+1 on L.C.'a post above. I will only add that the solution to speech you don't like or think is wrong is more speech, not less. As that great Supreme Court Justice -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- said in his famous dissent in Abrams vs. U.S.:

"[The] best test of truth is the power of [a] thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, . . . This at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe . . ."

Or, in another case, Holmes said:

"The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.”

Or, as former justice William O. Douglas once said:

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Or, finally, here's quote from former justice Hugo Black:

"I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas -- whether that association be called a political party or not -- marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country."

You get the point . . . freedom of speech is the very first freedom enumerated in the Bill of Rights. It is vital to our survival as a society. It is a bedrock concept upon which we have staked our all, as another jurist once said.
And, this freedom of speech is in peril now, not in the same context as those in the cases from which these quotes come, but nevertheless the threats are as serious, as L.C. so aptly pointed out.

The solutions are not easy, and they require that we think clearly and creatively. I'm confident that in the long run we will figure out a way to provide greater freedom of expression in this digital age.

BLSS, a problem with some of these examples is that we are talking about the power of the state against the power of the state. In other words, we have certain parts of the state-run school system trying to mandate certain curriculum choices and then another part of the state — the legislature— mandating that it not be taught. At least the legislature is popularly elected and has to answer to the people at some point, which is not true of state school boards in most states. Though the article you reference talks in terms of local decisions, the real concern is statewide mandating of this curriculum, which I agree is not conducive to educating the next generation. Slavery must be taught. It has properly been called our nation's original sin. However, this curriculum inaccurately portrays our country as having been founded with slavery as the bedrock of society and as its cornerstone, which would be an accurate description of the CSA not the USA.

See: https://www.newsmax.com/us/robert-woodson-1776-project-16... /

A WSJ article by the same Mr. Woodson that goes into more depth on his opposition to the NYT’s proposed 1619 Project curriculum:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-left-hijacked-civil-...

BLSS: Just a quick update. I did, indeed, paste in the wrong WSJ article by Mr. Woodson. Here's the one I meant to paste: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-1619-project-hurts-black...

An important point to get out of the way first: the internet, and social media platforms, are the most open forum for the mass dissemination of ideas that has ever existed, by a multiple that's staggering. I'm not sure that point's even debatable, so when I read things like "instead of becoming an open forum for all ideas" it's difficult not to feel like the problem here is being framed incorrectly. I just don't see how it can be debated that ideas, controversial and otherwise, are now spread daily at a volume that dwarfs the entire combined output of human history prior. It's a massive, massive scale, and the content moderation that occurs is largely around the margins. The reality is that the volume and scale makes censoring speech at a rate that actually moves the needle virtually impossible. To put some numbers on it, Google's indexed slightly less than 4% of the internet. Google is also the single largest source of information in the history of mankind. That means there 24 Googles worth of information unindexed, available to whoever wants to read them.

As I mentioned a couple of times prior, every platform in question -- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit -- are simply media platforms, all of which derive every meaningful cent of revenue from advertising. Just like network tv, radio, and media platforms of the past. These platforms answer to their advertisers. If Walmart tells Facebook they're going to stop advertising on Facebook, because they don't want their brand associated with the proliferation of a certain subset of controversial content, what you're proposing gives a private company (Facebook) no control over what they deem best for their business.

To me, that's very problematic.

I also think you're missing a key point about section 230. It's specifically designed to provide protection for platforms from liability for third party content. That is, content they didn't create, and that was created by their users. A newspaper isn't analogous, because there's no such thing as 'user geberated' content published in newspapers, and in fact, there's no content published in newspapers that isn't edited and reviewed.

The moment you repeal 230, and Facebook is liable when the next group of incels plots a shooting, what do you think Facebook is gonna do? Roll the dice? No. There going to shut down every group that might be even remotely problematic legally, and police content extremely closely. You will, in essence, have turned them into a newspaper -- at least legally -- and they'll police content appropriately.

The reality of the 230 debate is that the support on the Right, like everything on the Right these days, is just culture war whining and the end result of years of complaining about being oppressed. It's just convenient packaging for their grievances and insistence that elites (like Silicon Valley) don't take them seriously.

And on the Left, the support is due to the same big government paternalism that's spawned terrible policy after terrible policy and the misguided notion that you can stamp out racism and homophobia through deplatforming.

Both sides are equally misguided, and the fact that two disparate groups of people naive enough to believe either of those things are in agreement about repealing 230 should throw off about 600 red flags for any rational person who has been playing any attention at all.

They're not doing this. But they will if you force them to. Do you think there's an editorial team at Twitter that thought "you know what story we should run with? That there's a global cabal of cannibal pedophiles that eat babies in a DC Pizza Parlor"? Of course not.

And to the extent that they've started shutting down the spread of that sort of misinformation, it's because it's led to actual, real-world violence, and the moment their advertisers start thinking of them as a place that the worst representation of America mobilizes, they'll pull their spend to make sure Dial Soap doesn't accidentally sponsor a live feed of a mass shooting.

Would I prefer a completely un-moderated platform? Probably. But I also understand that Twitter is a private business, and because I believe in the rights of private companies, I'm ultimately content to let them run their business as they see fit.




I think Conservatives are letting their grievances turn them into unwitting stooges in what could be the single biggest blow to free speech in the history of the country. As I pointed out, legislators are already using the power of the state to limit speech in very problematic ways and coservatives happily look the other way. Now, the push to repeal 230 will force the platforms responsible for the largest flow of free thought in the history of mankind to police that content even more closely. You disagree with Facebook's content moderation policies? Cool. You're now advocating for them to scale them by 1000x.

And all because conservatives no longer stand for anything at all beyond wanting to punish elites who disagree with them. Call it free speech all you want, but the impact will not be freer speech. The repeal for Conservatives -- as articulated by Michael Barone and supported by you -- is solely about punishing Facebook et al. Just like the repeal of Delta's tax cuts. And the challenge to MLB's anti-trust exemption. That they're packaging this as being about 'free speech' doesn't actually make it so.

The letters are literally written to an editor.

That editor is deciding which letters are published.

This is not at all analogous to Facebook or YouTube's user-generated content. Not trying to put to fine a point on it, but I'm really not sure how somebody can make a good faith argument that Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube's "editorial process" is anything like that of a newspaper.

Not only is the scale wildly different, but the order of operations is completely opposite. Editors choose which letters to publish before they're published. Content's instantly posted to Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, et al instantly, and only comes up for review if there are complaints filed by users.

If anything, this point just supports my argument as to how a repeal of section 230 will hinder speech. You want Facebook to be treated like a newspaper specifically because you're unhappy with the editorial choices they currently make. Newspapers edit everything. So the only logical conclusion is more editorial choices from Facebook, which you disagree with.

Truthfully, I'm having trouble following the logical strain of the argument conservatives are making about 230. It very much feels like it just boils down to a punishment, just like the cases with MLB and Delta.

What's the philosophical underpinning as it relates to free speech? I am not seeing how a repeal of 230 increases free speech.

To the contrary, it places restrictions on platforms that by and large are used to voice opinions freely and widely, and does so only because of political axe grinding. I've already provided links -- ignored here -- of examples of conservative politicians using legislative power to punish private companies who speak out publicly about conservative policy. The conservative support of a repeal of 230 seems like more of that to me, and remain unconvinced that this has anything to do with free speech when nobody can present a logical view of how it does anything to further the aim of free speech. It's a punishment for Facebook's attempts to moderate content, collateral damage be damned.

BLSS: Another example of a wrong-headed decision by FB to remove discussion of a topic. This was on the use of hydroxchloroquine for early COVID-19. Blocked because the left went crazy simple because Trump said he had a hunch it might be effective. This boneheaded move probably cost tens of thousands of lives in the US alone. This link deals with the situation in France to a large extent:

https://wearechange.org/facebook-oversight-reverses-hydro... /

BLSS:

I think our fundamental disagreement here is that I see FB, Twitter and Google (and maybe a few others) as having such a large segment of the modern marketplace of ideas that their actions at stifling speech they disagree with has severe societal consequences. You see this as a trifling matter that has little to no major impact on the national dialogue. I wish that was true, but I don't think it is.

My ideal would be to have a million or more folks play the role of the pamphleteers of the Colonial Era and have their wares equally available to all citizens to weigh in their own mental calculus. But, alas, if I start a website that proclaims some philosophical or political position that goes counter to the current trend of thought or goes against the ascending woke culture, Google will make sure searches for my ideas will be on page 15 of the hit list, while those that adhere to the current orthodoxy will fill the first ten pages. Twitter will either ban me or put a brake on how widely my posts will be disseminated. FB book will do likewise with the algorithms previously discussed. This is not a level playing field.

Let me end with a quote from another of my heroes in the arena of free speech, John Milton:

"Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"

The problem is that for the reasons cited we do not have that "free and open encounter." We do not have a level playing field.

Perhaps anti-trust legislation against these behemoths of the internet would be another approach that could be tried. I would support any move that would increase the diversity of thought that the average citizen could avail him or herself of while perusing online information and the news of the day. Maybe, just maybe, we need another trust-busting TR to emerge on the national stage.

BLSS:

You wanted evidence of the lack of level playing field. Here are but a few of many, many examples that could be cited:

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/15/facebook-and-twitter-... /

https://nypost.com/article/social-media-censorship-conser... /

https://freedomwire.com/facebook-conservative-censorship /

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/facebook_cen...

On that first link, the meat of the story for the present discussion is in the last third of the article.

And interesting these links did not show up on a Google search, at least in the first several pages. However, using a Duck-Duck-Go search (with exactly the same search terms) they were all on the first page.

I agree that we are going around in circles and, therefore, I will start to curtail my contributions to this thread going forward.

I will end on this point of agreement:

While I would word this differently, I do agree with what I see as the general thrust of your statement -- the emphasis on grievance and "victimhood" in our current cultural climate is self-defeating and threat to democracy. We have become a society of wimps.

Just a quick little addendum here. I have a Google phone, and in the course of this conversation googled and clicked on articles related to the search team "Facebook censoring conservative" and a few other similar terms.

Thinking this, and other conservative publications are of interest to me, I'm now getting very regular push notifications to my phone from conservative sites. Most notably, something called the Independent Sentinel.

I've gotten updates about how Trump will be reinstated as President in August, that the Covid Lab Leak was a bioweapon purposefully released by the Chinese military, and that "Michigan Isn't Over! More Big Abnormalities Found."

Isn't this the exact sort of viewpoint you're stating that Google suppresses? They're actually amplifying it to me very aggressively after a few Google searches.

Interesting choice of words. It's quite apt here. Why? Because I do actually live in the world rpbobcat was discussing, and rpbobcat acknowledged he himself hasn't actually been to New York recently.

Nothing biased about trusting a third-hand "observation" over a first-hand one.

It will never cease to amaze me the lengths so many Americans go to be afraid of their fellow citizens. Is it really that hard to believe that New York isn't currently a crime ridden hellscape? That outdoor dining in the world's financial capital is nice?

You're welcome to visit anytime. Seriously. I'll take you around, buy you a drink or two. I think it would be really interesting for you to experience the city first-hand, even though you trust the "observations" rpbobcat made that were, by his own acknowledgement, not actually observed, but heard second hand.


You think that Google has no interest in clicks and that their algorithm isn't just designed to feed people what Google thinks they want? These algorithms are, by and large, feedback loops. That you are so perplexed by this basic truth about how the internet determines which content to put in front of users doesn't evoke much confidence in your overall argument here. You're trying to make a very serious accusation about Google, and are failing Algorithms 101.

Here's a screenshot that shows 16 push notifications a day from the Independent Sentinel: https://www.filepicker.io/api/file/stleiYMhRGyq4WROu8Re

Welcome to the completely different world I live in.


Yes, maybe we're living in alternate universes.

Or maybe the algorithm Google engineers have worked on for 20 years that's designed to optimize clicks across a billion users and the largest data set in human history's complicated and you and rpbobcat just haven't quite cracked it yet.

Given how little understanding you've shown about it to date, I know where I'm putting my money.

In our prior conversation, I did so. I was in midtown. I'm in midtown right now. I'm actually almost certainly on the worst block of midtown, where a hotel's been converted to a homeless shelter, and a bodega was recently shut down for selling heroin. My office is 4 doors down from that, I'm here 3 days a week.

And despite the above, it's still not that bad.

Translated, this means you haven't been to New York.


Do police forces have any incentive to exaggerate the risks posed by crime? Is there, in fact, documented evidence of many large police forces doing just that? Were there just massive, nationwide protests calling for police forces to be defunded? I wonder if there's any political incentive to insist that crime's terrible and people are in grave danger?

No, definitely not. You're probably right, I should buy a gun before I go get that afterwork negroni at a michelin starred restaurant down the block.

I am, currently, sitting in midtown. I often work late. I was here until 10pm a couple of days ago.

I have taken none of those precautions, and have not seen a hint that it would be necessary.

In fact, I'm sitting on the block referenced here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-police-target-...

In other words, I'm in the epicenter of the problem you consider to be so bad that I should be armed, and I just ate lunch at an outdoor table on said block.

It's really just not that bad.


That's sad. Beyond that, what's your point? That somebody was speeding?

Can you share the data on e-scooter deaths in Manhattan and why I'm supposed to care a ton about this? People commit crimes all the time. Why does this particular instance represent the fact that the city I live in is a hellscape?

Cool. I think the cause of this is artificial. Covid resulted in homeless populations being moved into midtown hotels, and the problems associated with those populations are now concentrated in a particular area, causing a spike in crimes, which conservatives are now seizing on to push a narrative about the lawlessness of big cities and scare the elderly about crime, which they do anytime there's a Democrat running the country.

It's a predictable playbook, and the increase in crime will drop in the next couple of weeks now that the hotel program for homeless is reaching its conclusion with Covid restrictions being removed.

And to be very clear, I am literally experiencing this multiple times a week. And I assure you it's not nearly as bad as any of the sources you're listening to insist it is.


Respectfully, I've seen these things first hand, with my own two eyes. I've experienced it. Why should I prioritize your third-hand perception, which is dripping in very obvious politics?

The same offer applies for you that I made to OCF. Come on over to Manhattan some night. We'll grab drinks. It's just not nearly as scary as you seem convinced it is, even in the worst of it.

An eyesore? Sure. Worse than it was a year ago when it was the safest big city in the country? Sure.

But we're talking about 150 midtown robberies in a month, in an area in which 4 million people visit daily. Do the math on that and then lecture me some more about how much danger I'm in and how I'm wearing rose colored glasses.

This spike is a self-inflicted blip in a city that is simultaneously the largest and one of the safest cities in the country, and everything you're falling prey to is just politics. It's a police force angry after a summer of protests calling for their defunding, seizing on this as a political tool to insist on their own essentialness. I'll even acknowledge that it's good politics.

But it's still just politics, and that's why when two dudes who mainline Fox News try and tell me what's going on where I live, despite neither having seen it themselves, it has no resonance whatsoever. Because your view's just typical political fear-mongering, and mine's backed by common sense and data.

I see the problem you're talking about just about every day. I see the cause; I see the effect. I can literally look out of the window right now at the very thing you're hearing about second-hand and third-hand. Sorry if I put more value in that than what you're hearing from your cousin.

29th and 7th, across the street from a Doubletree that's temporarily been converted into a homeless shelter, is 300 yards from the "Penn Station Drug Market" the WSJ alluded to, and as I mentioned earlier, right next to a bodega that was shut down for selling heroin a few weeks back.

This block's the worst one I've seen in midtown. It's like San Francisco.

Since 2005.



I don't really care, honestly. We're talking about a specific moment in time (now) in which you a) have a very certain opinion, while b) having no firsthand experience.

I'm not even a fan of DeBlasio, but hard to see this as anything but confirmation bias. Under DeBlasio violent crime, property crime, murder, robberies, burglaries, thefts, grand larceny, and auto thefts all reached their lowest ever rates in New York City since the 50s.

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/30/574800001/how-crime-rates-...

The murder rate jumped in 2020 to 447. That spike means there were fewer murders in 2020 than in all but two of the years Bloomberg served. That spike also is half as many as the worst year under Guiliani. In other words, DeBlasio's worst year crime-wise, which corresponded with a black swan pandemic event that drove crime up nationally, was still better than every year under Guiliani and all but two years under Bloomberg. And you're sitting here, wistful about the good ol' days of Guiliani and Bloomberg, afraid to visit without a gun. All because the crime rate's almost as bad as it was under Bloomberg and Guiliani. Sound logic.

Here's a good rundown: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-at... /

The increase in murders and violent crime's been seen nationwide. The murder rate increased by 24.7%; NYC's rate is only a 19.2% increase, below the national rate.

Here's a breakdown from Vox of three potential causes:

I don't know the answer. But I do know that your rationale, that Republican mayors are good and DeBlasio is bad, is overly simplistic and doesn't align with the hard data.