Recent searches
Search options
Consider "free speech" as a loud rallying cry that emerges from the creator side of content marketplaces.
What then is the countering rallying cry from the consumer side of content marketplaces? As a reader, what is it that we actually want?
I got my start in publishing at a respected company that was respected specifically for being the opposite of free speech.
The entire brand was based on quality, accuracy and relevance.
The way we did that was by building a massive amount of editorial machinery. High standard for who could speak, i.e. authors. Heavy handed editing. Community contributed corrections.
Nobody ever cried censorship.
Meanwhile, one of my formational political experiences was hearing my dad, who worked in the music industry, rant against parental advisory labels for music.
As I internalized it, this was a slippery slope to outright censorship and massive government overreach by democrats (Tipper Gore).
Everyone should have a voice, even if they are wrong. Otherwise we get tyranny.
So I still see the value in free speech. It's about liberty. It's participation--wrong speech (2+2=5) can lead to discussion and increased understanding. It's about distrust in institutions.
But here we are in practice. With amplification, wrong speech can amplify wrong understanding.
That doesn't feel right. And so where I ended up settling is that free speech is primarily a tactic.
What we really want is better lives.
Now on the internet we have deeply manipulated amplification systems and we have information overload.
The norm is amplification for the benefit of advertisers. But also institutionally run bot armies are common.
The situation begs for better curation systems, but the current dialogue around free speech hampers it.
For instance, Medium is free from criticism if we curate on engagement. That's optimizing for dopamine response and is why "Your <insert favorite thing> is dead." articles do well regardless of whether or not they actually are dead or even dying.
Meanwhile even the hint of centralized curation gets people very riled up. It's a bad situation for readers.
(We are adding community curation, I'm not foreshadowing personally being Curator-in-Chief)