https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-req…
https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-WhyFreedomOfThoughtRequiresFreeM…
For the last thousands years, we, our mothers, and our fathers have been struggling for freedom of thought we have sustained many horrible losses and some immense victories and we are now at a very serious time.
From the adoption of printing by Europeans in the 15th century we began to be concerned primarily with access to printed material.
The right to read, and the right to publish were the central subject of our struggle for freedom of thought for most of the last half millennium.
The basic concern was for the right to read in private and to think and speak and act on the basis of a free and uncensored will.
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Here’s the problem.
We grew up to be consumers of media that’s what they taught us we were consumers of media now media is consuming us.
The things we read watch us read them the things we listen to listen to us listen to them we are tracked, we are monitored we are predicted by the media we use.
The process of the building of the network institutionalize his basic principles of information flow it determines whether there is such a thing as anonymous reading.
And it is determining against anonymous reading.
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Imagine that you are a tiny little secret police organisation in some not very important country. Let’s put ourselves in their position Let’s call them I don’t know what, you know ... "kirghista".
You are a secret police you are in the "people business" secret policing is "people business". You have classes of people that you want you want agents, you want sources
you have adversaries, and you have influencables, that is people you torture who are related to adversaries wives, husbands, fathers, daughter you know those people.
So you are looking for classes of people. You don’t know their names, but you know what they are like you know who is recrutable for you as an agent you know who are likely sources, you can give the social characteristics of your adversaries, and once you know your adversaries, you can find the influencables.
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We are the last generation capable of understanding directly what the changes are because we have lived on both sides of them and we know. So we have a responsibility. You understand that.