Free Speech, The Internet, Filter Bubbles and Censorship
Perhaps one of the most fascinating developments that I've seen in the past five years is the rejection of free speech among some of the more passionate fringes of political thought. Particularly among the youth and the millennial generation. There seems to be an increase in sensitivity to the ideas that people share with each other. Which makes some sense as we bury ourselves into deeper and deeper filter bubbles as our brains try and wrangle with these massive amounts of information being thrown at us.
Now there are certainly limitations to what should be allowed to be said. When one threatens to physically harm someone or threatens to put people into a dangerous situation, then said speech should be limited. The typical example is yelling fire inside a crowded theater when there is no fire.
But now offensive language and offensive opinions are being thrown into that group. But the issue with doing this is that offensive language tends to be a very gray area. Context and situation matter. No one cares if you swear if you are in a high intensity, stressful situation (imagine getting shot at). But if you swear in front of a bunch of kids in Sunday School, that is seen as much more inappropriate.
The problem with language is that it is very dependent on the cultural zeitgeist that is put in place. But despite the many paradigm shifts we have been fairly consistent with where we draw the line. We have never banned offensive speech here in the States but only speech which serves as a threat to any individual or the government. But that line is blurring now that we are experiencing a paradigm shift towards that where offense is considered a violent act rather than an one that is socially inappropriate.
And while waving around a Nazi flag will always be seen as inappropriate and should be given the context, one should not ban such symbolism as it serves no physical threat. It is simply the way that such people decide to express themselves. Unfortunately because we are experiencing a paradigm shift where offense is considered to be an actual threat, we have seen increasing violence in protests as misguided individuals see themselves performing a service by attacking the threat they disagree with.
While this is manifesting as violence in the physical world, we see a different reaction online. Why is this? We have to share the physical world with each other. We cannot help to bump into each other on the way to work or school. Our cyber personas don't experience this problem because we actively avoid conflict and jump into our filter bubbles that fill us with information that verifies our ideologies and satisfies our egos.
We self segregate into our different sub communities and talk to, listen to, and communicate with like minded people. This self-segregation is harder in the physical world, but built into the digital world as one of its features. The issue with isolating ourselves in these communities is that if the group has a specific ideology, the group will tend over time to take an extreme view of the ideology especially when competing with antithetical ideologies. This is why we see groups like social justice warriors and the white nationalists pop up. A bunch of people got together and closed themselves off from opposing ideas and thoughts. They essentially censor the other opinion by burying themselves into a community and then locking or drowning opposition thought out.
In fact the internet may be the reason we see these violent protests in the first place. Individuals radicalize within their filter bubbles and then seek to take action against opposing groups by confronting them in the physical world. Nobody listens to them in the digital world, but you are forced to listen in a physical environment.
But just because they are radicalized in a certain ideology does not mean that they should be inclined to violence. The issue is that with technology, we grow up more isolated within these bubbles. We don't have as much exposure to other ideas and opposing viewpoints. Thus, we are very sensitive to the whole idea of disagreement and our naturally more hostile towards that which we are unfamiliar with.
Perhaps a more cynical population in a post recession age also has to do with the strong desire with change and hostility with the status quo. And those with a greater desire to change society often seek to take less traditional and more confrontational routes.
Anyways, we see increasing aggression in the real world against free speech due to self segregation into certain communities where particular ideas--right or wrong--are allowed to fester into dogma. As a result we are less likely to agree on things and more incline to argue. Couple that with the increased sensitivity towards offensive speech and you begin to see the current political climate and how different groups of people fit within the current iteration of society.
The last thing I will mention, which worries me, is the increased desire within certain communities to censor opposing views and impose their viewpoint. As explained above, such action does not give us rational thinkers but radicalized ideologues. I understand that a community has a right and an obligation to censor speech that is considered threatening, but threatening should always be viewed in terms of a physical harm rather than an emotional one.
To put it more bluntly, such people need to stop being so sensitive about those they disagree with and confront such ideas with logic and facts rather than with emotions, aggression, and if pushed to a certain extent, violence. You need to embrace the diversity of ideas and challenge your ideas so we may pursue the truth rather than appease our egotistical desires of always being right.
The internet is already a dangerous place where people can dig into rabbit holes and never see the light of day. We fix this issue by having a open conversation and encouraging our views and opinions to be challenged rather than to build fences and become crusaders for a set of beliefs that might turn out to be wrong or unethical.
It is not wrong to focus and put more time into ideas and thoughts we are more interested in. But we are biased creatures and we need to understand the powerful weapon the internet is, so we can use it to build bridges rather than walls.
Some of the ideas presented in this post can also found in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Chapter 2. You can find it here. While he did not have the internet, Mill expressed the importance of free speech and challenging one's ideas into to find the truth. If you enjoy a challenging and thought-provoking read, I recommend you check it out.
Hope you enjoyed the post and am interested to know your thoughts and would love to engage in an open discussion down below.
Great post! There is a real danger in echo chambers and imposed ideologies to free speech. The more walls we put between one another, the harder it is to discuss rationally and find common ground. Fortunately there are plenty of other areas of the internet that are more open to discussion and differing opinions.
Agreed. Places like Steemit have the potential to be new grounds for discussion especially when more centralized platforms tend to be more closed off as they wield the power to ban.
Steemit has already been overthrown by a group of social justice warriors who are intent on forcing their narrow minded views onto everybody else. Groups have taken it upon themselves to police posts. Spaminator being the newest of these. Personally, i feel the internet would be a better place if restrictions were placed on Americans using it. If only to keep them "safe". The rest of us could go about our own business without having to constantly explain that their way is not ours. Anyway. Enjoy my upvote and keep up the good work.
While I do think that posts that plagiarize or steal from others should be flagged, I did a little research into these spam attacking bots and I find this trend very concerning. Algorithms lack nuance and such bots only act in black or white situations. Couple that with new users unfamiliar with the code of content and you are building a wall around Steem. Thanks for bringing this up.
If people want to reduce spam, then:
Frankly, I only flag plagiarized posts and simply ignore "spam". To delegate that power to a bot is irresponsible and lazy. I wish those at the top could figure this out.
I feel it's your choice whether you want to flag someone. But in regards to plagiarism and copyright, it has always been up to the owner of said material to pursue legal action. It is not, and has never been, the responsibility of ordinary people to enforce rediculous laws created by DISNEY to protect corporate interests. This is not an academic institution. Nor is it a news media outlet. You don't see people on facebook getting flagged for plagiarism. Nor should you. The role of social media is the FREE spreading of information. Last time I checked, this platform was advertising itself as a social media platform.
But on Facebook, you don't see people getting paid for plagiarism. If you copy and paste somebody else's blog post, I personally believe you should not be rewarded for someone else's work and generate noise that potentially hides those participating in the platform in good faith. If you derive something on top of someone else's work then that is fair use. I'm against blatant copying.
And lastly, you are the master of your own vote, and thus you should be free to do whatever you want with it. Nobody has any obligation to flag plagiarism. When I mentioned that such posts "should" be flagged, perhaps I was a little too strong in my wording. But if you copy and paste, you are stealing intellectual property (although there are problems with copyright laws), and profiting off of somebody else's work while other small authors who puts hours of effort into their work are being buried in the noise seems unfair to me.
The people doing this are those, below average IQ, people who aren't able to fathom how people make money on facebook and twitter. So they come here, hoping that they can make a buck or 300 using steem coins. They are the scammers. Looking for a get rich quick scheme. Instead of spending time building a following, they want instant cash with a single post. And the so called spammers want the same thing. Now theres this silent war between two classes of crooks. The more intelligent spammer and the herd mentality social justice warrior. Both of these will inevitably fail because steem is a scam coin and as soon as ned has cashed out in 13 months, the blockchain will shut down.
If you believe Steem is a scam coin, then why participate?
Well said. Like kind attracts like kind until there is balance, harmony, peace.
And, as you know, opposites attract as well; like the opposing ends of a magnet. However, what they attract is not always good, and they always battle one another. There is a dynamism with opposites, friction, intensity. Sometimes, like kind is needed, and sometimes opposites are needed.
The concept of free speech involves these two attributes: like kind and opposite attraction. Ither way, it has to have practical limits for everyday life. We have the right to speak freely, which means we have the right to offend.
So, we must exercise free speech only to the extent that offense does not lead to violence. Even the most patient and understanding person can be led to violence if continuously offended, under the guise of "free speech".
The same is true of other rights. For example, we have the right to bear arms. But, it would be offensive to walk around with a handgun actually in our hands everywhere we went. So, rights must be exercised in a practical manner.
People on the internet seem to think free speech is violated when they cannot say or do whatever they want, without being censored. The reality is that those broadcast platforms are owned by someone, someone who does not want certain things said and done using their platform.
So, when someone wants to express free speech without being censored, they must find or create their own platform. People who want to hear and/or see them will seek them out, and they have the right to seek out followers.
Recently, a lot of people have been complaining about the denial of advertisers on YouTube. There is definitely a change and a decision to stymy content. The people who create videos on that platform cannot force the issue using the "free speech" argument. They do not own the platform. So, they must ither create a new platform, or upload videos to another platform; like STEEMIT or DTube.
Free speech is always free, depending on where one uses it.
Certainly other platforms are free to censor as they please, but they may do so to the detriment of developing a healthy community where new and valuable ideas can be forged in battlefield of a good discussion.
Why certainly when one wants to exercise their free speech they have to create their own platform, open platforms provided by internet that facilitate communication is a good thing. And open platforms and ideas tend to flourish as time goes on.
I will disagree on the violence thing, however. Unless someone is threatening your safety or the safety of another person directly, you should never use force because someone says something you may disagree with. Are there people that use violence? Absolutely. But when someone offends someone in a way socially inappropriate and that person uses violence, the person using the violence is committing the worse action. If that person didn't use violence, then society has ways of isolating people who take free speech too far. But no one should be prevented from speaking on the basis that they might get hurt because it may offend the wrong group of people. Because some people get offended at the tiniest things and we shouldn't be intimidated by them if what we are saying is something we believe in.