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Comment by rablackburn | Hacker News Reader

I've never heard anyone use the Rwandan genocide as an analogy for what's going wrong with the modern web but I think you've hit the nail on the head.

It seems that the most ardent supporters of unrestricted free-speech are the most optimistic in their belief in humanity to come to a stable, moral consensus if we all just say whatever we want.

The Rwandan genocide shows the darker truth that we're just as likely to talk ourselves into horrific violence and war over arbitrary divisions. Cultural and societal pressure over what's acceptable to discuss seems like a very real, and very useful bulwark against that possibility.

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Rwandan hate radio is not simply a story of unbridled free speech.

"One of the most virulent voice of hate, the newspaper Kangura, began spewing forth attacks on the RPF and on Tutsi immediately after the October 1990 invasion. It was joined soon after by other newspapers and journals that received support from officials and businessmen linked to the regime. "

"Until 1992, Radio Rwanda was very much the voice of the government and of the president himself.... Before the daily news programs, Radio Rwanda broadcast excerpts of Habyarimana’s political speeches. This national radio sometimes broadcast false information, particularly about the progress of the war, but most people did not have access to independent sources of information to verify its claims.

In March 1992, Radio Rwanda warned that Hutu leaders in Bugesera were going to be murdered by Tutsi, false information meant to spur the Hutu massacres of Tutsi."

[later Radio Rwanda becomes less partisan:]

"With the new direction at Radio Rwanda and the voice of the RPF increasingly strong, Hutu hard-liners decided to create their own station. They began planning their radio in 1992, incorporated it as Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in April 1993, and began broadcasting in August 1993...."

"Although nominally private and opposed to Radio Rwanda, RTLM in fact was linked in a number of ways with the national radio, with other state agencies and with the MRND. RTLM was allowed to broadcast on the same frequencies as the national radio between 8am and 11am, when Radio Rwanda was not transmitting, an arrangement that encouraged listeners to see the two as linked, if not as identical. The new station also drew personnel from Radio Rwanda, including Nahimana, who played a leading role at RTLM after having been dismissed from ORINFOR, and announcer Noel Hitimana."

Source: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-10.htm

First - my Prof. and colleague was the Adjutant to the Chief of Staff of the UN mission (General Dallaire) during the Rwandan Genocide. I'm well informed.

Second - that the 'government' was in control of some of the radio has nothing to do with the argument - that's an example of 'political speech', particularly lacking institutional controls of the press.

The genocide was not arbitrary, of course there were leaders and those pushing for it. There were political forces moving millions of machetes into the country to be used in 'the uprising'. But when it happened, it was almost universal, like a Zombie film.

President Trump, using 'direct channels' (Twitter/FB) to spout lies about election rigging, is able to do this completely without any fact checking. He can say almost anything he wants, and a certain % will believe him. He has made veiled hints at violence.

5-10 Million people believe that the election has been rigged, and the constitution has been usurped. Those are Revolutionary terms, and they have guns.

This story reads like an election in a crappy African Republic where there is zero institutional credibility.

A 'decentralized web' mostly lacks any ability to decipher fact from truth - it's expensive, it requires integrity, transparency, oversight - which is why we have many institutions to do that right now, and it becomes a real problem when they start to bend.

It seems that the most ardent supporters of unrestricted free-speech are the most optimistic in their belief in humanity to come to a stable, moral consensus if we all just say whatever we want.

Personally, it's more that I'm pessimistic about giving governments the power to imprison people for expressing opinions that governments don't like.

So this is the crux of the problem right here.

The government of Quebec fined a comedian $30 000 for making a joke about a handicapped person.

I think the issue is that 'Freedom of Expression' ought to exist - it's #1 in Canada and #2 Ammendment in the US, but there's no such thing as 'unrestricted' speech, and, institutional controls are going to have to be in place.

If you're plotting with your buddies to walk into the post office and murder someone ... well I'll bet most people think your Signal channel should be snared.

If you want to call a Female Trans person a 'He' because that' what they are biologically, even if they present themselves as a She ... well, most people think that should be legal, but there are absolutely people with power who want to make that a form of hate speech.

On Twitter right now, I'm thankful that they are adding notes to indicate that specific actions of election fraud.

But they have also indicated they will ban you for 'dead naming' or 'misgendering' a Trans person.

So you know the Actress 'Ellen Page' is now trans, so 'he' is now 'Elliot Page'. Fair enough. But if you literally use the term 'Ellen Page' or refer to them as 'She' - you could be banned. Which is ridiculous.

Fair point. I wonder if my prioritization of the echo-chamber/fake news balkanization problems the web is facing now is purely because it's a more novel threat than authoritarian government overreach?

But it seems like there should be some level of compromise that can address both risks. We restrict other natural freedoms in all sorts of ways in modern society, why not free speech at all? As an example that's repeated so often it's practically a cliche: even with the second amendment in the US, citizens are still restricted from owning nuclear weapons.

A new class of weapon was invented and society decided that no matter what they said in the past, this was too powerful to treat like any other weapon until now. Seems like this new form of hyper-speech could qualify for a similar approach?

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