Sacha Baron Cohen's ADL speech
Doug Belshaw,
Discours.es,
Nov 24, 2019
Doug Belshaw's response to Sacha Baron Cohen captures some key points. He provides a good summary, suggests that it's a relatively "conservative" argument (which it is). He then argues that "Online hate speech and the spread of conspiracy theories and propaganda can be the proximal cause of violence. But, to my mind, they are fundamentally a symptom of deeper issues." Specifically, he says, we need to look at the financial incentives that create gigantic online publishers and influence how they behave. Second, "returning to the decentralised nature of the early web would eliminate some of the problematic network effects we see." And third, "vendor lock-in on social networks is a real thing.... you can't take your connections and contacts elsewhere." I think all of these points are well-taken.
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