Free speech ain't free

Elon Musk as a Jack in the Box (without the hamburgers). Source: Midjourney.

I was recently asked by a couple of different people, What's wrong with unlimited free speech? Isn't that what America is truly all about?

These questions emerged during a conversation in which the other party (educated, reasonably sane) expressed admiration for Elon Musk and the fine work he's done at Twitter.

"Why not let everyone compete in the free marketplace of ideas? Let the most persuasive arguments prevail!" [1]

That might be a reasonable idea if Twitter were a high school debate club, and not what it actually is: a den of dipshits, trolls, anonymous cowards, racist uncles, craven politicians, employees of nation-state intelligence services, and tens of millions of bots, weaponized to game the site's algorithms.

Like in the old joke, debating on Twitter is like arguing with a drunk, a fool, or a lunatic: After a couple of minutes, nobody can tell which one of you is which. Throwing facts and reason against this fire hose of bullshit is like battling a flamethrower with a plastic fork. And all it ends up doing is spreading the bullshit over a larger surface. [2]

We've already done that whole '100% free speech platform' thing, a few times. The most infamous one is called 4chan, and it's still around. Imagine the worst possible material in the world, double it, then multiply by ten. That's 4chan. [3]

Moderation, but only in moderation

Unchecked social media quickly turns into a cesspool. Fortunately, despite what millions of the Elon faithful believe, Twitter is still moderated. Unfortunately, it's being moderated by the wrong guy, in the wrong direction.

For example: Twitter recently agreed to censor opposition accounts during the recent elections in Turkey, at the request of alleged legally elected president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It did the same for India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, earlier this year. [4]

Meanwhile, the volume of hate speech has doubled since Musk took over, while the number of bot accounts remains unchanged. So much for the new sheriff coming in to clean up Twittertown.

Last fall, shortly after Musk showed up in Twitter headquarters carrying a kitchen sink ("let that sink in" -- yuck yuck) Techdirt's Mike Masnick offered a brilliant preview of the learning curve Musk was about to face in trying to make Twitter a "free speech" platform.

An excerpt won't do it justice; you just need to read it.

But instead of relying on a trust and safety team of hundreds of dedicated professionals, doing a very difficult job under a lot of political pressure, major moderation decisions seem to fall to the billionaire baby who never grew up and now seems more interested in fighting the 'Woke Mob' all the way to Mars.

So, we've gone from "free speech for all" to "random shite Elon thinks is acceptable, which by the way includes a lot of racism and antisemitism." This is an improvement?

Both sides now? Intercourse that.

Part of the problem here, and it goes way beyond Twitter and into mainstream media, is the pressure to "present both sides of the story."

Sounds fair, right? I have a couple of problems with that idea. For one, most stories have more than two sides -- they may have thousands of sides, depending on the story. There's only so much time you have to report out a story, and a limited amount of space in which to publish it. Somebody still has to decide whose points of view are represented, and whose are left out.

Second, some stories don't have two sides. Climate change is a reality. Russia invaded Ukraine. COVID can't be cured with disinfectant. The moon is not made of Camembert. Gravity is not just a good idea, it's the law.

But there are powerful interests who'd like you to think there are two sides to every story, spend billions trying to make you believe it, and then, if you don't acknowledge their side, will accuse you of being "bias." [5]

The point is, as Peter Parker's Uncle Ben [6] so wisely said, with great power comes great responsibility.

The same is true of speech. If you say it, you should be responsible for it. If you allow it to be said (and spread) on a powerful platform with hundreds of millions of users, you should take responsibility for the down steam effects.

Words have consequences. If you deliberately slander someone's reputation, you can be sued for defamation. If you urge people to storm the Capitol, you can be charged with inciting a riot. When you suggest that drinking bleach is good for curing diseases, you should be held accountable for the damage that causes.

In other words, even free speech comes at a cost. The only question that remains is who ends up having to pay it.

What do you think? Express your thoughts free of charge below. And feel free to share this post by using the widget below.

[1] They didn't actually talk like 18th century orators, but you get the general idea.

[2] Also: Lies travel faster than the truth because they're usually more interesting and a lot simpler. (The exception: The idea that George Soros and his army of cross-dressing Deep State pedophiles plan to overthrow the Constitution and enslave Real Americans, but will be thwarted at the last minute by the reanimated corpse of JFK Jr. swooping down from heaven in a golden chariot pulled by flying monkeys. With a rich fantasy life like that, who needs TV? No wonder Netflix is losing money.)

[3] Birthplace of famous memes, Internet pranks, and Qanon; hotbed of "edgelord white supremacy;" publisher of mass killer manifestos. Quite the charming place. And yet, not the worst on the Interwebs.

[4] This is not a new thing. Turkey has been one of Twitter's most aggressive censors for years. In Twitter's last Transparency Report, which large tech companies usually publish a few times a year detailing how many takedown requests and law enforcement orders they've received, the No. 1 takedown requestor was Japan. Turkey was No. 4. Twitter's last report is dated as of Dec 2021. I wonder if we'll ever see another one.

[5] It's biased, goddamit. Bias is a noun; biased is an adjective. Don't make me come over there.

[6] In the third reboot, Spiderman's mom (Marisa Tomei) said it, not Uncle Ben. (Who I assume was busy making rice. Ba-dum-bum. Thank you, I'll be here all week.)