Comment by endymi0n | Hacker News Reader

Comment by endymi0n | Hacker News Reader

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> Let the truth fight for itself.

I used to have a very similar opinion to yours until I found out the truth rarely fights for itself if there's an alternative, much more convenient lie — preferably one that plays into peoples' confirmation bias or makes someone richer.

We've got an aysmmetry here that never existed before in human history. Any kind of large scale public addressing: newspapers, TV, books, had some kind of controlling mechanism and instances who stood in for the quality with their reputation: Editors, printers, TV stations.

All legislation, including the First Amendment (which, just picking nits here, is probably too simple to slap onto YouTube as a global content platform as a US-only law) was written regarding these conventions.

YouTube goes out there and hands everyone a big fat mike who wants to be heard, and then amplifies this voice to believers via recommendations.

I used to think the Internet would be a net benefit to the world. After witnessing Cambridge Analytica, the "Internet Research Agency", large scale online harrassment and Anti-Vaxxers, I'm not so sure anymore.

I don't claim to know what the answer is.

I just claim I'm pretty sure it's not the unbounded freedom to anonymous and partly highly maliciously motivated actors to spread their message without oversight.

I also like to cite Ben Franklin, writing about the time more than 250 years ago, about him being one of a very few printers in the whole new nation, and facing the same dilemma:

"In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests."

From "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin", written between from 1771 to 1790, now in public domain.

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