

Firstly, with deep respect, this is incredibly arrogant. But nevertheless, you may be right about this, that only the enlightened and educated few can discern truth from falsity and make informed choices.

But if you are right, don't you see that this undermines the bedrock assumptions and principles of democracy? The masses must be led, and shown the "right" information and protected from the "wrong" information? By whom? And what is to prevent those elite and enlightened few from acting in their own interests rather than those of the ignorant mob?

I see within your argument, which may not be factually wrong, a powerful argument in favor of authoritarianism and oligarchy. Any argument that leads to such conclusions is worth a fair amount of scrutiny, no?

Even if it is a fiction that all voters are equally intelligent and informed, sometimes we have found that certain fictions are very important prerequisites for creating a desirable society. For example, the fiction that "all men are created equal". They aren't. But we use that fiction in very important ways to create a more just and equal society. Another is the fiction of free will. Free will does not exist. But still, we treat people as if they had free will, because the alternative is disempowering and decouples people from any responsibility for their actions.

So, I think "the demos makes more-or-less informed choices that are more-or-less in its own self-interest" is another of those necessary fictions, necessary to prevent us from regressing to feudalism or worse.

[JohnBooty]

    Firstly, with deep respect, this is incredibly arrogant. 
    But nevertheless, you may be right about this, that only 
    the enlightened and educated few can discern truth from 
    falsity and make informed choices.

I meant it purely in a humble way, and in the spirit of recognizing my own privileges. Not as some kind of value judgement. I am nothing special by HN standards, that's for darn sure. I'm probably below average here.

But it's important to examine our own privileges.

Intelligence (while admittedly not well-represented by a single number like IQ) is more or less a lottery we win or lose at birth. Bragging about intelligence is like bragging about being tall. It's not something earned; it wouldn't make sense for anybody to ever brag about it.

Critical thinking is a skill that is a serious luxury. It relies on some combination of intelligence, time to hone the skill, access to education, access to information, and/or a serious autodidactic streak. A lot of people live lives where one or all of those is missing, often through no fault of their own.

Other things help me to separate online misinformation from information as well. I was in high school / college as the web came of age, at a time when I had the time and inclination to dive into it from the beginning.

I was born into a stable middle class household in which we could afford a computer and internet access. More privileges many do not enjoy.

All those factors were crucial. Take one away and I may well have struggled to comprehend the difference between real and fake news.

My sister is a prime example. Many of the same advantages of me, but born earlier. Missed the internet revolution. Never been comfortable with technology. Constantly falls for fake news. Is that her fault? Well, yes, ultimately. We must all be responsible for ourselves.

But it's also essentially "a well-financed misinformation industry" versus "a middle-aged woman who is technologically illiterate" and wow, that is NOT a fair fight by any measure. If we are basing the future of our society on that fight having a favorable outcome, we are really fooling ourselves.

    But nevertheless, you may be right about this, that only the 
    enlightened and educated few can discern truth from falsity 
    and make informed choices.

It's not even easy for those with the intelligence and inclination. The "enemy" here is not a crazy person, dressed in rags, wandering down the street muttering that the moon is made of cheese.

The "enemy" is well-funded organizations who have serious time and money -- and sometimes state level backing -- and are devoted to pushing a mix of legitimate and fake news that takes serious effort and knowledge to separate from the real thing(s).

    I see within your argument, which may not be factually wrong, 
    a powerful argument in favor of authoritarianism and oligarchy

I certainly don't want that. If anything I'd say my arguments point towards technocracy where we would favor experts over pure mob rule. That certainly presents its own problems though.

There are no easy answers.

A purely laissez-faire free for all absolutely does not work. We see it time and time again. Bad-faith information always utterly drowns out good-faith information, like spam emails or search results drowning out the legitimate stuff.

Solid, best-effort reporting takes time and sometimes the results are boring. Willful misinformation is orders of magnitude easier to produce.

Education and critical thinking are utterly essential. We should invest heavily in these areas. Democracy relies on them, utterly. But it is also fantasy to think everybody will become enlightened information-processors, and even those of us who are competent at it need help wading through oceans of garbage. At some point, we do need trusted providers of curation. While not ideal, it is realistic, unlike hoping that most members of society evolve into galaxy-brained autodidacts.

This is how any developed society functions. We can't all evaluate drugs and therapies, so we need the FDA. You could replace it with one or more private-sector ventures, perhaps, but at some point you would need to rely on something. We can't all make clothes or food so we trust others. We trust others to design our roads and keep them safe. If I had unlimited time and brain cells it might be nice to do these things myself, but it is not even a little bit realistic.