I flippin' well told you this would happen.
Are you easily offended? Jog on. I'm going to be downright offensive. Again.
Before we begin let's set the parameters of our discourse. This begins with using terms correctly, not making things up or assuming we have rights that we actually don't.
What is censorship?
Any conversation we have about censorship, ever, needs to begin with who has the right to speak — and be heard — and who doesn't. Let me make this absolutely clear: you, reader, have the right to speak your mind, however reprehensible your views are, but you are not entitled either morally or legally to be heard. No one, anywhere, is obliged to provide the amplification you require to reach a mass audience. In the marketplace of ideas, competing means accepting competition, not drowning it out.
Censorship v moderation
Censorship occurs when the government makes a law forbidding you to speak or express yourself in a fixed medium, e.g. in a book or online. Your speech can be chilled if you're intimidated into keeping quiet when you want to speak out. If a platform, e.g. Twitter suspends or ends your account, that's moderation, a weeding of the online garden, if you will. The tension created by trying to provide a platform for everyone to express their views online means that sooner or later speech is chilled. Basically, as long as you are free to speak your mind, you're not being censored. Just remember: nobody owes you a platform or an audience. You've got the right to speech, not reach.
This is censorship in action:
DMCA
Tech blog Techdirt had a key anti-SOPA post removed from the search engine results on the say-so of a perve-merchant's agent, Armovore, who also got a post about the takedown of mooo.com by Torrentfreak pulled down. Although this is obviously illegal, it's incredibly prevalent. This disturbing message board on Google shows the extent of the problem on YouTube, where the GoDigital Media Group have been filing false DMCA claims so they can rob money from legitimate users by monetizing their accounts and taking the cash for themselves. - Censorship Smensorship: DMCA Abuse Is Rife, by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
The DMCA is an American law designed to remove copyrighted articles from online platforms by giving rightsholders the legal right to report and to demand the item be taken down. As I pointed out, it's being abused all the time to get rid of items people don't like, most of which have zip all to do with copyright.
Data throttling
Some of the internet service providers, both cable and wireless, have introduced tiered data plans to regulate data consumption and charge people more for going over a 5GB cap. Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Sprint, and Virgin are all at it. Why 5GB? Because it would limit your internet usage to browsing websites unless you are willing to pay more for the privilege. - Can You Really Own Anything Online? By Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
Think about it: your ISP decides what you can or can't watch by forcing the services you're interested to pay to use their pipes and by forcing you to pay more to access them. This is what net neutrality is all about and it's a thing because it's mired in petty partisanship.
IPR enforcement
IPR enforcement, as I've said any number of times, is more about control than the money to be made. That's why the lobbyists push for ineffectual laws. It's an effort to maintain their business models so they don't have to adapt - Copyright, Censorship, And The Public Interest, by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
This is a big one: by making every work in a fixed medium automatically copyrighted, Our Glorious Leaders have censored us by effectively forcing us to get licences for All The Things! This seems ridiculous on its face since I've never bothered to ask for permission to subtweet or retweet anything, ever, but that's what IPR enforcement is about. It is a form of censorship since it puts a tollbooth on expression and it's set to get worse if the latest EU copyright directive goes ahead; automated filters can't tell the difference between a meme, a family photo, and a photographer's formally licenced image.
Okay, let's look at the chilling of speech:
Politically inflammatory content
The Innocence of Muslims is a one-fingered salute to Islamic beliefs and their prophet, and to cut a long story short, they're very angry about it. Years of American foreign policies that treats Muslims like idiots in their own countries and interference in their domestic politics had made them furious anyway. When the trailer (there may not be an actual movie) was discovered on YouTube, all hell broke loose and the American embassies all over the world were attacked by protestors. The person behind all this has asked for police protection and been taken in for questioning and his associates are in hiding, reviled by their own communities or trying to distance themselves from it. - Is Compromise A Weakness Or A Strength? By Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
If you're determined to make the kind of speech likely to end with an angry mob at your door you can complain about censorship if you like but in reality you have to live with other people. Try to get along with them. Is it censorship, though? Yes.
Echo chambers
Who are you to tell an organized group of people not to boycott a show that misinforms its viewers and demonizes women, gays, and ethnic minorities? - quote from Alice Summers in Censorship And Public Opinion: When The Twain Don't Meet By Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
The echo chamber is strong with this one. Basically, some people are incredibly hypocritical about what constitutes free speech. What they mean is, that which they don't personally find offensive is fine and if it offends others, too bad. That which they do find offensive must, of course, be wiped off the face of the earth.
Trolling and bullying
I'm no angel and never pretended to be one. That said, why should persistent, abusive trolls who convince other people to believe bad things about you be given free rein to lash out at will in the name of free speech? Would my own rights be impaired if they were called to account for what they did because I sometimes get a bit snarky?
The trouble is, trolling is in the eye of the beholder. I have found myself pre-emptively banned from a community forum either because someone had maliciously reported me as a bully or because the mods had seen a comment I made elsewhere and decided I wasn't welcome there. - Freedom Of Speech: Who Gets To Be Free? By Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
I've got a rather chequered history where my online life is concerned. I can be snarky and it has got me into trouble at times. I was run off an online community by trolls. Why? I'd blocked them from my e-spaces. They can still take part in the community but if I ever show my face there again, they'll come after me again. So who exactly is being censored — the people who can't make speech on my e-spaces or me, because I can't take part in the community any more? Counter-speech, the free speech maximalist go-to, doesn't work in mobbing situations like the one I was in with that community, or the attack on my reputation years later. Don't get me started on Anglin V Gersh:
But is he responsible for other people's actions, however reprehensible they are? Okay, but what do we call it when he does the same thing over and over again, targeting this woman and calling for marches to the point where all her online speech is shut down? They totally censored her, but then she had tried to censor them. It's just that the neo-nazis had a bigger, better, more organised army than she did. This does not mean anything they did is okay; it's just that I also have a problem with her coercive tactics. - Can Speech Ever Really Be Free? Five Factors To Consider - by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
It annoys me no end when people are all over objectionable trolls as if they're the front line of freedom of expression, forgetting what trolling actually does to people:
...sometimes the "more speech" is more trolls and their misguided supporters joining in a witch hunt. Where was the speech for Christos Catsouras that would have owned the trolls and griefers who have driven him and his family off the internet? What about Brittan Heller or Heidi Iravani? - How Much Freedom Of Speech Do We Have? Five Points To Ponder - by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
So, then, if hate speech and trolling, etc., does as much to censor, i.e. shut down speech as banning, shadowbanning, or legislation against certain types of speech, then surely to goodness that needs to be addressed. Okay, but how?
Moderation
The overriding concern on the part of the people enduring a negative online experience is to a) make it stop and b) make Them behave. Failing that, we risk being driven offline altogether. So, do we cede the internet to the most horrible, depraved people for fear of denying them their dubious right to be gits to us or is there a way of dealing with bad behaviour effectively? It's complicated. Basically, there are two factors to consider: compliance and commodification. Moderation exists because enough users demanded it till it was legislated.
I do not believe that we should accept being abused as a condition of being active online. - Freedom Of Speech: Where Your Rights End And Mine Begin - by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
Needless to say, platforms weren't in a rush to referee online behaviour until they were made to. To state otherwise is disingenuous at best, misleading at worst.
So... expecting people to take personal responsibility for their online activity is where the platforms started off. Unfortunately many people are irresponsible and downright lazy which is why we're where we are now. The solutions on the table appear to basically be paternalistic nannying and centralised control. I don't like that idea as it means that someone who doesn't share my views will have the job of deciding what I can or can't see online based on their personal prejudices — or a set of keywords. - How The Internet Can Help Or Hinder Hate Speech - by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
Internet freedom is not just about allowing dissenters and ideologues have their say, or even have their say to us. It's about keeping the internet open to as many people as possible. People being people, we have had to legislate and litigate to get to where we're at now.
Compliance
The emotional labor you’re asking to be relieved of is shouldered by someone else. https://t.co/Ts9gRLPbcE— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) September 8, 2018
Platform users are unwilling to tolerate bad behaviour of any kind for long:
One thing is certain: when the number of hacked-off people who have been forced off the internet by troll activity has reached critical mass, Somebody is going to Do Something. Do we really want to wait for that to happen, or shall we work towards dealing with this situation ourselves? It's everyone's responsibility. We are all members of the community, after all.
- How Much Freedom Of Speech Do We Have? Five Points To Ponder - by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet
I predicted the above in 2015. See where we're at now? Why is anyone surprised? We brought it on ourselves; both those people who put horrible, disturbing stuff up and harassed and abused people and those who complained about it, insisting that somebody Do Something. Well somebody did, and given that the platforms are private enterprises regulated by law, and the fiduciary responsibility they have to their shareholders, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they find the cheapest, fastest way to filter out undesirable content. Needless to say, innocent content gets taken down too but that's because the people doing the checking don't have enough time to decide on whether something is legit or not so they err on the side of takedowns in order to comply with the law and with majority user opinions.
Commodification
The reason far right websites, etc., are being denied the use of Twitter, etc., is not because platforms are run by the spawn of
What about freedom?
Given all I've written above, the question would be better framed in terms of whose freedom we are talking about. While banning hate groups altogether tends to drive them underground banning them from popular platforms doesn't impact on their freedom. Meanwhile, we're leaving out the freedom of the platforms to control themselves.
...if a private speech hosting platform is too one-sided, that is for the market to decide, not the government. - DOJ And State Attorneys General Threatening Social Media Companies Over Moderation Practices Is A First Amendment Issue, by Mike Masnick for Techdirt
I've been embroiled in arguments over whether or not Facebook and Twitter are monopolies. As long as there are competitors they're not. That they aim at different audience types is not the point. That they have a large market share is not the point. If they're stifling the free exchange of ideas, they're only doing so on their platforms. Other platforms exist. Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook play nice with other platforms. You know who doesn't? Google. I left G+ because it won't "talk" to my Facebook or Twitter accounts.
The marketplace of ideas
So, then, what of the marketplace of ideas? Must online discourse be so sanitized that only generally acceptable speech is permitted anywhere? Opinion is already siloed and echo chambers abound. If we're going to have a marketplace of ideas, then, we're going to have to stop demonising people we disagree with on principle and allow ourselves to believe that we might actually be *gasp!* wrong about something we believe in. Of course, this has to be our choice, not someone else's.
Facebook’s news feed shift could prove detrimental to newer, non-traditional media outlets seeking to develop an audience base on the platform... The concept of the “marketplace of ideas” remains critical to American democracy, yet social media has altered the pace at which users interact and share ideas. Users are now more likely to trust content shared by a trusted individual, even if the article is from an unknown media outlet, according to research by the Media Insight Project.
As publishers and brands seek to assimilate to the changing digital landscape, Facebook has become a platform suited for mass engagement and connection between journalists and individuals.
It’s a delicate balance Facebook needs to strive for: presenting users with accurate, truthful information while not restricting them to content selected by the general community. - Digitally Yours: Facebook compromises marketplace of ideas - by Terry Nguyen for The Daily Trojan
It really is complicated, isn't it? We're relying on Filipinos to decide on whether or not a linked article is news or misinformation because hiring Westerners costs more. Meanwhile, the platforms we use are legally obliged to do this and many of their users will flip out at them if they don't. That many people get all their news from social media doesn't mean that these platforms are monopolies per se, it means that those people are unwilling to look elsewhere for news.
Conclusion
I believe the following:
- nobody owes anyone a platform
- people have the right to speak, not to be heard
- freedom of speech has limits, usually up to the point where someone else's rights are violated
- if platforms don't regulate themselves their users will demand external regulation
- regulation doesn't always solve the problems it was created to solve
- monopoly or anti-competitiveness occurs when something is done to restrict the use of other services, i.e. when an incumbent actively works to maintain dominance in the market
Bearing these truths in mind I understand why Jones was booted off of Twitter and honestly it's no great loss since, as I've pointed out, views like his are the logical endgame of right wing thinking so don't worry, there's enough evil to go around. Sooner or later we will have to accept that platforms are within their rights to set and enforce their own rules, however haphazardly, and that it's for the market, not the government, to decide whether or not one side of the political aisle is being given more leeway than another. This will continue to be true for as long as there's a multiplicity of social media outlets. Should they consolidate and rationalise till there are only two or three of them at all, I'll revisit this topic but for now I believe I've exhausted all the angles.
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