Question for all regardless of where you live...

I've been following the U.S. vs TikTok court battle and along with other cases in the recent past, I'm wondering if it is time for "Big Brother" to limit/ban/censor or otherwise have a say so on what sites and what content is permissible on the internet.

If so, under what conditions and who makes the judgments?

If not, then why not?

I'd like to get your thoughts and ideas... I'm for some limited and well-defined constraints/bans, etc., but I'm on the fence about how if could be reasoanbly/equitably applied/enforced.

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

If those who wish to censor the web and publishing generally were to put their effort into supporting the education of the young in critical thinking and ethical behaviour a large part of what they complain about would disappear or be ignored.

But of course having a populace capable of actually thinking properly would mean that the authoritarians would lose power.

Education in most countries doesn't provide people with the intellectual tools to understand the world and it appears to be getting worse with ever increasing emphasis on mechanical testing of simple objective skills and less and less time spent on critical thinking.

Ontheroad · M

@ninalanyon Okay, but wouldn't this suppose those taught critical thinking could actually evaluate information without prejudice/bias? I'm not so sure that is/has or ever could be so.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@Ontheroad I think there have been such people for ever. Socrates did a pretty good job over two thousand years ago, have we moderns degenerated so far that we can no longer think? Marcus Aurelius set out a pretty good practical Stoic ethic eighteen hundred years ago.

A lot of the teaching might well be simply teaching children that thinking is possible, valuable, desirable, practical, even profitable.

Evaluation of facts comes naturally once you have the mental tools to criticise them and the rhetoric that surrounds them. A grounding in basic logic and statistics is necessary too yet it seems that even fewer people are educated in basic statistics now than when I was in high school fifty years ago.

A population better able to think and criticise would also be in a better position to understand that no one can be in command of all the facts in the world, life is too short and the quantity too large. This means that one must rely on experts in specific fields but it does not mean that they must be blindly followed. Being able to read an abstract of something technical and realize that it omits or misrepresents something relevant can be enough without having to be able to evaluate the underlying facts.

Of course prejudice and bias will always be with us but surely a better educated citizenry would be better able to evaluate not only the bias of others but also its own and to realize when that bias is counter to its own interests.

Ontheroad · M

@ninalanyon

a better educated citizenry would be better able to evaluate not only the bias of others but also its own and to realize when that bias is counter to its own interests.

I certainly can't disagree with this. It's not a fail-safe, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.