If every writer fled from every space that Nazis and their proto-fascist ilk insinuated themselves into, there would be nowhere left to run to. Sometimes, you gotta pick a hill.
Great piece. I think we do want and need platforms to allow broad expression of ideas and concepts, because even as a left wing writer, you want confidence that your own views aren’t going to be curtailed in the future and that necessitates some level of content neutrality (within broad but limited boundaries).
Substack isn’t, as far as I’m aware, actively boosting particular political views. This is clearly happening at X and is why using that platform is becoming untenable.
I’m probably blowing it out of all proportion by even writing about it. The fact that engagement with substack content is so high over at blue sky tells me straight up that most people just don’t care. But it’s the consistency of one or two needling voices that begins to irritate after awhile
Yeah, that seems to be the MO. Someone wants to keep hammering their point view, without necessarily wanting to engage with andunderstand other perspectives.
Cynically, the far right like to push the right to free speech to push out other voices via abuse etc. While the far left seem to push for curtailing free speech to achieve same end.
There is so much behind this - what different people are interested in and how tech facilitates like-minded people coming together (social media etc) both for good and for ill. Also how the tech can facilitate changing people’s interests and preferences (algorithms that choose content for us) as we are what we consume - both gastronomically and mentally.
Competing principles of free speech vs freedom from harm - absolutes will never work in practice, coz dealing with humans.
So long as the owners of the tech are making ‘reasonable efforts’ to filter out the worst (being what most people would consider unacceptable), that’s about the best we can hope for.
We also need to collectively learn critical ignoring of info, before we get to critically analysing info. Interesting article on this from a couple of years ago:
Agree - Meta & Musk have definitely walked away from this. They now offer the monitoring you have when you don’t want to pay for proper monitoring (to paraphrase Morrison Gov’t’s effort on NACC).
I don’t know about Substack or others where people have shifted to avoid the Zukermusk hydra.
Isn't this a similar conundrum you rasied about hitting the big red button for Facebook over on your other column? Similar issue with similar questions and similarly a personal maths for you to decide. We all have different reason and arguments. Its easy for me my only stake in these media formats is my own enjoyment and keeping in touch. If these sites want to claim that they are 'free speech bastions' or we don't want to restrict hateful nazi speech because they bring in money then I am free to leave. My investment is much lower than yours.
“we all have different reasons and arguments” - yeah I was just thinking about this a couple of minutes ago. Partly it’s about where you feel the responsibility for duration falls. The blue sky, true believers truly believe that it is the responsibility of the platform owners to police the boundaries of reasonable discourse and hold the gate against any barbarian invaders. Good luck with that when there tens of millions of them coming at you. I’m perfectly happy guarding my own walls and deciding who gets into my timeline and who doesn’t.
Part of the issue is the subjectiveness of where to draw the line (illegal vs offensive vs distasteful), but also the cost involved. If it’s cost-prohibitive to filter out absolutely everything, then we end up with nothing, or worse, the Zukermusk Hydra currently running the big ones.
I broadly agree with you - my personal view is that as long as platform owners are making genuine & reasonable attempts, have publicly stated aims & methods, and adhere to them, then we have a role to play as well.
It’s good to have a starting point (purists), but need to factor in practicalities as well too.
And the black and white view of what should and shouldn't be allowed (beyond who gets to decide this) means that the populace is not exposed to the fact that there are people among us who have these abhorrent ideas. And those that have the abhorrent ideas don't then get exposed to the rest of society telling them in no uncertain terms that the ideas they have are abhorrent.
This low level discourse conflict serves as a societal immune system/inoculation to weed out the truly abhorrent stuff before it goes mainstream and becomes normalised.
I shared a news article with a mate yesterday, which documented the bewildered offence a bunch of Nazis felt when they turned up to have a little Nazi rally and the local townsfolk greeted them with pepper spray and threw stuff at them before they got arrested. My mate responded: "You. Are. A. Fucking. Nazi. We had a whole war about this. We don’t do “reasonable” with fucking Nazis."
People are rightly alarmed about the rise of fascism and the far right, but alarms have been sounding on this for more than a decade, which means that the societal immune system is working.
Cynically, I suspect tech is challenging that societal immune system. When social media and some so-called news channels can be used as an echo chamber, it means that people can effectively choose to not be exposed to different viewpoints. If all they consume is one perspective, it is their norm. And coz humans are tribal, humans will defend their tribal norms from outsiders and new info that challenges those norms.
Joys of humans developing (evolving) our own creations faster than we can biologically evolve to adapt to them, and faster than our systems of regulation (gov’t) can change laws to mitigate the worst elements. Let’s not get into discussing biological integration with the tech to help make up for lack of human evolution - my brain is hurting and needs some junk comfort food 😜
Not posting because of the Nazis is exactly what the Nazis would like you to do.
If every writer fled from every space that Nazis and their proto-fascist ilk insinuated themselves into, there would be nowhere left to run to. Sometimes, you gotta pick a hill.
Great piece. I think we do want and need platforms to allow broad expression of ideas and concepts, because even as a left wing writer, you want confidence that your own views aren’t going to be curtailed in the future and that necessitates some level of content neutrality (within broad but limited boundaries).
Substack isn’t, as far as I’m aware, actively boosting particular political views. This is clearly happening at X and is why using that platform is becoming untenable.
I’m probably blowing it out of all proportion by even writing about it. The fact that engagement with substack content is so high over at blue sky tells me straight up that most people just don’t care. But it’s the consistency of one or two needling voices that begins to irritate after awhile
Yeah, that seems to be the MO. Someone wants to keep hammering their point view, without necessarily wanting to engage with andunderstand other perspectives.
Cynically, the far right like to push the right to free speech to push out other voices via abuse etc. While the far left seem to push for curtailing free speech to achieve same end.
I cop it on Bluesky as well. There's a couple of Aussie offenders that are really annoying. Fred Nurk is one.
Hear hear, jolly well said old chap.
There is so much behind this - what different people are interested in and how tech facilitates like-minded people coming together (social media etc) both for good and for ill. Also how the tech can facilitate changing people’s interests and preferences (algorithms that choose content for us) as we are what we consume - both gastronomically and mentally.
Competing principles of free speech vs freedom from harm - absolutes will never work in practice, coz dealing with humans.
So long as the owners of the tech are making ‘reasonable efforts’ to filter out the worst (being what most people would consider unacceptable), that’s about the best we can hope for.
We also need to collectively learn critical ignoring of info, before we get to critically analysing info. Interesting article on this from a couple of years ago:
https://theconversation.com/when-critical-thinking-isnt-enough-to-beat-information-overload-we-need-to-learn-critical-ignoring-198549
"So long as the owners of the tech are making ‘reasonable efforts’ to filter out the worst" but are they?
Agree - Meta & Musk have definitely walked away from this. They now offer the monitoring you have when you don’t want to pay for proper monitoring (to paraphrase Morrison Gov’t’s effort on NACC).
I don’t know about Substack or others where people have shifted to avoid the Zukermusk hydra.
Isn't this a similar conundrum you rasied about hitting the big red button for Facebook over on your other column? Similar issue with similar questions and similarly a personal maths for you to decide. We all have different reason and arguments. Its easy for me my only stake in these media formats is my own enjoyment and keeping in touch. If these sites want to claim that they are 'free speech bastions' or we don't want to restrict hateful nazi speech because they bring in money then I am free to leave. My investment is much lower than yours.
“we all have different reasons and arguments” - yeah I was just thinking about this a couple of minutes ago. Partly it’s about where you feel the responsibility for duration falls. The blue sky, true believers truly believe that it is the responsibility of the platform owners to police the boundaries of reasonable discourse and hold the gate against any barbarian invaders. Good luck with that when there tens of millions of them coming at you. I’m perfectly happy guarding my own walls and deciding who gets into my timeline and who doesn’t.
Yeah, it’s a tricky one.
Part of the issue is the subjectiveness of where to draw the line (illegal vs offensive vs distasteful), but also the cost involved. If it’s cost-prohibitive to filter out absolutely everything, then we end up with nothing, or worse, the Zukermusk Hydra currently running the big ones.
I broadly agree with you - my personal view is that as long as platform owners are making genuine & reasonable attempts, have publicly stated aims & methods, and adhere to them, then we have a role to play as well.
It’s good to have a starting point (purists), but need to factor in practicalities as well too.
And the black and white view of what should and shouldn't be allowed (beyond who gets to decide this) means that the populace is not exposed to the fact that there are people among us who have these abhorrent ideas. And those that have the abhorrent ideas don't then get exposed to the rest of society telling them in no uncertain terms that the ideas they have are abhorrent.
This low level discourse conflict serves as a societal immune system/inoculation to weed out the truly abhorrent stuff before it goes mainstream and becomes normalised.
I shared a news article with a mate yesterday, which documented the bewildered offence a bunch of Nazis felt when they turned up to have a little Nazi rally and the local townsfolk greeted them with pepper spray and threw stuff at them before they got arrested. My mate responded: "You. Are. A. Fucking. Nazi. We had a whole war about this. We don’t do “reasonable” with fucking Nazis."
People are rightly alarmed about the rise of fascism and the far right, but alarms have been sounding on this for more than a decade, which means that the societal immune system is working.
this is why we all need to be a little bit G.I.Robot from D.C's series Creature Commandos
Thanks for that - a new perspective for me.
Cynically, I suspect tech is challenging that societal immune system. When social media and some so-called news channels can be used as an echo chamber, it means that people can effectively choose to not be exposed to different viewpoints. If all they consume is one perspective, it is their norm. And coz humans are tribal, humans will defend their tribal norms from outsiders and new info that challenges those norms.
Joys of humans developing (evolving) our own creations faster than we can biologically evolve to adapt to them, and faster than our systems of regulation (gov’t) can change laws to mitigate the worst elements. Let’s not get into discussing biological integration with the tech to help make up for lack of human evolution - my brain is hurting and needs some junk comfort food 😜