> If you are talking about the ideal of free speech then call it that. Not the first amendment.

I'll be more careful to avoid confusion in the future :)

> I am idealizing a process in which social shaming encourages conformity. That is the only reason society works, we learn how to interact with other people through this process.

Not sure I agree with this. In one sense, the concept of a social contract requires some degree of conformity of opinion, but I think it gets complicated as we expand outward from the basic social contract.

Democracy by its nature involves conflict of opinion. It's an orderly way of letting the 51% control the 49%. In our society we sort of pretend that laws that have 51% support are "agreed upon" by society, but that's not true in the sense of ideological agreement, it's only true in the sense of resolving conflict over what the law should be.

The mechanisms we consider in a democracy have trade-offs. We could require a two thirds majority or a nine tenths majority before passing a law. The stronger majority we require the more we can feel that our democratic process has reflected conformity of opinion, but also we'll have many more areas where no agreement was reached and the conflict is not formally resolved.

Because of the democratic process, laws generally reflect the broader moral values of the culture, but again many laws do not offer a choice between believing value A and believing value not A, they merely rank one value slightly higher than another. Members of a democracy supporting a law may think value A is more important than value B, while those opposing it may consider value B more important. Both groups may profess strong belief in both values.

I'd argue that shaming is a legacy process that is still hanging around from the days when a lot less had been abstracted and institutionalized. In those days, if you saw a neighbor beating his child, you'd perhaps frown aggressively at the neighbor and say "shame on you". These days you can just call child protective services.

Things like smoking in public are frowned upon by many, and considered rude (and are thus shamed), but this is only necessary in places where the law has not yet come to reflect that value. In many states smoking in public places is prohibited except in designated smoking areas.

But this is a bit of a digression. Just as majoritarianism is occasionally dangerous in democracy, so is the soft majoritarianism of social shaming. This is because shaming itself is used as an in-group signal, and its use (and power) generally follows from existing social hierarchy. Consider that most politicians would never be seen entering certain night clubs or strip clubs, yet we learn every day about one more of these monsters making incredibly creepy unwanted advances toward helpless women. Yesterday alone there were revelations about Al Franken and George HW Bush.

So those most likely to use shaming, and to model what behaviors deserve to be shamed happen to be the ones who benefit most from the social control it offers. The same applies to members of the clergy (who occupy a shadow political system that used to be the main one before the separation of church and state).

Thus basic social conformity (the stuff people like to shame others about) is not an essential quality of civilization, it is a side-effect of authoritarianism and a mechanism of social control.

It is for this reason that the public must suddenly be protected from "fake news". While the examples used for selling the idea are always fairly clear cut, in actuality the algorithmic changes or human censorship applied to prevent the spread of fake news will surely include anything that endangers the status quo.

The reluctance of advertisers to find themselves associated with a non-mainstream belief reflects the preference of the wealthy firm not to endanger its revenue stream. Similarly, any established group or organization has the same basic desire for self-preservation.

So while some shaming has pragmatic goals... booger shaming children prevents the spread of disease, etc., social conformity is a very blunt instrument that is increasingly incompatible with the modern notion of a pluralistic society. The internet has made a new level of pluralism possible, and it threatens those who hold all kinds of power.

We are being told that we must be protected from fake news, protected from hate speech (even from free speech in some cases), protected from various groups, but in reality what is going on is that powerful interests are teaming up to help themselves cling to power and prevent the massive efficiencies in publishing information from ushering in an increased level of pluralism and the corresponding reduction in their own authoritarian power.

Countries with a weaker hold on authoritarian power (like China) have had to take steps to ban speech and cryptocurrencies already. The mistake we make (due to our penchant for American exceptionalism) is to think that we are not following close behind with the same sort of authoritarianism-preserving convulsion.