• LarmyOfLone
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    5 months ago

    I think we need to improve our democracy and our constitutions and human rights. Free speech isn’t an end in and of itself, it was meant to allow free development in private or small circles, and to allow dissent and criticism and ultimately accountability on a national level.

    But we are clearly seeing now that a few, or people with overwhelmingly the same motivation, own all the means of communication - of speech. And free speech is being limited through indirect but very effective means. Amplification of polarizing BS, lies, conspiracy theories, generally noise, and suppression of dissent. So while speech isn’t controlled or suppressed by the state it is controlled and suppressed by global extremely powerful factions. So the mechanism of “free speech” has been perverted and needs to be amended. Social media and news and journalism has to become more like a public utility independent of both state and plutocrat interests. As long as it’s funded through advertising it can’t really work as intended.

    And the other thing is that we have (and need more) scientific evidence that clever fascist speech and well crafted lies create fascism that work against democratic values.

    Unfortunately we haven’t even begun yet to talk about improvements to our democratic systems as a global civilization or how we could get there.