Daron Acemoglu: commitment

Transcript context

…For adults, what’s the limiting case where you think we should limit free speech? In my opinion, again, we shouldn’t limit free speech, but we should still regulate social media. The way that I think about this is the following. We should let individuals say whatever they want. Once social media can build very complex algorithms that human nature could not have anticipated, and we are evolutionarily not very well prepared, and they can almost weaponize certain types of statements, I think that’s no longer free speech. The free speech is when Tyler says something. I never want to take your right away, but I want to regulate what other people take your statement and how they use it. That’s why I think I am an absolutist when it comes to free speech because I never want to restrict Tyler’s right to say anything. You can come back to me and say, “No, you’re not an absolutist because you want to put some framework about how others, companies, by the way, the most powerful companies humanity has ever seen, how those companies can take Tyler’s speech and use it in their algorithms or in the way that they feed into your vulnerabilities.” Say book markets and the printing press, they weaponized Marx and Lenin for many decades. That’s an algorithm in the very broad sense that led to terrible consequences, much worse than whatever you might think current social media have done, and yet we believe in free speech for the printing press.…

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