There's no shortage of social media that offer "user safety" (ie; arbitrary censorship, unaccountable mods, enforced thought bubbles).
Internet without the training wheels should at least be an option, for those of us who have thick enough skin to dismiss the stuff we don't like without needing a self appointed authority figure to decide for us.
I generally find my viewpoint aligned with Mike on most issues, however this is where my opinion starts to diverge:
> “Right, boss, apparently because you keep talking about freedom, a large group of people are taking it to mean they have ‘freedom’ to harass people with slurs and all sorts of abuse. People are leaving the site because of it, and advertisers are pulling ads.”
> That seems bad. Quick, have someone write up some rules against hate speech.
People who use slurs are absolute buffoons, and I have no interest in exposing myself to that sort of garbage (so I choose not to go to spaces where it's prevalent), however once there is a precedent for acceptable/unacceptable speech, and a mechanism where that can be enforced, it's inevitable that the definitions expand over time to things that cause advertisers to get squeamish. The paragraph references that very example.
The end result is that anything that could be an idea exchange becomes part of a monoculture of corporate controlled platforms with fairly consistent bounds on acceptable speech. This gives a small group of organisations outsized influence over public discourse, and the consequences of that are significant enough that it's worth exploring it in depth.
I want to be able to access diverse viewpoints, and to engage or ignore as I see fit. I'm suspicious of anyone who would want to make those decisions for me.
There is also a phenomenon where speech outside these bounds prompts people to themselves call for controls and limits to be put in place. I find that very concerning on a societal scale. It works in the interests of those who want to control speech.
Having outlets for fringe thoughts is a pressure release valve for the global conversation, and I worry that sanitising the whole thing will radicalise the people who are collecting in what few low touch spaces there are left.
“Censorship” is popular because it works better than the alternatives. The unfiltered internet is an endless stream of spam and junk and crypto scams. Few people want every message sent to them to land in their inbox.
Internet without the training wheels should at least be an option, for those of us who have thick enough skin to dismiss the stuff we don't like without needing a self appointed authority figure to decide for us.