Centralisation vs Decentralisation

The Experience Age

As someone who believes in liberty and free speech this is a subject that has had me flip flopping between sides. There was a time when I felt certain voices promoting division were dangerous. When Trump was removed from Twitter, I felt relief. This was because I yearned for a world where governments did not pit their citizens against each other to detract from questionable agendas and lobbying by the ‘elite’. If you can de-platform the President of the United States of America, then who really holds the power? The more I pondered this subject, the more uncomfortable I became with how easy it was to silence those not conforming with the mainstream agenda. Free speech should be uncomfortable and debate on all subjects is necessary. I would rather live in a society where I could disagree with opinions rather than have those opinions suppressed.

On the flip side, the internet can be a dangerous place and especially for developing minds. Even with parental controls, censorship, age restrictions and legislation our children are still exposed to brain hacking and detrimental influences. There can also be a lack of paternal guidance due to a gap in knowledge of new technologies as the industry moves at an exponential rate. It is this stimulus which significantly contributes to a growing mental health crisis.

So how should free speech work in the Experience Age? How do we protect our children? How do we stop radicalisation? Prevent misinformation? You could argue that it would be more helpful to get to the root causes of these tribulations. However, on certain platforms you can easily live in an echo-chamber where your beliefs are constantly reinforced without being challenged. The argument would then be to fix the algorithms on these platforms; but ultimately someone will be deciding what you see and which additional titbits to add to your feed.

One uncomfortable issue that I believe has hindered free speech is the term ‘conspiracy theory’. This phrase has prevented the populace from asking uncomfortable questions and challenging the mainstream narrative. If you are not with us, you are therefore against us. We are sold ‘facts’ under the name of science. When information is brought to our attention how sure can we be that vigorous debate has taken place and alternative viewpoints have not been shunned or silenced? In a world where governments are not trusted, with a layer of unelected fat cats sitting above our democracy, how do we know when we are being manipulated?  

There was a time when journalism would work to find the truth, now reporters appear to be working to protect authorities and other interests. Have governments ever worked for their people? Has true democracy ever existed? Historically when scandals were uncovered, journalists were praised for their valiant efforts. In the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, he had to hide in an embassy and fight an extradition which he knew would inevitably lead to espionage charges and perhaps even the death penalty. This does not bode well for free speech and democracy.

It is widely accepted that misinformation campaigns are used as a weapon between countries. They can influence elections, drive hate and cause bad decision making. We live in a time where we have so much information it almost becomes a full-time job to sieve through what we are told in order to work out the truth. Does anyone know the truth? In a world where we have no absolute truth, how can we ever unite and more importantly, protect our children, families and mental health? Should we just accept that our brains are being hacked and our minds controlled?

The big question I would really like to know the answer to is… who really is in charge of what we read, see and hear?