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this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Back in the day, many rulers allowed only licensed individuals to operate printing presses. It was sometimes even required that an official should read and sign off on any text before it was allowed to be printed.
Freedom of the press originally means that exactly this is not done.
Jesus, how did I get so old only to just now understand that press is not journalism, but literally the printing press in 'Freedom of the press'.
You understand that there is a difference between being not permitted to produce/distribute material and being accountable for libel, yes?
"Freedom of the press" doesn't mean they should be able to print damaging falsehood without repercussion.
What makes the original comment legally problematic (IMHO), is that it is expected and intended to have a chilling effect pre-publication. Effectively, it would end internet anonymity.
It's not necessarily unconstitutional. I would have made the argument if I thought so. The point is rather that history teaches us that close control of publications is a terrible mistake.
The original comment wants to make sure that there is always someone who can be sued/punished, with obvious consequences for regime critics, whistleblowers, and the like.
We need to take history into account but I think we'd be foolish to not acknowledge the world has indeed changed.
Freedom of the press never meant that any old person could just spawn a million press shops and pedal whatever they wanted. At best the rich could, and nobody was anonymous for long at that kind of scale.
Personally I'm for publishing via proxy (i.e. an anonymous tip that a known publisher/person is responsible for) ... I'm not crazy about "anybody can write anything on any political topic and nobody can hold them accountable offline."
So your suggestion is that libel, defamation, harassment, et al are just automatically dismissed when using online anonymous platforms? We can't hold the platform responsible, and we can't identify the actual offender, so whoops, no culpability?
I strongly disagree.
That's not what the commenter said and I think you are knowingly misrepresenting it.
I am not. And if that's not what's implied by their comments then I legitimately have no idea what they're suggesting and would appreciate an explanation.