> if a foreign power can buy the platforms and adjust information flows to "shift" public opinion their way.
NO.
I will never accept this premise and nor should any American. The people ARE the government and they can be influenced any which way they want to be. There shouldn't ever be any such thing as the government "protecting" people from influence. If the people want to all tune into some foreign broadcaster all day and love everything he's saying. That's how the country will be.
The second you accept "oh foreign influence is manipulating our voters to X or Y so it has to be stopped" you are signing the death warrant for free speech. This is EXACTLY the justification used in all sorts of authoritarian garbage places to suppress information and restrict speech
I agree with you on this. People who don’t believe this fundamentally do not believe in democracy.
You may worry about citizens being sufficiently educated, you may worry about them having access to enough information to make good decisions. But to restrict information for fear that they may make the “wrong” decision—the one you don’t like—there is nothing democratic about that.
Foreign voices and perspectives are critical to understanding the world as a whole and making informed decisions. If the population isn’t ready to take in that information and sort the wheat from the chaff, then they aren’t ready for democracy.
aprilthird2021|4 months ago
NO.
I will never accept this premise and nor should any American. The people ARE the government and they can be influenced any which way they want to be. There shouldn't ever be any such thing as the government "protecting" people from influence. If the people want to all tune into some foreign broadcaster all day and love everything he's saying. That's how the country will be.
The second you accept "oh foreign influence is manipulating our voters to X or Y so it has to be stopped" you are signing the death warrant for free speech. This is EXACTLY the justification used in all sorts of authoritarian garbage places to suppress information and restrict speech
iamnothere|4 months ago
You may worry about citizens being sufficiently educated, you may worry about them having access to enough information to make good decisions. But to restrict information for fear that they may make the “wrong” decision—the one you don’t like—there is nothing democratic about that.
Foreign voices and perspectives are critical to understanding the world as a whole and making informed decisions. If the population isn’t ready to take in that information and sort the wheat from the chaff, then they aren’t ready for democracy.