What's going on here is that unrelated libertarian principles are being recoded as issues of free speech. All of sudden preventing algorithmic harm becomes leftist censorship, and the culture war is used as a bulwark against government regulation of discriminatory technologies.

"Algorithmic decisions about parole, loan approvals, interest rates, program admissions, insurance premiums, security clearance, etc. that depend on race and ethnicity? That's not discrimination, it's *speech*."

@ct_bergstrom

And he's funding Post, which in itself is enough for me to stay clear of that platform.

@Mikal Yeah, I had a bit to say about this over there in my first post since immediately after learning about his involvement.

https://post.news/article/2ITtskI92wKXS3i0VP6TthVHJjn

Post Article / Post.

@ct_bergstrom

I read it. Ugh.

This is the thing that even I'm still having trouble fully absorbing about Mastodon: the completely different incentive structure and affordances built in to something that is user operated and governed, transparent, and non-commercial.

At this point, I can't really see much value in building the next VC bro's surveillance cash cow and fascist incubator.

There is nothing Post is doing that smart people couldn't build off of ActivityPub and federate.

@ct_bergstrom @Mikal that's the whole point. The Fediverse experience of empowerment will have profound societal consequences, I dare predict. It is still more of a guts feeling I have, though (I am a trained historian). But I guess stats and data will follow soon. This is bottom-up vs top-down. As the guilded age is often used as a comparison to our time - I think this is comparible to the rise of co-ops in the 1870s ff. They totally re-arranged the playing field.