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The important issue that I'm trying to raise is that most important values have to be balanced against others. The problem with people who are "poisoned" with freedom is that they have totally forgotten this point and push relentlessly for one particular value, freedom, and refuse to consider any other.
Let's start out with one particular example. One of the things that people get very upset about is the idea that the government should restrict people from doing various thing---like eating in restaurants, going to bars, etc. The argument is "I am an adult, I can be trusted to make my own decisions". The problem with this notion is that in a situation like the one we are currently facing all it takes is one person or a very small fraction of the population to aren't "with the program" in order to infect a lot of others who are exercising some sort of restraint.
Let me illustrate with a recent examples from the present pandemic.
- After some pretty aggressive contact tracing the Korean government recently found out that many new infections in that country's second spike after re-opening the economy could be traced to one single individual who had the disease and went to several nightclubs in one night---instead of just staying at one place.
- The original outbreak in Korea came from the decision of a religious cult to not help authorities to track down members who had been exposed to the virus.
- A ski tourism town in Austria that fought against shutting down seems to have been key to the spread of the virus to many parts of Northern Europe---initially, it appears, from one particular bar tender .
A moment's reflection should remind anyone that there are many different situations where people make compromises with their freedom in order to promote the good of all. For example, people in free countries are willing to be conscripted and live under military discipline when their nation is threatened by invasion, and, people who drive cars accept that there are certain rules of the road that we all have to follow if we are going to keep the carnage on the roads down to a dull roar.
There is a principle that states that a one person's freedom to swing their fist ends at another person's face. That's because there are very few purely personal decisions, instead, most of what we do has some sort of impact on other people. That's one of the problems with people who are poisoned with the ideology of freedom---they've forgotten that their actions create consequences for other people. During a pandemic just getting too close to someone can be the same thing as smashing your fist into their face---or even drawing out a pistol and shooting their elderly parents or an at risk spouse between the eyes.
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Here's my begging bowl. Won't you put something in it? I work hard trying to push back on the avalanche of nonsense that gets spewed across the Internet each and every day. Just a dollar a month through Patreon or Pay Pal will show that you really care about keeping local, independent media afloat.
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Here's my begging bowl. Won't you put something in it? I work hard trying to push back on the avalanche of nonsense that gets spewed across the Internet each and every day. Just a dollar a month through Patreon or Pay Pal will show that you really care about keeping local, independent media afloat.
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Another issue revolves around the issue of freedom of speech. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was then an Associate Justice of the American Supreme Court, famously stated that
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
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| Oliver Wendell Holmes. Public domain photo of unknown provenance. Image c/o Wikimedia Commons. |
I suppose I should have written "infamously", because he was making a solid argument that really didn't apply to that particular dispute. He was speaking in support of a truly terrible law titled The Espionage Act of 1917. At risk of over-simplification, Holmes was suggesting that freedom of speech didn't extend to anyone suggesting that people conscripted in an unjust war should resist being conscripted into the armed forces. As such, the situation was nothing at all like shouting "fire" falsely in a crowded theater. America was under no threat of being invaded by Germany, Austria, or, the Ottoman Empire and resisting conscription was actually about saving the lives of young men, not risking their being killed.
But let's look at the phrase that Holmes relied upon "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." What if someone really is promoting a false statement and it actually does cause a panic that leads to people getting killed? We actually have a couple very good examples of that right now.
- Facebook created a "Free Basics" system that allowed 100 million people in the Third World to access the web by 2018. Unfortunately, in Myanmar the military junta exploited it to whip the population into a genocidal fury directed against their Muslim neighbours.
- Stories are being circulated that say that 5G cell phone systems are the cause of the pandemic---some of which seem to be promoted by Russian bot armies---which has led to a great many cell towers (50 last month in Britain alone) across Europe and even in Quebec (7 as of May 7th---when two people were arrested) being destroyed.
- Anti-vaxxers are already spreading the idea that Bill Gates had prior knowledge about Covid-19 and has created a vaccine for it that includes a special "micro-chip" that will allow either his corporation, the government, or, the evil reptilian over-lords to track us all. This means that if and when a vaccine is developed that protects people against this illness, there will be people prepared to fight against a vaccination campaign.
What this means to me is that spreading fake news isn't harmless. It can cause objective harm to the community. It does so just as much as if someone plants a bomb, poisons a water supply, drives their car down a crowded sidewalk, shoots people, etc. This puts the lie to the idea that free speech absolutists have that all they are talking about is the right to speak your mind---and that's a perfectly harmless thing to do.
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This isn't anything new. As long as I've lived in Guelph I've seen idiots bang the drum about stupid things. Years ago I can remember Fascists putting photocopied anti-immigrant broadsides under the wiper blades of cars out back of the University library. In the same era I can remember people in uniforms going door-to-door in the Ward to distribute antisemitic newspapers. At roughly the same time there were people spray painting the slogan "Paki Go Home" across buildings in the K/W area.
The difference between then and now is that back then these people didn't have access to the mass media. News editors simply wouldn't publish their stuff. Even if they sent in a letter-to-the-editor there was a human being with some sort of standards who would refuse to publish their racist nonsense. That's why they had to resort to putting photocopied screeds under the wiper blades of cars, hand-delivering their stuff to people's homes, and, spray-painting stupid slogans on walls.
The World Wide Web has changed all of that. The people who run the social media systems that allow your friendly peddler of nonsense to spread vile stories will tell you that Face Book, You Tube, and, Twitter aren't anything like a newspaper or television station. Instead, they are like a telephone company---they have no control over the content.
The problem with this narrative is that it is total and absolute nonsense. That's because companies like You Tube, Face Book, and, Twitter control their content all the time. That's what they do when their artificial intelligence (AI) programs decide to send you mattress ads when you foolishly looked at the Ikea page last week. That's also why you don't see propaganda by Isis and Al-Qaeda, or, hard-core pornography coming to your feed from Face Book or You Tube. They also have human editors who step in and deal with the odd thing that makes it past the AI programs. The difference is that they are called "moderators" and they only deal with stuff like violence and sex---merely lying to people in order to get them to do violent stuff doesn't count. In fact, Face Book recently lost a class action lawsuit and has to pay $52 million to moderators who are suffering from various psychological problems---such as PTSD---because of all the horrendously violent things they've seen (and removed) from Face Book feeds. It appears that there is an avalanche of really horrific stuff---child rapes, murders, etc, that people routinely try to post on Face Book. Who knew? Well, you didn't know because it appears that you actually can edit crap out of social media---if you try.
Part of the real reason why these companies don't even try to control fake news is because they have had a hard time doing it without also purging mainstream politicians who "dog whistle" to racists and other people holding repulsive points of view. An article in the April 25th, 2019 edition of the New York Daily News said:
Beyond the financial incentives and the problems of dealing with a society where some pretty unsavoury ideas are mainstream, there seems to be evidence that at least some of the push-back against exerting editorial control seems to be ideological. A lot of the "elite" of Silicon Valley seem to be free speech absolutists. Consider the following statement that Mark Zuckerberg made at last year's Aspen Ideas Festival (as quoted by Wired)
I say that because his statement that no one would want “a private company to prevent you from saying something that it thinks is factually incorrect” is totally ridiculous. That's because the issue at hand isn't preventing someone from saying something, but rather not publishing something that someone else writes or records. Companies do that sort of thing all the time. When I was still writing columns or free lancing Op-Eds for newspapers and magazines there were editors who decided whether or not what I wrote got published---every single time I submitted something to them.
Moreover, it isn't just a question of whether or not the business decides to publish something. It also involves a legal system that imposed dire consequences on that business if it made the wrong call and published something that was either libelous or hate speech. Consider the case of Your Ward News. This disgusting antisemitic and misogynistic bird cage liner has been banned by Canada Post. The editor has been sentenced to one year in jail. And the publisher to one year of strict house arrest. There are rules that every newspaper, magazine, television show, and, radio broadcast has had to follow in order to limit the spread of fake news and hate speech. Why in heaven's name did the political class let social media simply ignore these regulations? And why would anyone in their right mind think that they only apply to "old media" and would be a grotesque infringement of free speech if they applied to the "new media"???
&&&&
I could go on and on about this. I could talk about the people's "right" to own guns, for example. But the point I'm trying to make is that the people complain the most about their loss of freedom are generally people who at best have never really thought about how their behaviour impacts others, or, at worst want to use their "freedom" to deny it to others. I suspect that these folks are pretty hard to reach, so I'm not writing this blog post for them. But they are only a tiny fraction of the population. The real problem is when naive bystanders stand up for them and suggest that we need to protect their rights---or else soon no one will have any.
This is what is known as a "slippery slope argument", and it's a very common informal logic fallacy. It basically says that society is totally incapable to moderation---once you take the first step on a road you will be committed to a final destination, no matter how much people might not want to get there. It's like believing no one can take a first drink without becoming an alcoholic or go on a diet without becoming anorexic. It's a very common argument that people use to avoid any attempt to reign in the chaos being spread by social media---but it's fundamentally silly. There probably will always be people who suffer from freedom poisoning, but they would have a lot less impact on society if people of good will would just learn to tune them out and get on with creating a more sane world.
&&&&
Moreover, I say unto you the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!
The difference between then and now is that back then these people didn't have access to the mass media. News editors simply wouldn't publish their stuff. Even if they sent in a letter-to-the-editor there was a human being with some sort of standards who would refuse to publish their racist nonsense. That's why they had to resort to putting photocopied screeds under the wiper blades of cars, hand-delivering their stuff to people's homes, and, spray-painting stupid slogans on walls.
The World Wide Web has changed all of that. The people who run the social media systems that allow your friendly peddler of nonsense to spread vile stories will tell you that Face Book, You Tube, and, Twitter aren't anything like a newspaper or television station. Instead, they are like a telephone company---they have no control over the content.
The problem with this narrative is that it is total and absolute nonsense. That's because companies like You Tube, Face Book, and, Twitter control their content all the time. That's what they do when their artificial intelligence (AI) programs decide to send you mattress ads when you foolishly looked at the Ikea page last week. That's also why you don't see propaganda by Isis and Al-Qaeda, or, hard-core pornography coming to your feed from Face Book or You Tube. They also have human editors who step in and deal with the odd thing that makes it past the AI programs. The difference is that they are called "moderators" and they only deal with stuff like violence and sex---merely lying to people in order to get them to do violent stuff doesn't count. In fact, Face Book recently lost a class action lawsuit and has to pay $52 million to moderators who are suffering from various psychological problems---such as PTSD---because of all the horrendously violent things they've seen (and removed) from Face Book feeds. It appears that there is an avalanche of really horrific stuff---child rapes, murders, etc, that people routinely try to post on Face Book. Who knew? Well, you didn't know because it appears that you actually can edit crap out of social media---if you try.
Part of the real reason why these companies don't even try to control fake news is because they have had a hard time doing it without also purging mainstream politicians who "dog whistle" to racists and other people holding repulsive points of view. An article in the April 25th, 2019 edition of the New York Daily News said:
“On a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material,” Vice reported a Twitter executive as explaining to another employee. “Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda.”And if you can't use the AI to get the fake news off the Web, you would have to do it using people (ie: the "moderators") and to be able to do that, you'd have to hire a lot more people. That might dramatically lower the profitability of the system. Face Book moderators are subcontracted and only average $28,800/year in income. The average for everyone else at Face Book is $240,000. Their work experience is as controlled as any assembly-line operator---minimal breaks, bathroom or otherwise---even though the work is tremendously stressful. (Watching child rape and actual murders on line is kinda stressful---who knew?)
Beyond the financial incentives and the problems of dealing with a society where some pretty unsavoury ideas are mainstream, there seems to be evidence that at least some of the push-back against exerting editorial control seems to be ideological. A lot of the "elite" of Silicon Valley seem to be free speech absolutists. Consider the following statement that Mark Zuckerberg made at last year's Aspen Ideas Festival (as quoted by Wired)
Zuckerberg decided to defend his company’s decision and tie it to broader principles. “We exist in a society where people value and cherish free expression, and the ability to say things including satire,” he said. He then doubled down, saying he did not think anyone should want “a private company to prevent you from saying something that it thinks is factually incorrect.” He added, “That to me just feels like it's too far and goes away from the tradition of free expression and being able to say what your experience is through satire and other means.”The problem with this statement is that it reads like someone who took an intro course in ethics, read a few things online, and, arrogantly believes that he totally understands a very complex subject. (Zuckerberg is a university drop out.)
I say that because his statement that no one would want “a private company to prevent you from saying something that it thinks is factually incorrect” is totally ridiculous. That's because the issue at hand isn't preventing someone from saying something, but rather not publishing something that someone else writes or records. Companies do that sort of thing all the time. When I was still writing columns or free lancing Op-Eds for newspapers and magazines there were editors who decided whether or not what I wrote got published---every single time I submitted something to them.
Moreover, it isn't just a question of whether or not the business decides to publish something. It also involves a legal system that imposed dire consequences on that business if it made the wrong call and published something that was either libelous or hate speech. Consider the case of Your Ward News. This disgusting antisemitic and misogynistic bird cage liner has been banned by Canada Post. The editor has been sentenced to one year in jail. And the publisher to one year of strict house arrest. There are rules that every newspaper, magazine, television show, and, radio broadcast has had to follow in order to limit the spread of fake news and hate speech. Why in heaven's name did the political class let social media simply ignore these regulations? And why would anyone in their right mind think that they only apply to "old media" and would be a grotesque infringement of free speech if they applied to the "new media"???
 |
| These two dweebs published and edited an openly antisemitic and misogynist newspaper, Your Ward News. The courts told Canada Post not to mail it, and they both ended up being incarcerated for one year under hate speech laws. Why can't we order social media companies to ban them too? Image c/o the CBC news website and used under the "Fair Dealing" provision of the copyright ad. |
&&&&
I could go on and on about this. I could talk about the people's "right" to own guns, for example. But the point I'm trying to make is that the people complain the most about their loss of freedom are generally people who at best have never really thought about how their behaviour impacts others, or, at worst want to use their "freedom" to deny it to others. I suspect that these folks are pretty hard to reach, so I'm not writing this blog post for them. But they are only a tiny fraction of the population. The real problem is when naive bystanders stand up for them and suggest that we need to protect their rights---or else soon no one will have any.
This is what is known as a "slippery slope argument", and it's a very common informal logic fallacy. It basically says that society is totally incapable to moderation---once you take the first step on a road you will be committed to a final destination, no matter how much people might not want to get there. It's like believing no one can take a first drink without becoming an alcoholic or go on a diet without becoming anorexic. It's a very common argument that people use to avoid any attempt to reign in the chaos being spread by social media---but it's fundamentally silly. There probably will always be people who suffer from freedom poisoning, but they would have a lot less impact on society if people of good will would just learn to tune them out and get on with creating a more sane world.
&&&&
Moreover, I say unto you the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!
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