Giving anyone the ability to arbitrate what is "good" speech vs "bad" speech is way too much power. In any era of history there have always been "truths" that were massively popular and eventually overturned. I don't think we are the first era to be an exception. So when you're talking about punishing "bad" speech you are talking about creating super powerful entities just because they agree with you. That intent scares me far more than whatever nonsense you get from q anon or antivaxxers.
> Giving anyone the ability to arbitrate what is "good" speech vs "bad" speech is way too much power.
But that isn't at all what is happening here. Google has decided that they don't want to enable people to distribute certain data using their platform. They're not being crowned the omnipotent oracle of good and bad.
> you are talking about creating super powerful entities just because they agree with you.
This position is bizarre to me -- what do you think an elected government is? I vote to create "super powerful entities that agree with me" every 4 years. Those entities possess the power to destroy all life on earth. Google is not anywhere near as powerful as those entities, and while it is not (directly) democratically accountable, it does derive its power from its users.
No information will be permanently erased just because Google does not spend money and time making it available on Drive.
The amount of power google has, they can crown the winner. We can't pretend that "oh thats just google's opinion" when they control access to humanities collective knowledge.
My argument is very humble. Everyone gets to talk, whoever is most convincing gets listened to most. I don't need a paternalistic company protecting me from bad thoughts.
> This position is bizarre to me -- what do you think an elected government is?
A system with an intentional freedom to allow dissent?
> My argument is very humble. Everyone gets to talk, whoever is most convincing gets listened to most. I don't need a paternalistic company protecting me from bad thoughts.
You're talking now, and this isn't (AFAIK) on Google Drive.
You want Drive to be a democratically guaranteed national resource, nationalize Google.
They are not protecting you from bad thoughts. They are protecting themselves from lawsuits.
Moderating all this content is not free. If google was not under risk of losing money by not doing this, they would have done nothing.
It's easy to think that the most powerful entity is the one with the biggest stick. Consider this though: imagine a VIP and their bodyguard. The bodyguard is much stronger and carries a gun, but he is not the one with power. The VIP can replace the bodyguard at will.
An entity that gets to tell millions exactly how to vote and which nuke-wielding bodyguard to hire is surely more powerful than said bodyguard.
The government has an explicit limitation on excersizing that power. The first amendment is, well, first, its not exactly forgettable. The primary law of our land is "government can't fuck around with free speech". I see no ambiguity here. There's a huge difference between shouting fire in a theater vs saying, are the vaccines safe. We can have our disagreements but its in nobody's interest to outlaw them.
Well, no, the first article of amendment (usually abbreviated “first amendment”) is the eighth article of the Constitution, following the seven original articles. “Amendment” is revision/change.
Well thank you for your lawyering, but what's your point? The people that invented this country thought it was very important that people can speak freely (including you!), and you're like "nah"?
