Radically Transparent Tech

The coming problem is this: in an era when any tech amplifier can create an analog of “imminent harm” exemptions by removing frictions present in the pamphleteering of 1787, *any* adjustment could result in the exemption becoming the de facto rule itself —> the loss of speech.

There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media.

What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies.

— Sam Altman (@sama) January 9, 2021

And who would we trust to come up with these wise exemptions? What I have learned is that tech platforms tend towards three things:

A) Vagueness
B) Radical activism > Dispassion
C) Selective Enforcement

ensuring the rules never really matter. Rules are merely cover for actions.

What if, instead of modifying the 1st amendment, we decided that tech platforms had to be radically transparent by new amendment? That the public got the same look at Google/Twitter that they get at us. Like Zuck/Sundar wearing a policeman’s body cam so that we achieved symmetry?

Google knows where I have been. Verizon knows where I surf the web. Why don’t I know what @TwitterSafety is up to? We could force minutes of their deliberations to be public. The algorithms could be FOIAed.

Wouldn’t this rebuild trust more quickly?

Maybe the Tech party is over.

Originally tweeted by Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) on January 10, 2021.