Freedom of viewpoint expression is a key part of democracy and modern society. But it’s not an absolute right of unfettered communication, since that would lead to no recourse when a racist troll projects a deep fake of you raping small children on the side of your house.
Being able to sue someone for libel is censorship. Property rights allowing you to control what happens on your house are censorship. And, yes, the government arresting that hypothetical racist troll for the production of child pornography is also censorship.
Of course, we could just define censorship as “suppression of protected speech” or something similar, but that just hides the game and helps folk who actually want to censor political ideas they don’t like get away with it.
Well central information control is out. And a democratic approach means putting the mon in charge, which is bad for a couple reasons.
I’m thinking that an overarching control is to be avoided. There is no good version of that. Control on the small scale. Individuals and small groups maybe. And keep the large scale uncontrolled and wild.
Putting the mob in charge is the least-bad form of government humans have ever conceived of.
Experts can and do establish reputations to persuade the masses or those chosen by the masses.
When we try putting the experts in charge directly, they invariably become corrupt and stop being as skilled.
There is a reason why America’s founding fathers put a wall between church and state. Not because they thought religion was bad, but because they learned from history that when you give a topic-expert political control they stop being good at either function.
Censorship is suspect, not inherently bad.
Freedom of viewpoint expression is a key part of democracy and modern society. But it’s not an absolute right of unfettered communication, since that would lead to no recourse when a racist troll projects a deep fake of you raping small children on the side of your house.
Being able to sue someone for libel is censorship. Property rights allowing you to control what happens on your house are censorship. And, yes, the government arresting that hypothetical racist troll for the production of child pornography is also censorship.
Of course, we could just define censorship as “suppression of protected speech” or something similar, but that just hides the game and helps folk who actually want to censor political ideas they don’t like get away with it.
Well central information control is out. And a democratic approach means putting the mon in charge, which is bad for a couple reasons.
I’m thinking that an overarching control is to be avoided. There is no good version of that. Control on the small scale. Individuals and small groups maybe. And keep the large scale uncontrolled and wild.
Putting the mob in charge is the least-bad form of government humans have ever conceived of.
Experts can and do establish reputations to persuade the masses or those chosen by the masses.
When we try putting the experts in charge directly, they invariably become corrupt and stop being as skilled.
There is a reason why America’s founding fathers put a wall between church and state. Not because they thought religion was bad, but because they learned from history that when you give a topic-expert political control they stop being good at either function.
Maybe nobody should be in charge. Just a federation of factions. I guess that’s Lemmy.