Moderation in Infrastructure(stratechery.com)
stratechery.com
Moderation in Infrastructure
https://stratechery.com/2021/moderation-in-infrastructure/
43 comments
The definition of free speech is not at all limited to the absence of legal constrictions. Russell addresses this quite directly in "Free Thought…":
»When we speak of anything as “free,” our meaning is not definite unless we can say what it is free from. Whatever or whoever is “free” is not subject to some external compulsion, and to be precise we ought to say what this kind of compulsion is. … Legal penalties are, however, in the modern world, the least of the obstacles to freedom of thoughts. The two great obstacles are economic penalties and distortion of evidence. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search.«
»When we speak of anything as “free,” our meaning is not definite unless we can say what it is free from. Whatever or whoever is “free” is not subject to some external compulsion, and to be precise we ought to say what this kind of compulsion is. … Legal penalties are, however, in the modern world, the least of the obstacles to freedom of thoughts. The two great obstacles are economic penalties and distortion of evidence. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search.«
I see all the time in modern discussions that people use the same words but have different definitions in their head of what those words mean.
It might be that in the UK when people say "Free Speech" they mean Bertrand Russell's definition. I give the article that leeway since I don't know. But in America when when people say "Free Speech" they mean the 1st Amendment which predated Bertrand Russell and is more common.
When two people are communicating using common words the definition of those words need to be common otherwise communication does not happen. Otherwise you are just using jargon.
It might be that in the UK when people say "Free Speech" they mean Bertrand Russell's definition. I give the article that leeway since I don't know. But in America when when people say "Free Speech" they mean the 1st Amendment which predated Bertrand Russell and is more common.
When two people are communicating using common words the definition of those words need to be common otherwise communication does not happen. Otherwise you are just using jargon.
This might be my imagination - but I think you changed "Free Speech" to "Freedom of Expression." If so, this change makes a lot of sense. This change captures the intent of your article without confusion.
> in America when when people say "Free Speech" they mean the 1st Amendment
Isn't it quite presumtive of you to assume that everyone means the same thing by "Free Speech". That seems highly unlikely to me.
> When two people are communicating using common words the definition of those words need to be common otherwise communication does not happen. Otherwise you are just using jargon.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that words or phrases have a single globally umambiguous meaning. Typically maintaining productive communication means avoiding using contested/controversial terms like "free speech" in an unqualified way entirely and creating and exaplaining new terms to disambiguate exactly which version of the concept you mean.
Isn't it quite presumtive of you to assume that everyone means the same thing by "Free Speech". That seems highly unlikely to me.
> When two people are communicating using common words the definition of those words need to be common otherwise communication does not happen. Otherwise you are just using jargon.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that words or phrases have a single globally umambiguous meaning. Typically maintaining productive communication means avoiding using contested/controversial terms like "free speech" in an unqualified way entirely and creating and exaplaining new terms to disambiguate exactly which version of the concept you mean.
> when people say "Free Speech" they mean the 1st Amendment which predated Bertrand Russell and is more common.
But "free speech" predates both Russel and the 1st Amendment. And, how do you know what they mean? It's not like the debate is settled and there's no controversy around the issue.
But "free speech" predates both Russel and the 1st Amendment. And, how do you know what they mean? It's not like the debate is settled and there's no controversy around the issue.
We are talking about a company based in San Francisco.
I am pretty sure they changed the phrase to "freedom of expression" and removed the passage that said this was the original definition of free speech so in my mind they corrected the article enough to get their point across without getting bogged down.
I am pretty sure they changed the phrase to "freedom of expression" and removed the passage that said this was the original definition of free speech so in my mind they corrected the article enough to get their point across without getting bogged down.
Wouldn't changing the phrase to "1st Amendment" get their point across even better, if that's what they meant? It's 8 characters shorter than "freedom of expression", so if anything it's the latter that's bogging things down.
I don't agree that "freedom of speech" in the US is only and always equated with the First Amendment. Even if it were, the article is unambiguously concerned with the broader principle, so we should consider the article in that context.
I pushed back on your mention of the distinction mainly due to a growing tendency in which people dismiss concerns about constraints on freedom of speech/expression/opinion by arguing such concerns are only valid insofar as the First Amendment applies. (Not to say you were doing that yourself.) At best it's a tiresome debate tactic; to the extent it's believed, it's a dangerously narrow misapprehension of one of our fundamental social tenets and civil rights.
I pushed back on your mention of the distinction mainly due to a growing tendency in which people dismiss concerns about constraints on freedom of speech/expression/opinion by arguing such concerns are only valid insofar as the First Amendment applies. (Not to say you were doing that yourself.) At best it's a tiresome debate tactic; to the extent it's believed, it's a dangerously narrow misapprehension of one of our fundamental social tenets and civil rights.
> But in America when when people say "Free Speech" they mean the 1st Amendment which predated Bertrand Russell and is more common.
John Locke's 'A Letter Concerning Toleration', which also deals with free speech, predates your 1st amendment.
It is indeed common to conflate free speech with 1st amendment protections in the US, but it is still an error to do so.
John Locke's 'A Letter Concerning Toleration', which also deals with free speech, predates your 1st amendment.
It is indeed common to conflate free speech with 1st amendment protections in the US, but it is still an error to do so.
Much of American constitution idea were conceived by 17th century British hipsters.
John Locke, Adam Smith, etc.
John Locke, Adam Smith, etc.
> People often get confused with the definition of free speech since in America it refers to the 1st amendment which only applies to censorship by the government.
You think Americans are incapable of distinguishing between the idea of free speech, and the legal doctrine of the 1st amendment?
You think Americans are incapable of distinguishing between the idea of free speech, and the legal doctrine of the 1st amendment?
By and large Americans seem to be yes. This cartoon was enormously popular in America for years
https://xkcd.com/1357/
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Usually one turns to xkcd for wisdom in such situations, which seems to well illustrate how confusing this concept is.
I think most Americans are incapable of telling me what a right is, let alone a specific one. This is intentionally left out of public education.
The UK didn't have a formal legal guarantee of free speech until the Human Rights Act 1998, and even that comes with some qualifiers that Americans are uncomfortable with.
At the time of Russell's speech, 1922, all the old apparatus of censorship was still in place; the theatre was under the censorship of the Lord Chaimberlain until the 60s, as were books prior to the Lady Chatterly trial. Meanwhile, free speech haven the US was passing one of the Comstock Acts that made it illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#cite_note-5
I'm just old enough to remember when an elected UK politician (Gerry Adams) was legally barred from speaking on television at all.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act makes it an arrestable offence to swear in public. This is very very selectively enforced.
(As for the other bit of the first amendment, can't get much more British than an establishment of religion; it was one of the things many of the colonists were specifically fleeing)
At the time of Russell's speech, 1922, all the old apparatus of censorship was still in place; the theatre was under the censorship of the Lord Chaimberlain until the 60s, as were books prior to the Lady Chatterly trial. Meanwhile, free speech haven the US was passing one of the Comstock Acts that made it illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#cite_note-5
I'm just old enough to remember when an elected UK politician (Gerry Adams) was legally barred from speaking on television at all.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act makes it an arrestable offence to swear in public. This is very very selectively enforced.
(As for the other bit of the first amendment, can't get much more British than an establishment of religion; it was one of the things many of the colonists were specifically fleeing)
Here's one issue I see with American law... which is that the (US) government has, in the past, passed laws (such as the Sedition Laws) and it takes a long time for those cases to get to the Supreme Court, so if the government wants to curtail speech arbitrarily (albeit temporarily) they can.
[deleted]
This is a bit of a meta point but does anyone else feel fatigued by the sheer amount of text stratechery has been using to make a point as of late?
I'm an expert level skimmer and even I can't make sense of what this is about by simply skimming it. They taught me in highschool back in the day: make your point in an introduction, give supporting arguments in the body, conclude by repeating the point.
This seems to follow a 'trail of thought' style that just keeps going, as if it's a given that everyone's got 30 minutes to spare to find out if you're saying anything at all.
Trail of thought is fine for poetry and literature, this seems to attempt to make rational arguments? If so, the format's a disservice to that end.
I'm an expert level skimmer and even I can't make sense of what this is about by simply skimming it. They taught me in highschool back in the day: make your point in an introduction, give supporting arguments in the body, conclude by repeating the point.
This seems to follow a 'trail of thought' style that just keeps going, as if it's a given that everyone's got 30 minutes to spare to find out if you're saying anything at all.
Trail of thought is fine for poetry and literature, this seems to attempt to make rational arguments? If so, the format's a disservice to that end.
Why should I care about what these CEOs are saying when recent history shows they a) gladly lie about this subject and b) suffer exactly zero consequences when caught lying about this subject?
It's useful to know what people are thinking when they are the ones making meaningful decisions. Even if you don't trust them to be honest (which I don't think is a valid criticism here, there's not much in the quoted text that could be construed as "lying"), if you want to take issue with their actions in the future or have insight into what they may/may not do it's useful to get something from the horse's mouth.
Lies are information too, of a sort. It matters which lie a person tells, for example.
from a very broad conceptual viewpoint; "the law" exist from (or out of) written language (where "language" is seen as a social-technology).
what computer technology and the internet (or for short: software) is doing to civilization is still at a very early stage. As I see this, the goal of "law" and the goal of "computer science" are quite similar.
As I see these kinds of articles (stratechery focuses on exactly this), is that we're witnessing the 'adjustments' in society brought about by the invention of software. I put all of this on a level comparable to the invention of writing and the subsequent 'rise' of rule of law.
having said this, the difficult thing to make sense of, and to explain to people with less software-experience is coming to understand what this article taps into in the section of "the global internet"; it's actually quite tricky to pin this down for me right now.
I'm referring to that aspect (or quality) of software that causes several executives to say this kinds of things:
>We have tried to get to what’s common, and the reality is it’s super hard on a global basis to design software that behaves differently in different countries. It is super difficult.
>If you’re a global technology business, most of the time, it is far more efficient and legally compliant to operate a global model than to have different practices and standards in different countries.
It's that thing sowftware does in which special cases worsen software complexity.
Software (and computing, and even industrial automation) are all about doing the same thing, no matter what. It's all about finding ways to avoid special cases; to avoid code repetition; and all that.
I'm sure that most people in Hacker News, due to our hands-on experience with software, are quite able to intuitively grasp this. But it's not so easy to explain and this 'quality of the digital' is (and will continue to) forcing contemporary capitalism to be re-evaluated (or something along these lines).
what computer technology and the internet (or for short: software) is doing to civilization is still at a very early stage. As I see this, the goal of "law" and the goal of "computer science" are quite similar.
As I see these kinds of articles (stratechery focuses on exactly this), is that we're witnessing the 'adjustments' in society brought about by the invention of software. I put all of this on a level comparable to the invention of writing and the subsequent 'rise' of rule of law.
having said this, the difficult thing to make sense of, and to explain to people with less software-experience is coming to understand what this article taps into in the section of "the global internet"; it's actually quite tricky to pin this down for me right now.
I'm referring to that aspect (or quality) of software that causes several executives to say this kinds of things:
>We have tried to get to what’s common, and the reality is it’s super hard on a global basis to design software that behaves differently in different countries. It is super difficult.
>If you’re a global technology business, most of the time, it is far more efficient and legally compliant to operate a global model than to have different practices and standards in different countries.
It's that thing sowftware does in which special cases worsen software complexity.
Software (and computing, and even industrial automation) are all about doing the same thing, no matter what. It's all about finding ways to avoid special cases; to avoid code repetition; and all that.
I'm sure that most people in Hacker News, due to our hands-on experience with software, are quite able to intuitively grasp this. But it's not so easy to explain and this 'quality of the digital' is (and will continue to) forcing contemporary capitalism to be re-evaluated (or something along these lines).
The whole free speech argument is tired. I think people selectively draw from it and draw lines in it when it suits them. The point being, that as long as people don't acknowledge that private entities play more of a role today in free speech than they did in the past, it's not worth arguing. You'll need to wait until both sides have been affected by this perspective for it to become taboo.
A couple things I've been learning more recently in order to have more productive political discussions:
- Set goals for political discussion. If it's just to learn, then you don't need to debate. If you're going to debate, set ground rules so cross-political friendships are not lost. (This has been more important to me, but there's certainly people who put their political leanings on their dating profile.)
- Don't make points about bad faith actors or that collectively acknowledge their existence. The left has them, the right has them, we've likely all been affected by them, but the majority of each party are just normal people championing their favorite political football team.
- Citing morals is pretty low brow. Morals differ in different geographies due to a myriad of influences. Topics that center around this are an impossible hill to climb.
- Don't state your party affiliation (or lack thereof). I learned in 2016 that being anything other than Republican or Democrat invites reductive conversation, or put more directly it invites people to 'other' you which changes the trajectory of the conversation.
- Always assume good faith. Most people don't act in bad faith, yet in political discussions it's easy to reach for that branch. People I've assumed this about I've usually discovered lived a very different life from me, so their perspectives and worldviews align to things that don't make sense at all.
A couple things I've been learning more recently in order to have more productive political discussions:
- Set goals for political discussion. If it's just to learn, then you don't need to debate. If you're going to debate, set ground rules so cross-political friendships are not lost. (This has been more important to me, but there's certainly people who put their political leanings on their dating profile.)
- Don't make points about bad faith actors or that collectively acknowledge their existence. The left has them, the right has them, we've likely all been affected by them, but the majority of each party are just normal people championing their favorite political football team.
- Citing morals is pretty low brow. Morals differ in different geographies due to a myriad of influences. Topics that center around this are an impossible hill to climb.
- Don't state your party affiliation (or lack thereof). I learned in 2016 that being anything other than Republican or Democrat invites reductive conversation, or put more directly it invites people to 'other' you which changes the trajectory of the conversation.
- Always assume good faith. Most people don't act in bad faith, yet in political discussions it's easy to reach for that branch. People I've assumed this about I've usually discovered lived a very different life from me, so their perspectives and worldviews align to things that don't make sense at all.
I don't understand the lines that Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe, is trying to draw in this interview with Stratechery, https://stratechery.com/2021/interviews-with-patrick-colliso....
I believe Collison's argument is that certain organizations affiliated with ex-President Trump should have been and were suspended from direct use of the Stripe API for "incitement to violence" in the time surrounding the certification of Electors by the U.S. Congress, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_St.... But other organizations that were allied in some way with Trump were still able to use the API. So in effect, the Trump-related organizations could use the API indirectly.
With that reasoning, shouldn't there also be organizations on the left in the United States, which is defined as the progressive / liberal / socialist part of the political spectrum, that should have received the same treatment during the period of the George Floyd Protests, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests?
I believe Collison's argument is that certain organizations affiliated with ex-President Trump should have been and were suspended from direct use of the Stripe API for "incitement to violence" in the time surrounding the certification of Electors by the U.S. Congress, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_St.... But other organizations that were allied in some way with Trump were still able to use the API. So in effect, the Trump-related organizations could use the API indirectly.
With that reasoning, shouldn't there also be organizations on the left in the United States, which is defined as the progressive / liberal / socialist part of the political spectrum, that should have received the same treatment during the period of the George Floyd Protests, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests?
You’re expecting people to use the same standards for their ingroup as their outgroup. That rarely happens.
Maybe it's because I'm a sports official in my spare time, but I want the rules to be the same for everybody. It doesn't matter if they are written or not.
I just want there to be a clear standard in most cases and rule enforcement to be reasonably consistent, in all aspects of life.
I just want there to be a clear standard in most cases and rule enforcement to be reasonably consistent, in all aspects of life.
unixhero(1)
This is the difference between British law and American law. People often get confused with the definition of free speech since in America it refers to the 1st amendment which only applies to censorship by the government. Britain actually does allow the government to censor speech.
The article does give insight into the Brit's definition of free speech. In America private companies can moderate their own platform since they are also liable for that platform. It is a thin line between the two.
I am not sure which I prefer but I notice I get spooked when government gets involved in free speech.
Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.