I don't believe any of them care about free speech; just try advocating for anarchism or criticizing the man at the top. The most generous interpretation I'd give is that they're buried in endless posting; the sheer volume of posts is overwhelming any attempt at Truth-from-above. I wonder; what effect did fact-checking have? Because all …
I don't believe any of them care about free speech; just try advocating for anarchism or criticizing the man at the top. The most generous interpretation I'd give is that they're buried in endless posting; the sheer volume of posts is overwhelming any attempt at Truth-from-above. I wonder; what effect did fact-checking have? Because all I've heard is complaints that it wasn't enough, had an agenda, was applied unevenly, etc.
While I dislike their cynical misappropriation of free speech, I don't support free speech because of any attachment to the virtues of debate or that truth will win out. I support free speech because there is no one I trust to tell me what I can and can't know. Do we "correct" everyone who says there are two genders? Or I'm certain the US Government would be happy to supply their own fact-checking service.
20 years of social media have convinced me that people simply don't CARE about truth, especially if they have a reason not to care. Bad info chases out good info. Confidently incorrect beats unconfidently correct. Human nature is flawed, and we've accidentally-on-purpose magnified some deep flaws. I don't know how to solve that. We seem to live in a post-truth, post-meaning reality...and people are realizing that.
"I support free speech because there is no one I trust to tell me what I can and can't know."
Ah, Hitchens. He was wrong here though. We trust people to at least decide what we can and can't know and see all the time. Every social network removes content (the aforementioned child porn and beheadings and God knows what else) without our knowledge or consent. We get along fine. The government clearly and openly denies us knowledge of all kinds of things about the world. Many of us object to this, but it's still the reality.
Of course, I want to know as much as possible. I'm not advocating for information to be hidden from us.
I'm advocating for clarity about the evidence base for that information, so I know if people are pulling claims out of thin air.
I'm advocating for the humility to recognise that we can't simply "do our own research" on everything from macroeconomics to climate change and we need better tools to explain the facts at a level laypeople can understand.
I'm advocating for transparency from social media companies and improvements to their methods instead of abandoning the concept of truth entirely because it's sometimes difficult.
Most people lack Hitchens' intelligence and memory and literacy. I'm sick of pretending this isn't the case. He was far more capable than most of taking in the raw data and coming up with clear, logical, factual interpretations. And I still wouldn't trust him to come to sensible conclusions about climate change or macroeconomics. I trust the average Joe's ability to do so far less.
I don't believe any of them care about free speech; just try advocating for anarchism or criticizing the man at the top. The most generous interpretation I'd give is that they're buried in endless posting; the sheer volume of posts is overwhelming any attempt at Truth-from-above. I wonder; what effect did fact-checking have? Because all I've heard is complaints that it wasn't enough, had an agenda, was applied unevenly, etc.
While I dislike their cynical misappropriation of free speech, I don't support free speech because of any attachment to the virtues of debate or that truth will win out. I support free speech because there is no one I trust to tell me what I can and can't know. Do we "correct" everyone who says there are two genders? Or I'm certain the US Government would be happy to supply their own fact-checking service.
20 years of social media have convinced me that people simply don't CARE about truth, especially if they have a reason not to care. Bad info chases out good info. Confidently incorrect beats unconfidently correct. Human nature is flawed, and we've accidentally-on-purpose magnified some deep flaws. I don't know how to solve that. We seem to live in a post-truth, post-meaning reality...and people are realizing that.
"I support free speech because there is no one I trust to tell me what I can and can't know."
Ah, Hitchens. He was wrong here though. We trust people to at least decide what we can and can't know and see all the time. Every social network removes content (the aforementioned child porn and beheadings and God knows what else) without our knowledge or consent. We get along fine. The government clearly and openly denies us knowledge of all kinds of things about the world. Many of us object to this, but it's still the reality.
Of course, I want to know as much as possible. I'm not advocating for information to be hidden from us.
I'm advocating for clarity about the evidence base for that information, so I know if people are pulling claims out of thin air.
I'm advocating for the humility to recognise that we can't simply "do our own research" on everything from macroeconomics to climate change and we need better tools to explain the facts at a level laypeople can understand.
I'm advocating for transparency from social media companies and improvements to their methods instead of abandoning the concept of truth entirely because it's sometimes difficult.
Most people lack Hitchens' intelligence and memory and literacy. I'm sick of pretending this isn't the case. He was far more capable than most of taking in the raw data and coming up with clear, logical, factual interpretations. And I still wouldn't trust him to come to sensible conclusions about climate change or macroeconomics. I trust the average Joe's ability to do so far less.