| ▲ | kfreds 3 hours ago | |
Thank you for your constructive criticism. > I think the right course of action should be a political activism, not a technological one. Especially when the company doing it makes a fortune. We tried that. My cofounder and I, as well as several of our colleagues, tried classic political activism in the early 2000s. It became increasingly clear to us that there are many powerful politicians, bureaucrats and special interest groups that don't act in good faith. They lie, abuse their positions, misuse state funds and generally don't care what the population or civil society thinks. They have an agenda, and don't know the meaning of intellectual honesty. > The course, when one can just disengage from participating in society by sidestepping the problems by either using VPNs in terms of censorship .. is very dangerous and will reinforce the worst trends. It sounds like you're arguing for censored populations to respect local law, not circumvent censorship through technological means, and only work to remove censorship through political means. Generally, the more a state engages in online censorship the less it cares about what its population thinks. There are plenty of jurisdictions where political activism will get you jailed, or worse. Are you seriously suggesting that circumventing state censorship is immoral and wrong? > So instead of speaking from the high ground, please, tell us what your solution about mass disinformation happening from US social media megacorps, Russia mass disinformation, mass recruitment of people for sabotage on critical infrastructure. Social media companies make money by keeping people engaged, and it seems the most effective way of doing that is to feed people fear and rage bait. Yes, that's a problem. As is disinformation campaigns by authoritarian states. Powerful companies have powerful lobbyists, and systematically strive for regulatory capture. Authoritarian states who conduct disinformation campaigns against their population are unlikely to listen to reform proposals from their population. I don't claim to have a solution for these complex issues, but I'm pretty sure mass surveillance and censorship will make things worse. > Tell us, how can we keep living in free society when this freedom is being used as a leverage by forces trying to destroy your union. Political reform through civil discourse cannot be taken for granted. Mass surveillance and censorship violate the principle of proportionality, and do not belong in a free society. > Please, give us your political solutions to the modern problems instead of earning a fortune by a performance free speech activism. I'm not sure what you mean by performance. Please clarify. | ||