There's a strange predicament we all eventually face when it comes to our first-amendment rights. On the one hand, our published and verbal word is protected, and, in theory, cannot be infringed upon. However, supreme court precedent has demonstrated these so-called "first amendment rights" are not limitless. The notion of "inflammatory speech" that may incite "clear and present danger," for instance, are a clear rebuttal to the nature of these so-called first-amendment rights.
They're not without good cause though. They exist to protect us against ourselves.
While I am a proponent of free speech, I also have witnessed that this "free speech" can easily be exercised by those who have little notion of its implications, or simply have no good use for it but to harm others. Take for instance any controversial Facebook story. Or even a comment feed on a news article. Inevitably there will be trolls who will exist only to anger others on the feed, or angry respondents who have nothing better to do than call other posters (or perhaps the author him/herself) names -- an old-school ad hominem or attack. While this ties into a bigger point of contention I have, I will not elaborate on individuals' use of logic fallacies to attempt to prove a point.
I have also witnessed "free speech" in person. A few years back, a group of friends and myself were approached by a man in Philadelphia who thought it was his duty to peddle fear of the government. After about 5 minutes, I knew he was crazy. There may have been some elements of truth to what he said, but ultimately his ethos, and his insistence on pushing one particular point ("the NSA is out to get us, and we should all be rooftop farming because the government is poisoning our food") was a big takedown. For most other people, it would have worked brilliantly. To them, he's a young man who's confident and speaks well, so he must be right. I found him outright disturbing. He did not back up anything he said (could he have? Perhaps, but we were on the streets of Philadelphia, and it would have been impractical to do so). He expressed zero doubt in his convictions. In some circles, it is believed that only a madman is 100% sure of himself; a wise man is only 95% sure. Thus, to me, he was nothing more than a wandering madman. When I tried to suggest that perhaps he was incorrect on a few of his conjectures, he essentially ignored it and continued his spiel.
This notion of "free speech" extends far beyond the streets of large cities, though. The World Wide Web has made it much easier to spread information, disinformation, dogma, and propaganda to the masses (one could argue it started with radio communications and television; I would agree but it still concurs with my point). It allows individuals, large organizations, and governments to bombard us with things they want us to see or hear. Some of it is legitimate. Some of it is not.
Without going into a tirade on how public school education does not teach us the fundamentals of logical argumentation and logical fallacies, I will simply say it's a shame we have a largely-uneducated population who has trouble discerning "fake news" from "real news." Thus, I have a possible solution to the problem that both protects content creators and content publishers:
- We cannot rely on AI to curate our content. As of now, current AI technology requires human intervention. We must feed it information so it may grow its model of understanding. That ultimately leads to biases, depending on where the information is sourced, and who is sourcing it. We MUST have human curators, even if it costs publishers more money
- Publishers may need to put disclaimers into others' work. Just like the Opinion section in newspapers, readers must be aware that what they are consuming may or may not be factual. They may choose to heed it or not. I've devised a primitive disclaimer, which I have also put at the top of this post, that goes something like this:
"The following work may contain content that is purely opinion-based, or may contain inaccurate information. Please read at your own discretion"
Obviously it is far from perfect. There are probably a few more phrases of legalese that I'm missing (I am not a lawyer, and I'll let the experts comment on that). However, I believe it's a start. It does not patronize the consumer for not knowing, nor does it condemn or defame the author. - Content publishers should not censor those who they disagree with. This is a corollary to the above; publishers should minimize editing (as necessary) and provide disclaimers to readers. Additionally, since this media is electronic in nature, publishers have the ability to append hyperlinks and footnotes without altering the original content. For instance: a questionable claim by an author can be hyperlinked to a counterpoint, such that readers might see both sides and devise a viewpoint of their own.
Additionally, outright censorship tends to reflects badly on the publisher, and ultimately the author gets his/her way by going to another venue. However, when a large number of popular venues censor or bias information (Cable News and Silicon Valley have been accused of this), "Just not using it" isn't an option. The backlash only serves to fuel the hatred and further divide. Thus, instead of allowing discussion and, possibly, reconciliation of opinions, the exact opposite occurs. It bleeds over into political campaigns and familial spats. It ultimately empowers those who wish to peddle extremist views, since it now affects a larger portion of people. - Perhaps this is a bit idealistic, but I feel publishers should encourage reading text over watching a video. As stated previously, it allows publishers to annotate, and readers to consume at their own pace. Video annotation does exist, but in all reality, who wants to pause a video to watch another video, only to jump back to the original one? I personally prefer to read something through, and go back and look for details I may disagree with. It's rather difficult for me to do that with a seek bar.
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