In this case the fact the tweet was taken down made headlines, but if censorship like this is becoming the norm, as it looks like it is, then these issues potentially get no exposure or discussion.
That seems more dangerous to me.
I used to agree with this line of thinking, but I believe the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age. It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external. I hope I'm wrong about that, but only time will tell, and interesting[0] times they will be.
[0] In the apocryphal chinese curse sense of the word, if that wasn't obvious.
I'm confused, then why did you say this?
> I used to agree with this line of thinking
Unless I'm misinterpreting this, you seem "not to longer agree" with the merits of free speech. If so, then why do you hope to be wrong about it eventually disappearing?
> the past dozen years or so of the information age have made it abundantly clear that simply having the truth on your side and making a rational case for it is not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
Even if I agreed with this—which I don't—the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.[1]
For instance, having tweets like that exist would be good counterevidence to all to apologia of certain bad actors that goes around, even here in HN.
> Honestly, I'm not sure that free speech as a concept will be able to survive the information age
Usually the first ones silenced are the ones promoting censorship. That's what I'd usually say anyway, but it is pointless; I would be silenced eventually too and I don't want to be silenced, even if it happens to me after it does to the ones who are "inadvertently" asking to be silenced.
> It seems as though any society holding it sacrosanct might be doomed to collapse from divisive pressure both internal and external.
Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale. Language is the basis of civilization, so restricting communication is not the way to go. Improving it is the way to move forward; it has always been so, I think.
[1]: And to note, I'm not saying that what was said in that tweeted article wasn't an awful lie. The information is not the content, the information is the fact that it was said at all.
I still believe in the merits of free speech as regards reasoned good-faith open debate and communication, what has changed is that it is now clear to me that bad-faith propaganda without regard for reason cannot be countered by reason, and that such communication is in fact significantly dangerous.
> Even if I agreed with this [that misinformation can't be countered with reason] —which I don't— the answer to this hypothetical reality is definitely not to start removing actual information.
If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will. I don't see any way around having to remove the underlying (mis)information in order to prevent its spread. Events have shown that merely tagging misinforamtion as such is not effective, and that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
> Do you have historical evidence to back up this claim?
You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years? Not really. I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
> All in all, my hope is that we find easier, better ways for people to fact check, instead of removing data wholesale.
People have many methods to fact check right now, but it has been shown that people prefer to ignore information that runs counter to what they want to be true. People can be lead to water but can't be made to drink, it seems. Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history, yet we have seen recently that people will attempt to overthrow the government based on outright fabrication and even call for the hanging of an otherwise politically aligned individual for disagreeing with them.
These two sentences cannot be true at the same time; one is either in favor of free communication or one isn't. There are many ways to name the idea of "I'm okay with speech as long as I deem it to be in good faith/not dangerous", but free speech is not one of them.
It's the entire point: "I might hate what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it."
> If recent events haven't convinced you, I honestly don't know what will.
Why would anything convince me of the idea that something I deem to be the basis of progress in civilization, is actually not so?
To give an example: The church had significant power—even over the state in vast swathes of Europe—in the middle ages, and they were pretty censorious. Yet the renaissance still happened, in no small part thanks to the printing press and the huge boost it gave to the sharing of knowledge.
Interestingly, the reformation also happened around that time, and with it brought quite a few religious wars, with both groups making claims that don't sound all that unlike to "the other side is spreading falsehoods and there's no other way to stop them".
Nowadays, catholics and protestants seem to be mostly okay with each other, and I'm sure today's conflicts will eventually become a thing of the past too. But it will not be thanks to censorship.
> that's without getting into an argument about who gets to judge what is and isn't misinformation.
This is an argument against your point, not in favor of it, I think. Who's the arbiter of what's misinformation? Twitter or any of the other gigantic and "evil"[1] corporations?
> You mean aside from the increasingly violent divisiveness of politics in the past dozen years?
Interesting, many claim that misinformation is at fault of that divide. Just as many instead claim that it's siloing, filter bubbles and echo chambers the real culprit.
> I'm not intending to prove it exhaustively in my post so much as to say that it seems like it might be the case. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
But the burden of proof is on the one who affirms, not on the one who denies. Believing something just because it seems like it might be true and because one hasn't looked for counterevidence can be unfalsifiable. To wit, one might just believe it and that's that.
Which is, of course, one's prerogative. Free speech and all that; everyone is free to believe anything.
> People have many methods to fact check right now.[...] Indeed, the information age has made fact checking more accessible than it has ever been in history
Case in point. There might be many ways to fact check and it might be more accessible, but clearly not enough, for whatever reason. For example, in this case, if it were easier and faster, you could have more readily looked for evidence of your "any society holding free speech as sacrosanct is doomed to collapse" claim, I think.
[1]: Well, they're "evil" as long as the discussion is not about free speech but instead about any of the other unethical things they do. When the subject is censorship, many people are in their favor, it seems.
Sure, fact-checking has never been so "fast or efficient"... But it clearly is still not yet fast or efficient, or perhaps promoted, enough.
But even that aside, I don't understand what's the point I apparently missed. I can only think that the implication is that fact checking already is as good as it'll ever be and, even assuming that that was true (it isn't), then we should just give up on free speech and resign ourselves to censorship? Well, I didn't "miss" that point, I just don't agree.
> not even remotely sufficient to counter the spread of misinformation.
However, allowing the tweet to be removed - especially when its consequences are so critical - takes away the only tool we have at our disposal. It may not be enough, but the conclusion we ought to reach from this should be that we need more of it, not less of it.
Worse, it makes the situation murky by placing a veil over the initial communication, because the tweet's effect of having been seen has already occurred. Obfuscating this information after it has already seen the light of day adds to its dark powers and makes disinformation harder to stop.
Hasn't that been the case for all of human history?
Not to mention the population most affected by this can't challenge it since they're being decimated by forced re-education camps where they are sterilized by the same government that tweeted this
It's a little tone deaf to ask why it being challenged is preferable in light of that isn't it?
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This is getting so old so quickly in the last few days.
I'll take the flak from people insisting the traction here is totally organic and has nothing to do with current events and that I'm just trying to derail things with "orange man bad":
This wouldn't have made front page as quickly before Trump's suspension. A quick search shows out of the last few months this post already has more points than any other twitter removal post.
Their removal of an entire campaign wasn't even a blip: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/technology/twitter-chines...
At the end of the day Twitter left a President's account along for 4 years through hundreds of violations of their platform, petty insults, vague threats to entire nations, etc.
They finally blinked when that person led to 5 casualties after a mob attacked the Capitol.
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For the slippery slope to matter, there needs to be a slope.
Twitter has demonstrated their extreme restraint in censoring anything remotely deemed as official.
People can keep forcing this angle of how "dangerous" it is that they're willing to remove only the most egregious instances of rules violations on their private platform but it's just not true.
It's their right that was cemented by the Supreme Court because some lady didn't want to bake cakes for gay people, and the discretion in applying that right is excellent.
You can talk about hypotheticals where they go off the deep end and start censoring everything... but by that logic the US government can go off the deep end and start censoring print media. Nothing is immune from doomsday hypotheticals.