Re:Facebook is not equipped to stop the spread of authoritar...
by philwelch on Monday December 24, 2018 @03:23PM
(#18754086)
> But as an aside, free speech is the biggest thing keeping the press alive. The “mainstream media” has much more to fear from authorities than from fringe alt-politics. This has been true through history and it’s true now.
As early as the 18th century, it was obvious that in any elected democracy, the concern wasn't top-down repression from "the authorities", but rather either the tyranny of the majority, or the risk of some repressive demagogue rising to power on an explicit platform of crushing the rights of some unpopular minority.
Mainstream media outlets within a democracy are not going to be shut down or silenced. Nobody would ever stand for such a thing, and such a move would be so unpopular as to end the career of anyone who attempted it. If something is popular enough to be labelled "mainstream", it is too popular to ban or censor, and is at no real risk from the authorities. (Outside of a democracy, of course, whatever "mainstream media" exists only exists at the bidding of the authorities in the first place.)
There may be more of a risk if there truly is no mainstream, but this only increases the incentive for the mainstream media to protect their oligopoly which is what they are doing when they attack Facebook.
What people have and do stand for is for silencing "fringe alt-politics" by any means necessary. It wasn't that long ago that people were driven away from their careers and livelihoods for being real or suspected communists. These days, people are driven away from their careers and livelihoods for other real or suspected ideological heresies.
Frankly, having marginally less free speech actually benefits the mainstream media the same way that all forms of regulation and government interference benefit established incumbents and hurt the little guy. CNN and the Washington Post have the resources to comply with complicated and ever-changing sets of rules and regulations. Individual commentators do not, unless they can get a lot of money, which is kind of hard when your primary sources of money are companies like YouTube and Patreon with a history of silencing people in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that Facebook's critics want Facebook to silence people.
As early as the 18th century, it was obvious that in any elected democracy, the concern wasn't top-down repression from "the authorities", but rather either the tyranny of the majority, or the risk of some repressive demagogue rising to power on an explicit platform of crushing the rights of some unpopular minority.
Mainstream media outlets within a democracy are not going to be shut down or silenced. Nobody would ever stand for such a thing, and such a move would be so unpopular as to end the career of anyone who attempted it. If something is popular enough to be labelled "mainstream", it is too popular to ban or censor, and is at no real risk from the authorities. (Outside of a democracy, of course, whatever "mainstream media" exists only exists at the bidding of the authorities in the first place.)
There may be more of a risk if there truly is no mainstream, but this only increases the incentive for the mainstream media to protect their oligopoly which is what they are doing when they attack Facebook.
What people have and do stand for is for silencing "fringe alt-politics" by any means necessary. It wasn't that long ago that people were driven away from their careers and livelihoods for being real or suspected communists. These days, people are driven away from their careers and livelihoods for other real or suspected ideological heresies.
Frankly, having marginally less free speech actually benefits the mainstream media the same way that all forms of regulation and government interference benefit established incumbents and hurt the little guy. CNN and the Washington Post have the resources to comply with complicated and ever-changing sets of rules and regulations. Individual commentators do not, unless they can get a lot of money, which is kind of hard when your primary sources of money are companies like YouTube and Patreon with a history of silencing people in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that Facebook's critics want Facebook to silence people.