As an engineer, I tend to view solutions in terms of tradeoffs and not absolutes. 20 years ago the free and open internet was great. Now I think we’ve gone too far. And more to the point, I think freedom is protected by regulation, not by handing decisions over to whatever billionaire won a cage match.

This is the gen-x part of my xennial talking, but I can’t help but feel like something has been lost when nothing is transgressive anymore. Some people look back and say how can a gen x’er who fought against censorship be so pro censorship now.

A lot of people say this is dumb because teenagers will figure out a way to bypass it. Good! That’s what teenagers are supposed to do. I think there’s a sort of weird like - there’s something distopian about Elon Musk putting his stamp of approval on using edgy racial slurs on social media. If you’re young and want to make edgy jokes. It’s supposed to be transgressive! It’s _not_ supposed to get Elon Musk’s stamp of approval.

I don’t want to send anyone to jail for bypassing these laws or saying the wrong thing. It’s a hard needle to thread, but we need a code of conduct so people can make a choice to break it. So people can create alternate websites to the big social media companies. We need institutions without so much power so they can be jailbroken. And government is just plainly not the only powerful institution I fear.

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Aurornis a day ago | parent [-]

> A lot of people say this is dumb because teenagers will figure out a way to bypass it. Good! That’s what teenagers are supposed to do.

So the teenagers bypass it and use other sites while us adults are handing our IDs over just to use basic websites?

How is this good?

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techblueberry a day ago | parent [-]

I’m becoming something of an accelerationist on this issue. I think we’re at a dead end with like 5 companies controlling most of the internet. If this pisses people off and encourages them to get active politically or create new modes of communication. Great!

Freedom has to be more than “you can choose any walled garden you want!” We need more spaces that aren’t mediated.

I feel like we’ve accepted this terrible definition of freedom, out of fear it could get worse, not because we love what we have.

But not to worry, I feel comfortable having contrarian views, because my one vote isn’t going to radically change the world.

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Aurornis 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're basing everything on a flawed assumption: That the regulations will be most difficult for the big websites, but not be an impediment to small communities.

It never works that way. The more regulations you add, the harder it becomes to have a small community on the internet. The big companies can spend money to comply and lobby. The small communities cannot.

We are already seeing this. There are websites blocking the UK because they can't afford to comply with all of their laws. Even websites that try to block the UK are getting threats from Ofcom for not ID-checking their users: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_ru...

The end game of your accelerationism isn't a utopia where we're all back to small communities.

The end game is that small communities die out because the only companies who can navigate, comply, and lobby are those 5 companies you hated. You're cheering on the consolidation of the internet.

	▲	techblueberry 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There’s a reasons I described it as accelerationism. I think whatever the next thing is probably hasn’t been invented yet, but I would hope the discomfort of exclusion might inspire it. It only works if enough people feel left out - I.e. all under 16s But yeah, it’s not without risks. But there’s two sort of self-identified reasons for freedom of speech. One is to get the best ideas on the table. I’m a little suss of this one (when taken to extremes) because speech that costs nothing is just noise. The second is to make sure everyone has an outlet to express themselves so they don’t rebel. And while I certainly don’t want to see violent rebellion, I think maybe a bit more social and political rebellion wouldn’t be the end of the world.

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TFNA 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The typical medium for the internet today, even among many people who would have been computer nerds in days of yore, is the smartphone, i.e. primarily a consumption device. I can't see people becoming so pissed out that they would overcome the limitations of the phone and actually create bold new modes of communication. Just using an alternative prepackaged app like Signal is way out there for most people.

	▲	techblueberry 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Despite propaganda to the contratry, meatspace is still an option.