Technocensorship: When Corporations Serve as a Front for Government Censors | Hacker News Reader

Technocensorship: When Corporations Serve as a Front for Government Censors

a.devs.today

72 pointsredbar0n26 comments

It's worth revisiting the Constitutional philosophy of separation of church and state [0]. When technology became our new religion, it prefigured the establishment of new churches. The five giant websites that ministrate to all our earthly needs demand fresh Jeffersonian ideas.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

That's a stretch, I don't see tech giants as religious vehicles.

Y'know I thought that too, and even wrote a (I hope reasonably well argued) piece on why people should not throw a religious mantle over issues that can better be framed within rationalist secular ethics [0]. But then I keep seeing more and more that scares me in people's reactions to AI and what are clearly cult-like tendencies to submit before the power of technology. The very conceit of "technological determinism" [1] is already an abdication of reason. Check out Techno-Theodicy, the relation between Silicon Valley, Cosmism and transcendence, and the now old but very salient Andrew Kimbrell talk on "Cold Evil" [2]. It always starts as " a stretch" and in the blink of an eye it's "just accepted as the normal culture". I think it would behove us well to at least recognise and address this.

[0] https://techwrongs.org/2023/03/06/microsoft-is-not-a-religio...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism

[2] https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/cold-evil-tec...

This is an idea I haven't seen before, thanks for that. I'll be glad to read it.

Unfortunately, since it's new to me, I can't provide any kind of reasoned reply, other than to send my thanks and a nice day.

EDIT: That said, I'll also check out your podcast.

They do things like incorporate in ireland to not pay taxes and often have a cult of personality at the helm. Quacks like a duck and all.

I agree, the government should not have a role in influencing the content moderation policies of social media networks except for things that are strictly illegal.

It's depressing, though, because the only time people seem interested in this is when someone from the opposite political party is trying to influence content moderation policies.

If the Biden administration put undue pressure on social media companies, that's bad. If Donald Trump as president pressures Twitter to exempt him from their content moderation, that's also bad.

But you'll get very few people who will call out both things.

Sadly, almost nobody seems to care about the free speech of anyone except the people they agree with.

> Sadly, almost nobody seems to care about the free speech of anyone except the people they agree with.

It's at the forefront of public conversation right now because it's an emerging issue in the tech space, but we have a long rich history of free speech cases to look back on.

It would be nice to see folks who take such a rigorous stance on the First and Second Amendments (not in this article, but in author’s book _Battlefield America_) adopt similarly rigorous and detailed readings of the other twenty-five.

What do you mean particularly?

Are the other twenty-five under constant threat like the first two?

Perhaps there are important reasons why they are #1 and #2?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

See the historical notes under proposal and ratification, in particular the table of article revisions approved in 1789. The order of ratification was contingent on a series of historical accidents and has little to do with Madison’s (or any other individual founder’s) intentions.

The table "Approval of the Bill of Rights in Congress and the States" shows that the amendments are in the same order in the Bill of Rights as they were in Madison's original proposal, and all were ratified December 15, 1791.

Some of his proposals were removed, though, and one of those was resurrected two hundred years later.

National Security is the new Raison d'État

ha ha this post here only scratches the surface, see what Mike Benz has to say and you'll hear some s**

https://rumble.com/v4fmjiu-mike-benz-part-2-how-the-departme...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com