I honestly don't understand libertarians. they think this is part of some WoKe AgEnDa and that suppressing misinformation and hate is somehow a bad thing. these people call leftists 'utopian' yet live in a fantasy world where having a nuanced discussion in the Marketplace of IdeasTM is somehow enough to stop bad ideas from existing and doing harm. they think that social media shouldn't stop hate before it's too late, and that we should just let nazis alone in their echo chambers.
maybe i'm in the wrong here, maybe we should just leave them alone. I just don't even know
“Freedom of the press” is another of the principal slogans of “pure democracy”. And here, too, the workers know — and socialists everywhere have admitted it millions of times — that this freedom is a deception while the best printing presses and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the capitalists and while capitalist rule over the press remains, a rule that is manifested throughout the world all the more strikingly, sharply, and cynically, the more democracy and the republican system are developed, as in America for example.
The first thing to do to win real equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers and peasants, is to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying up publishing houses, and hiring newspapers. And to do that the capitalists and exploiters have to be overthrown and their resistance suppressed.
The capitalists have always used the term ‘freedom’ to mean freedom for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death.
In capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion.
In this respect, too, the defenders of ‘pure democracy’ prove to be defenders of an utterly foul and venal system that gives the rich control over the mass media. They prove to be deceivers of the people who, with the aid of plausible, fine-sounding, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement.
—Lenin, Congress of the First Comintern
this is what i've been thinking for a while. capitalists will fight for the freedom to deprive others of freedom. any recommendations for more literature like this?
until something better comes to mind— here is the full speech, at least
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/comintern.htm
to me, FOSS is the perfect analogy for cooperation and individualism. you can use and make your software how you like and collaborate and work with other individuals to improve your workflow for everyone, while admitting and appreciating that no two people have the same needs and likes, and we can accomodate for that.
Playing devils advocate slightly, but there are legitimate concerns over who decides what is and what isn't 'misinformation'
i have to agree. as long as one company holds control over a means of communication they have the ultimate power. my problem is when techbros complain censorship when people get banned for hate speech
