The First Amendment was written at a time when the constraints of the available technology created "natural" boundaries as to what kind of speech could spread in a society. The very fact that publishing an opinion anonymously (edit: I should say without peer-review of any sort), at scale, was nearly impossible, prevented the development of many sordid, dark, and "evil" thoughts from reaching the point of public discourse. I would argue that this sort of "natural limit" on certain kinds of speech is a biologically evolved defence mechanism against some of the darkest capabilities of human minds - if we didn't have it, some of our darkest tendencies would go unchecked affecting the overall healthiness and survivability of the population. We are a social species, and our physiological wellbeing is deeply tied to social acceptance.
The unique problem of the internet is that it allows bad ideas to infect, fester, and mutate in the minds of others at a speed never seen before, without the natural safeguards that we've always had: peer-review and social acceptance. That leads to a spill-over of bad ideas into the public discourse which, in turn, resets society's definition for what kind of ideas are acceptable. A few rapid cycles of this, and we got our Post Truth World - it's not that truth doesn't exist anymore, but rather the speed at which the public discourse could verify, analyze, and accept ideas is simply not fast enough to keep up with the pace of new ideas that can reach the public discourse. In short, the immune system is overwhelmed, both at the individual and societal level, and we have a raging pandemic.
Yes, I am not an American, and I am arguing that the uniquely American religion of defending the "right" to "free speech" is misplaced in the era of the internet. This is one of the reasons I get a fall-of-Rome feeling in America.
The unique problem of the internet is that it allows bad ideas to infect, fester, and mutate in the minds of others at a speed never seen before, without the natural safeguards that we've always had: peer-review and social acceptance. That leads to a spill-over of bad ideas into the public discourse which, in turn, resets society's definition for what kind of ideas are acceptable. A few rapid cycles of this, and we got our Post Truth World - it's not that truth doesn't exist anymore, but rather the speed at which the public discourse could verify, analyze, and accept ideas is simply not fast enough to keep up with the pace of new ideas that can reach the public discourse. In short, the immune system is overwhelmed, both at the individual and societal level, and we have a raging pandemic.
Yes, I am not an American, and I am arguing that the uniquely American religion of defending the "right" to "free speech" is misplaced in the era of the internet. This is one of the reasons I get a fall-of-Rome feeling in America.