How Can We Preserve A Culture Of Free Speech? - Yascha Mounk | Intelligence Squared

In this extract from our 2023 session ‘The Identity Trap’, author Yascha Mounk sits down with Intelligence Squared to discuss misinformation in the modern age and what we can do as a culture in order to preserve free speech moving forward in this digital age of information. How can we work towards eliminating the spread of misinformation, and how is it affecting society already? Do you agree with Yascha's points? Let us know in the comment section below!
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[@WarrenEBB]

So this clip is really about : free speech versus truth. (then some thoughts on freedom of expression and association). (yeah?) - We aren't tracking down disinformation to settle on an agreed fact (too much is happening too fast. so we somehow just let this go?)(or maybe it seems settled eventually, but we've lost thousands of viewers along the way so society doesn't all end up in an agreed fact space?). - Private companies are still silencing people in the middle of that process. - Yascha ends with note that we should not let services decide whom to serve based on political leaning. and we should be skeptical of any calls to censor people for associating, because it leads to a culture of feat. (yeah?) Well. I feel like there were already invisible lines in what you can say freely. We are used to them when defining a shared culture. We aren't used to them being forced on us by corporations, basic services, and rich people we don't like (i hear a lot of "we never elected them to do that" these days). + at the core of this: I don't think we've come to terms with how modern communication tools are failing at more than "real human interaction" - the internet (and popular apps leveraging the internet) is actively making human communication worse on a massive scale. I believe that throughout history there have been cultural mechanisms to reach an agreed upon "truth" in a shared culture which we could all agree on. But the sub-par communication that "simple text" offers (on various social media, which is what the internet has mostly become) has really undercut those age-old cultural mechanisms. Someone with thousands of followers will post a seemingly intelligent essay on Substack about "no one elected these aristocrats at Davos to determine what is misinformation for the world. So resist whatever they declare." Which is a little edgy, but reasonable free speech. I don't think we need to shut down independent media outlets that serve this up. - But then hundreds (or thousands) of individuals will comment on that reasonable post. Now claiming it supports some bizarre-ass suppositions and incorrect takeaways. and nobody goes through and addresses each of these damaging dangling comments. we blow each one off as trivial - but this phenomenon has been adding up for over a decade! and "ignoring" a comment on the internet is not the same as ignoring a comment before the internet. i'm not saying we need to delete comments, or turn them off. I'm saying this small aspect of the internet has been dismissed as sort of having someone drunk in the corner of a bar saying something stupid and dangerously misinformed. Before the internet, the bar would react to that person, and some semblance of agreed upon truth would be maintained. Even if nobody outright said "shut up, you're being stupid," that fool in the corner could still sense how the others in the room were reacting. They could tell they hadn't changed a shared culture in the town. But with these wild "simple text" comment chains (and facebook posts, twitter threads, short form video memes, etc.) - the lack of real human response feels like an endorsement. people misunderstand what it means that no one has replied. (they think they've won the argument. affected the world meaningfully) Not sure what to call it. but feel like it's a new factor in all this talk about misinformation and freedom of speech that is going unaddressed.

[@s.j.bluewater908]

It’s very worrying that we are having this discussion after two world wars which preserved freedom for the west.

[@rat_king-]

You should look into the creation of "freedom of expression", before you state that. it was created by the soviet union, so they could have a method to subvert the UN. it has been repeatedly used by authortarians.. not just those governments. to justify their acts. You have: "the liberty to express", which is the freedom you possess.

[@snowflakemelter7171]

The leftie communists are now in powerful positions in the west unfortunately.

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

Decontrol

[@annknox3798]

One cannot believe left medias.