Meredith touches so many third rails, I’m shocked. People who speak truth to power like this don’t usually last long, nor are they C-levels in tech or any major business.
It almost makes me a little suspicious of her. But I’m super jaded. For now I’m just going to go to bed happy about my deep personal investment in Signal and the leadership they’ve chosen.
Back on point, her dissection of censorship and the dangers of centralized control and moderation by just a few governments/NGOs/benevolent billionaires (stop laughing) stands as a warning. Also, “Good for me and not for thee” is not a winning strategy for censorship because political winds shift.
Way back when the ACLU fulfilled their mission, they fought for the rights of the KKK to protest. And so they did, spouting all their hateful, racist views. And what happened? Nobody died from the words and their membership shrunk to politically and socially insignificant levels.
The First Amendment worked. And it will continue to work if we remove the gatekeepers who use aggrieved groups as a shield to commit their massive crimes.
Human beings are fundamentally good, and communal, and want to do good. And when presented agenda-driven, divisive or hateful rhetoric and equally the truth, truth wins out. Propaganda fears truth, not the other way around.
So as imperfect as TikTok is right now, too many evil special interests are suffering because of their lighter moderation. So their political-goons-on-retainer (Congress) cometh with their xenophobic dog whistles. Don’t fall for it.