Free Speech

Opens December 12th 2023 on free speech, explaining he built the Midnight project around ACE, the freedom of Association, Commerce, and Expression that technology must protect.

Recounts the presidents of MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard testifying that whether calling for the genocide of a group is harassment depends on context, an extraordinary statement.

Argues free speech is either absolutist or it collapses into an it-depends-if-you-agree standard, recommending FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and Greg Lukianoff's Lex Fridman interview.

Harvard scored a zero out of 100 on FIRE's campus free-speech index, silencing viewpoints against the orthodoxy by labeling them hate speech.

Warns society is moving from allowing expression to criminalizing, punishing, and deplatforming it, an accelerating decades-long trend.

A counterculture is pushing back, with Elon Musk re-platforming people on Twitter and adding Community Notes, used on Biden and himself, to add context instead of deplatforming misleading snippets.

Free speech is not consequence-free speech, citing how his claim that Bitcoin and Ethereum wrongly enjoy an operational security test while altcoins get a historical one drew attacks from Bitcoiners.

He does not attack Bitcoin but points out a regulator's inconsistent application of law and the shared progressive-decentralization journey, which still makes enemies.

A free society does not criminalize dissent, and the HBO Chernobyl miniseries epitomizes totalitarian consequences, where the Soviets gave the Germans wrong radiation numbers so a cleanup robot failed, forcing men to a death sentence to preserve the lie.

Propagandists in Russia or North Korea freeze on simple questions because speaking the truth carries severe consequences, and American academia and media are converging toward that view.

The correct answer to whether calling for genocide is wrong is always wrong with no context needed, and that adding context reflects a deeply politicized environment.

The way beyond is innovation like veracity bonds that quantify confidence by staking money, illustrated by how sure you would be that the capital of Colorado is Denver.

Observes the most sophisticated analysis lives in financial markets and warfare because there is an incentive to be right, unlike consequence-free opinions, even though Iraq and Afghanistan show it can still fail.

Whistleblowing systems with anonymity and verified membership yield radically more honest answers, like an anonymous poll about a CEO that proves you are a member without revealing your vote.

Free societies assume institutions love reaching the crucible of truth, but society is accelerating the opposite as generative AI creates a tsunami of fake news.

Warns AI can fabricate audio, video, and photos of anyone, from a celebrity's fake angry phone call to a Pizzagate video of Hillary Clinton, making fact ever harder to tell from fiction.

The naive response is a government Ministry of Truth, noting YouTube took down his videos under a US-encouraged policy allowing only WHO or CDC medical information.

Cites congressional testimony that Twitter had FBI and CIA employees deciding what to platform, almost certainly true of Meta and Google as well.

No decade lacks a US government lie, from the Gulf of Tonkin to Iraq, and that the Director of National Intelligence gave Congress the least untruthful answer with no consequence.

Losing freedom of expression darkens and damages people, and that in totalitarian countries the impressive infrastructure hides damaged, fearful people.

Cites Jack Ma's meteoric rise then vanishing into a non-person for crossing a dictator, warning no law of physics prevents this in the US, the EU, Germany, or France.

The point is not Israel versus Palestine but whether you believe in freedom of expression and building systems that enhance it toward an inclusive objective reality rather than forcing an agenda.

Calls blockchain the most liberating invention in history for returning consent, self-sovereign identity, and self-custody to protect ACE, which is why governments crack down, as with Elizabeth Warren's bill that would end the US crypto industry.

IO will invest in ventures preserving expression and understanding media without a Ministry of Information, and that Harvard's zero score means it is time to build new institutions.