Sorry if that was a bit ranty. About the other 3 points, I agree completely.

P.S. Wasn't the paradox of tolerance mostly about violence, not just untrue or undesirable information?

"Less well known [than Plato's paradoxes of freedom and of democracy] is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force…" (The Open Society and Its Enemies, ch. 7, note 4)

What's clear from this quotation is that Popper advocated neither unlimited suppression of all wrongthink (as the gleeful Nazi punchers sometimes misrepresent him, and indeed advocate themselves), nor the opposite extreme of unlimited tolerance of any political speech so long as no violence has yet been employed (as the more libertarian among us sometimes misrepresent him).

And that's the key to how I'd respond to your point about the "general level of ignorance". I think you may be right that the general level of ignorance has not worsened. It is in any case quite difficult to measure such a thing. But the prevalence of misinformation specifically about foundational matters of democratic governance, such as whether one can even trust the elections themselves, being promoted by actors with open disdain for open society, and a clear intent to end it, is the precise sort of situation I believe Popper had in mind with this passage.

I think misinformation is not really that problematic as the truth is valuable to most people and we seek it out all on our own. Its self correcting in an open society.

Note that he specifically says in that passage that he’s not advocating the suppression of all intolerant speech. Thus even if some speech were intolerant, that by itself would be insufficient for suppression.

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Misinformation is problematic to the extent that it endangers the open society’s very existence, and with it its ability to self-correct.

Many leftist would meet this criteria just as strongly ala "My <x> is not up for debate." or other statements conflating ones existence with ones identity with the same result: No discussion (outside a select, tautological group of gatekeepers) allowed.

That's a gross oversimplification, and there's other issues at play. For instance the lack of trust in traditional media. I don't think the issue is that most people are susceptible to "viral radicalization", and can't tell the difference. Some small minority of people are vulnerable to these things, and can fall victim to it if exposed.

In a large population that winds up being many people, and is a huge issue. See the cult movement of the 60-80s. Most people knew it was a bad idea to go live in the woods with a bunch of free spirits. It's people who are absolutely fed up with reality and so anything that seems to bring back "community" looks attractive. On the commune people dance, sing, and share everything. In cases like Johnstown, it was often racial minorities that were just glad to find somewhere that seemed to treat them as real people (even though they were really props and pawns in a narcissists sick reality). It's so sad.

There's an obvious slippery slope in these discussions - ultimately it's reducible to who you give the right to vote to, and discomfort about measures to keep the undesirables from rallying ought not to be ignored.

It strikes me that this is why Facebook et al are so eager to censor; otherwise an attempt will be made to destroy them, as they provide a bypass around centralized mass media narrative control.

Narratives are how the world is practically governed. The ability to propagate a narrative to millions of people is a power on par with a standing army.

It has become apparent that the "uncensored mass media" can be controlled through money, ie. politicians steering the narrative on social media using disinformation campaigns. But now they are hidden behind millions of small agents that are so hard to fact check, hold accountable and prove the liason to said politician. With mass media big companies were in this sense vulnerable -- to 3rd parties attacks, to the legal system, to the public.

I'm hardly a fan of big corporations, but in the current state of affairs the common individual is helpless, drowned in a sea of noise à là Brave New World, and for the powerful chaos is indeed a ladder.

> 4) The lack of collective immunity to viral forms of political disinformation on new media platforms [...]

Are these new points, or are is it just that the gatekeepers are changing? Arguably media is now _less_ centralised than its ever been. Before it was just a handfull of newspapers and tv companies, and now while we still have the same 'tranditional media' companies (who've gone through their own megers, acquisitions, and breakups) there are now all the tech companies as well getting into media, as well as all the independent orgs/voices (who might be beholded to bigger tech platforms, like Youtube)

I think it was easier to maintain an independent voice 15-20 years ago.

Views like "masks might make us safer from COVID" were suppressed not too long ago. It's a wacky place we're in. Some of the criticism out there (COVID denial, election fraud, etc) is dangerous, but legitimate criticism and nuanced points are getting crushed too in the process. And the entities involved in the suppression are powerful, moving in lockstep, and have limited accountability to the public.

Worse, these platforms have the illusion of being grassroots and open, but you never know when you're getting state-sponsored manipulation or what kinds of content isn't permitted to flow through them today.

Are there words missing here? I... don't see this as a viewpoint that is being suppressed at all. Maybe this particular example is more about the people who you follow/listen to?

Now, espousing the opposite views can get your posts and videos removed :P

Not to mention Medium, of course...

I find it really funny when Twitter is lumped in with the rest of these countries. It is almost like an order or magnitude smaller than all the others, and makes considerably less money.

Twitter is a small niche social network with people who control the news, which vastly overstates it's size.

For complementary reasons, I excluded Microsoft, despite its large size.

I'm sure one could debate the exact composition of that list, but it's not too important to the larger point.

Twitter has political power, therefore it gets included.

How big is the newspaper industry relative to its influence?

That said, there’s a misunderstanding here:

(3) says much, not all, of the power is increasingly centralized, and that that’s concerning in light of (2).

(4) isn’t saying the companies lack power. It’s saying that their platforms are being abused. It’s understood (from (3)) that they can (indeed sometimes do) use their power to attempt to control that abuse.

humans are predilected towards that... this type of "media" preys on our insticts like sugar and oil (junk food)

if we really want to take this head-on, we would should be motivated to improve education to help students (who then become adults) to learn logic, reason and argumentation to better deal with this stuff

It's not just that it says nothing about these things. It says the opposite of these things.

Any legal or social norm that attempts to enforce what content is produced, promoted, or allowed on private resources and platforms is fundamentally authoritarian. This includes the "principle of free speech" from your 2nd statement. The first amendment is a protection against authoritarianism. Using the ideas behind it to coerce private parties into hosting or promoting content they don't want to is a bit perverse.

Too many people believe Free Speech is SOLELY about government censorship, we have culturally lost a huge amount of respect for the principle of free expression

Instead we look to "cancel" or socially isolate those that do not share our worldview.

There was a time where people could passionately debate politics, or even more personal issues such as abortion, and then still enjoy a game, party, or have a beer at the pub with someone you just passionately disagreed with on another topic. It seems today if persons / groups have an ideological opposition in anything, they must treat their opposition as if they are immoral and completely banish them from their lives

With out this base cultural respect for free expression the 1st amendment will become meaningless and will likely fail to protect from government censorship.

We need to get back to a time where people can passionately disagree on a topic with out being "cancelled", but I honestly do not see how to accomplish that

When was this mythical time? It wasn't too long ago when abortion clinics were being bombed and abortion doctors were gunned down at their homes and places of work. In living memory are periods when anti-war and civil rights protestors were set upon by dogs and firehoses. Gun companies were boycott for cooperating with gun-control measures. There was the whole South Africa divestment movement. PMRC was doing it's best to "cancel" rock & rap, Terry Rakolta was doing her level best to get Married with Children kicked off the network. And let's not forget Robert Bork.

Americans have always been passionate about issues, only the platforms and terminology are new.

Why were they able to have those debates and then go have a beer? I am guessing it was because the stakes were low or abstract and did not have a direct impact on their life (like when you are the mid-20s upper middle-class white male that the OP clearly was during this golden age...) or because they could afford to simply ignore the other side after the debate because there was no risk to their personal position of privilege. What annoys this person is not the conflict, but the possibility that they might face consequences -- consequences are something for 'the other' to deal with and certainly not something that they should ever need to consider.

> they could afford to simply ignore the other side after the debate because there was no risk to their personal position of privilege

What is the alternative - people not being allowed to ignore some side of a debate? This isn't just about stakes/skin in the game; It's also about quality of the debate, and when someone has so much invested in the outcome that they won't allow their position to lose, the quality wrt a free exchange of ideas, isn't likely to happen.

In fact, most versions of this can't be described as a debate at all. "shut up and listen" while being dictated to (without the right of reply) bears no similarities. This perspective is basically: "certain people believe the wrong things, so shouldn't discuss them; they should just be told what to think by the right people, and believe that.". If "wrong-thinkers" now want to debate amongst themselves without correction from self-appointed "right-thinkers", is it any wonder, even if they valued diversity of opinion/perspective?

> consequences are something for 'the other' to deal with

Can you give an example? There is a big difference between, say, the consequences of the topic of a discussion, and the consequences of the discussion itself.

Yes, by a minority, because they where a minority. If the majority disagreed with the clinic, they would simply be illegal and no-one would need to seek extra-legal means of suppression.

Divorcing this discussion from quantitate measures allows for a distorted view based on cherry-picked examples.