After Harlan Ellison died I spent some time delving into things that he wrote in the past. Not everything survives transition to the modern age but there's a point he made in one of his frequent free speech rants that keeps cycling back to my conscious mind.
"Equal time provisions are not served by Big Brother having primetime access to all three networks while insurgent opinions get a soapbox on the corner."
He was talking about a time before the internet, but weirdly, despite the prevalence of information technology today, we find ourselves in a similar position with the dominance of social media and search giants.
People defending censorship are quick to claim that the dominance of these companies is not censorship (though they scream a different tune when they make decisions against them). They say 'you can go elsewhere', that 'you don't have to be on Facebook' or Twitter etc.
But there is a considerable difference, equal free and fair speech is not served by hyper-dominant de facto monopolies, especially when they become politically partisan "while insurgent opinions get a soapbox on the corner."
I've banged this particular drum before, though things have been complicated by recent US supreme court decisions. I think we should interfere in the private sphere to protect people's rights - like free expression.
But we do, definitely, have a problem and sooner or later it's going to blow up worse than ever.
The worst part is the people making the problem think they're doing good. They're incapable of seeing the bigger picture.
People need to scream, and if they don't have a mouth... well.
after reading this i will thing what happens when i have no mouth its really scared me.
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