Insightful piece here, Chris. Great concluding sentence! Hard to say if the eighteenth century was marked by true progress considering the fallout of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and American Civil War that ensued. The rise of the bourgeoisie is certain and with it a kind of secular ethic. The power of the clergy gave way to the powers of industry and the sciences that fuelled it, but really it's the same old story. Those who take power from the abusers of power really just want to be the abusers of power themselves and prove as much as soon as they're installed.
Thanks for the kind words, Asa, and the pushback! I thought a lot about this question of 'progress' prior to the nineteenth century in writing this piece, but as last week's piece picked up there was a substantial lurch towards representative democracy and away from absolute monarchy, and I believe this qualifies as 'progress' in the relevant sense. However, I also take your point that this was significantly tarred by some of the fallout from this transition, which was (shall we say) less than stellar.
I also agree with you that the power of the clergy (and the aristocracy - don't forget that there was a balance of power in the ancien régime!) gave way to technology (industry + sciences), and also that this is an eternal story, for all that it had never quite landed in the way it did at this point. It is surely no coincidence that the coining of the term 'scientist' arrives precisely at this confluence of industrial wealth and technological prowess. Then as now, we are asked to choose between technology (ratcheting of power) and the sciences (assemblage of truth), and a servant cannot have two masters.
Thanks Chris. The subject of progress is a conundrum. I suppose that representative government and civic republicanism represent a kind of progress. Industrialisation, however, is another matter entirely, as you seem to acknowledge--since at the moment it's looking like the very culprit that is breaking the political progress. At the moment, however, it also looks like we're witnessing the decline of democracy owing to the very things it has been critiqued for since the Greek philosophers. As conservative voices grow shrill in extolling the virtues of republicanism and denouncing the track record of communism, I'm left raising an eyebrow at the track record of democracy. It takes a lot of personal responsibility to maintain and a strong education system and a solid fourth estate. These pillars have crumbled. Perhaps humanity is still not evolved enough.
Regarding whether we're 'evolved enough' (which you may have said ironically!), as I wrote for you at Analogy, the core elements of our behaviour as a species are ancient, far older than humanity, indeed far older than mammals. This is the hand we have been dealt, I think we can expect to be dealing with this constitution for the foreseeable future of our species. Indeed, by the time we have 'evolved', we won't be our species, and have no reason to expect that what follows after will be more advanced - it could be worse! 🙂
I understand and appreciate your scepticism about democracy. I have been on and off a great sceptic of democracy. From where we are, I believe the least disastrous route forward is to attempt a rescue of democratic ideals. There are other options... most of them look extremely dangerous to me. But I am always open to exploring all paths, which is why I keep an eye on the anarchists, for instance, although I fear they are too easily distracted - which after all, is very human.
"It takes a lot of personal responsibility to maintain and a strong education system and a solid fourth estate. These pillars have crumbled."
Sadly, I concur. But I hope they can be rebuilt, and perhaps on firmer foundations. The first step is the willingness to talk about it. I feel blessed to have people such as yourself for such conversations.
Thanks, Chris. I personally prefer democracy to the alternatives. It's not exactly a scepticism. Historically speaking, democracies don't last. But then, no regime lasts. Everything is alive I suppose and must be born, reach it's apogee, decline, and die. I guess I'm trying to prepare for the inevitable. What I mean by "evolved" is spiritually and psychologically. I do see a trend in that direction. I do not eschew evolution per se, just dogmatic Darwinism which denies an internal driver of evolution. Anarchy is nonsense. It just winds up meaning the strong take what they want until we wind up with a medieval order.
For me, anarchy is no more nonsensical than most political ideals, and its history is more interesting than most of the others. My position is that all vectors of resistance matter right now, and what matters about them has little to do with their motivations or political images. What matters is that they are willing and able to resist what's being done to the collective political spaces, what they choose to resist (which is where the anarchists get distracted...), and whether they can co-operate with others with differing ideals. This is why I keep an eye on the contemporary anarchists, just as I do all the other available angles of resistance.
Also: apologies if I seemed to say you were anti-evolution. It's clear to me that you're not. You could not have run my squirrel piece otherwise! 🙂
Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, especially since you qualify with "contemporary." If we erase the history of anarchy, one can make any claim about the movement. But it started with bombing a crowd, so I don't think it's history is especially interesting. Moreover, it is by definition perverse and most certainly nonsensical. It leads to Sadism and by that I mean the whole value system of the Marquis de Sade and the notion that "might makes right."
You address the complexity of human communication on a community basis without getting to the basis, purpose or objectives for the problems you cite as censorship. Whatever issive or ism which you identify as the primary offender actually spans the full spectrum of human engagements whether they be characterized as Left-Right; Conservative-Progressive; Secular-Religious; Scientific-Religious; ....
"What both Dorsey and Musk seem to overlook is that it isn’t just big corporate brands that dislike social networks riddled with bigotry and extremism. Most ordinary users don’t want that stuff either."
"“No matter what, even in a decentralized system, it will be impossible to do moderation well, and people are still going to hunt down someone to blame,” Masnick wrote. “That is human nature.”
When does Moderation of Communication become censorship?
You are correct that both the 'left' and the 'right' ask for censorship these days... but the 'right' asking for censorship is hardly surprising (blasphemy laws, anyone...?), while it's conceptually problematic - perhaps even disastrous - for those who are seeking 'progress' to support censorship.
You ask: "When does Moderation of Communication become censorship?"
Short Answer: when the government is the one demanding it. This is the essence of Missouri vs Biden (now Murthy vs Missouri) currently at the Supreme court in the US, and the whole issue just gets worse every month that more comes out about what's going on across the globe. Just today it came out that the British army's 77th Brigade was ordered to (illegally) spy on British citizens and suppress their free speech when it contradicted government dogma, while Canada recently passed a law that goes beyond censorship and into punishing 'pre-crime' - a first for anywhere in the world, I think! And for a study in the problem of pretending that all opposition to the ruling order is 'extremism', just look at contemporary Germany and the demonising of the opposition party, the AfD.
All in all, the issue is exactly as Shaw argued in the nineteenth century: how can we expect to address problems with our institutions if we cannot criticise them...? Calling government censorship 'moderation' (as the legacy media is wont to do) is misdirection. There are numerous well-established mechanisms in social media for moderation of content, but the moment you prevent people speaking you have crossed from moderation into censorship. Incitement of violence is illegal almost everywhere, and this can be legally interdicted as such, but 'moderation' is functionally a weasely way of describing 'preventing people saying things I don't like'. In the US this violates the First Amendment if it is done at the governments behest. And that is exactly what is happening, I'm afraid, for all that the legacy media largely refuses to report on it.
We are in the midst of an abject refusal to engage in the problem of free speech. This euphemism 'moderation' is a canard... what is happening is that people are abandoning the commitment to free speech out of an Orwellian campaign that presents itself as 'people shouldn't say mean things' and really means 'people shouldn't say things I don't want to hear'. We're firmly on the road back to blasphemy laws - indeed, Canada and Scotland are already there!
Welcome to the twenty first century. We're fast regressing, and it won't be long before the Enlightenment has been completely voided.
Many thanks for engaging with this one, Bob - I appreciate it! I left out in my reply another situation where censorship is not moderation (i.e. in scientific discourse), as I think what I wrote here is more salient to your challenge, but if you want that side-bar discussion as well I'm happy to open that path, although it is a rather more complex subject being essentially the question of whether closed peer review makes any sense at all.
Just to be clear, I was not referring to Government Moderation. Social Media companies in the US are private and like other businesses they can reserve the right to set conditions on service.
There is a common statement found in terms of service agreements: "We reserve the right to set conditions on service" (see for example https://www.lawinsider.com/terms-of-service ). It basically means that the company providing the service (like a website, store, or app) has the authority to establish specific rules that you have to agree to in order to use their service.
Here are some reasons why a company might set conditions on service:
To maintain a safe and orderly environment (e.g., age restrictions, dress code)
To protect their property and staff (e.g., no fighting, no theft)
To ensure the smooth operation of the service (e.g., following posting guidelines on a forum)
To comply with the law (e.g., age verification for purchases)
There are however some limitations in the United States:
Anti-discrimination laws: Businesses cannot set conditions that discriminate against customers based on protected characteristics like race, religion, disability, or national origin (protected under laws like the Civil Rights Act).
Unfair or deceptive practices: Conditions can't be unfair or excessively burdensome, or mislead customers.
Local regulations: Some cities or states might have additional regulations on what conditions businesses can set.
You finished by referring to Peer Review. Again, Journals are published by private companies and they can setup whatever terms they choose.
Interestingly today in the Wall Street Journal "Flood of Fake Science Forces Multiple Journal Closures: Wiley to shutter 19 more journals, some tainted by fraud"
"Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday will announce that it is closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud.
In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn’t alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers."
private companies in the United States are generally not subject to the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech from government censorship. It applies to actions by federal, state, and local governments.
This means private companies have a lot of leeway in setting their own rules about speech on their platforms or workplaces. For instance:
A social media company can remove your posts if they violate their content guidelines.
A private employer can fire you for expressing certain political views on the job.
There are some exceptions, however. For example, a private company might be considered a "state actor" if it's acting on behalf of the government.
The First Amendment protects speech from government censorship, not private companies.
Private companies can set their own rules about speech on their platforms or workplaces.
There are limited exceptions, like situations where the company acts as a "state actor."
Thanks for continuing our discussion Bob! Let's start with this small point:
"You finished by referring to Peer Review. Again, Journals are published by private companies and they can setup whatever terms they choose."
It is true that scientific journals have no legal reason to adhere to scientific process. In one sentence, I think you have captured a great deal of what has gone wrong with empirical science in the last few decades, actually! 🙂 A reckoning on this issue is still quite distant, but it is coming.
Now to the question of social media censorship, and its distinction from moderation and therefore adherence to content guidelines. Presumably you are not following Missouri vs Biden (now Murthy vs Missouri), which I view as the most important legal case in the history of the sciences/natural philosophy since at least the Galileo trial. This is not surprising as the legacy media won't touch it with a barge pole (except to pretend it doesn't matter), so one has to commit to independent investigation to understand the issues here.
As I mentioned above, you are of course correct that private companies are not bound by the First Amendment. However, when they remove posts at government behest they become 'state actors', and violate the First Amendment. Disclosure in Murthy vs Missouri has revealed that the social media companies did in fact push back against this scurrilous behaviour by the US government... but ultimately kowtowed to the government on threat of changes to regulatory conditions. This is the bizarre world we live in now with respect to free speech. Even tech companies have more respect for the First Amendment than the Federal agencies!
Also, while you are correct that social media companies have every reason to remove content that violates content guidelines, that's not at all what I'm talking about. As a result of pressure from Federal agencies, social media companies removed a great deal of content that *did not* violate their guidelines (and banned the people who posted it to boot). This was at the centre of the court case between Alex Berenson and Twitter - the first ever time that a private defendant won a court case against a social media company. It did not go to judgement, alas, Berenson accepted a settlement - but he now has a new court case opened up by what disclosure revealed in that previous case, and once again Federal agencies are in the firing line for violating his First Amendment rights. This case is quite likely to also end up in the supreme court, so I know Berenson is following Murthy vs Missouri very closely...
So everything you say is true, but not entirely relevant to the issue at hand. No government can set itself up as the arbiter of truth without strolling merrily into Orwell's backyard. Both the US government and the EU have done just this. We the people who are supposedly allowed to democratically elect those who rule over us ought to be horrified and appalled by this, but we are not because we are so ideologically polarised that commitment to principles has taken a long holiday. Let us hope and pray this is not gone forever.
Genuinely delighted at your engagement here - much appreciated!
Well you raise quite a few issues in political philosophy in denying or objecting to a role for the Federal Government in protecting its citizens from communications which are purposefully meant to deceive, to misinform, to commit fraud, etc..
One of the roles of government is to protect its citizens person and property. In the United States that is in principle determined by the Constitution and related hierarchy of laws and legislation. But none of the texts are written well enough that there are not ways around them. Take for example the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution and how successful are initiatives to limit voting; or how corrupted has become the Second Amendment; or how the 14th Amendment is being limited. Why should Government have no First Amendment Role in speech moderation while it is okay for laws to countervail bodily autonomy and limit Family Planning choices?
Living and surviving in the world has always been dangerous, but now in the current world we live in has hybrid terrorism and hybrid warfare which constitute new types of threats. Free speech should not be structured to enable harm. Clearly new private and public mechanisms are needed for transparent information moderation. Free speech should not be used for allowing information to be used as a kinetic weapon.
An example is how this played out during the Covid pandemic where confusion over masks and vaccines resulted in many avoidable deaths. (All Covid deaths were intentional or unintentional manslaughter, so presumably the Government should have had a responsibility for limiting deaths with Public Health initiatives.)
As you have often written, Wikipedia is a good example of how information moderation does not always lead to better information reliability.
For many situations, perhaps public debate is probably a good pathway....
Thanks for continuing our conversation, Bob! I have a reply, but it needs some editing before I'm happy with it. I will share it for you as soon as I get it into a form I think is suitable to the task of taking this discussion further. Many thanks for your engagement, which is appreciated!
Evidently we do not agree here, although on some points we agree in principle but disagree on the facts and their interpretations. I would suggest this is largely because you have taken up the legacy media's view and have not spent any time doing your own research on this particular topic. I entirely realise that research takes time. For instance, I spent about 500 hours researching the effect of face masks on respiratory infections, which was very depressing work.
I'm going to lay out the case for the alternative view that you reject, simply because the door has been opened. Your position - the orthodox government position - is well known, whereas the opposing position (being forbidden and censored) is not well-known, and deserves to be aired. However, I am also going to suggest that any productive engagement between the two of us on this topic is not likely to proceed over the specifics of these issues, and must instead revolve around the larger questions of principle. I include the scientific counter-point because without it our discussion would be incomplete, not because this is where I think our discussion should focus.
I want to frame this parenthetical discussion with this thought: we each offer a different paradigm for interpreting the events that you call 'the pandemic' and I call 'the Nonsense'... One of us holds the Ptolemaic view and the other the Copernican view, if you will, but which of us is which? And how do we find out? I will return to this at the end, as this is where the important part of our discussion lies.
I will divide my comment into three parts: this introduction, the parenthetical remarks (which I would suggest is not where we should be engaging), and a conclusion that frames where I think it would be productive for us to have a discussion.
Thanks for your patience with this rather long reply!
Insightful piece here, Chris. Great concluding sentence! Hard to say if the eighteenth century was marked by true progress considering the fallout of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and American Civil War that ensued. The rise of the bourgeoisie is certain and with it a kind of secular ethic. The power of the clergy gave way to the powers of industry and the sciences that fuelled it, but really it's the same old story. Those who take power from the abusers of power really just want to be the abusers of power themselves and prove as much as soon as they're installed.
Thanks for the kind words, Asa, and the pushback! I thought a lot about this question of 'progress' prior to the nineteenth century in writing this piece, but as last week's piece picked up there was a substantial lurch towards representative democracy and away from absolute monarchy, and I believe this qualifies as 'progress' in the relevant sense. However, I also take your point that this was significantly tarred by some of the fallout from this transition, which was (shall we say) less than stellar.
I also agree with you that the power of the clergy (and the aristocracy - don't forget that there was a balance of power in the ancien régime!) gave way to technology (industry + sciences), and also that this is an eternal story, for all that it had never quite landed in the way it did at this point. It is surely no coincidence that the coining of the term 'scientist' arrives precisely at this confluence of industrial wealth and technological prowess. Then as now, we are asked to choose between technology (ratcheting of power) and the sciences (assemblage of truth), and a servant cannot have two masters.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Thanks Chris. The subject of progress is a conundrum. I suppose that representative government and civic republicanism represent a kind of progress. Industrialisation, however, is another matter entirely, as you seem to acknowledge--since at the moment it's looking like the very culprit that is breaking the political progress. At the moment, however, it also looks like we're witnessing the decline of democracy owing to the very things it has been critiqued for since the Greek philosophers. As conservative voices grow shrill in extolling the virtues of republicanism and denouncing the track record of communism, I'm left raising an eyebrow at the track record of democracy. It takes a lot of personal responsibility to maintain and a strong education system and a solid fourth estate. These pillars have crumbled. Perhaps humanity is still not evolved enough.
Thanks for continuing our conversation, Asa!
Regarding whether we're 'evolved enough' (which you may have said ironically!), as I wrote for you at Analogy, the core elements of our behaviour as a species are ancient, far older than humanity, indeed far older than mammals. This is the hand we have been dealt, I think we can expect to be dealing with this constitution for the foreseeable future of our species. Indeed, by the time we have 'evolved', we won't be our species, and have no reason to expect that what follows after will be more advanced - it could be worse! 🙂
I understand and appreciate your scepticism about democracy. I have been on and off a great sceptic of democracy. From where we are, I believe the least disastrous route forward is to attempt a rescue of democratic ideals. There are other options... most of them look extremely dangerous to me. But I am always open to exploring all paths, which is why I keep an eye on the anarchists, for instance, although I fear they are too easily distracted - which after all, is very human.
"It takes a lot of personal responsibility to maintain and a strong education system and a solid fourth estate. These pillars have crumbled."
Sadly, I concur. But I hope they can be rebuilt, and perhaps on firmer foundations. The first step is the willingness to talk about it. I feel blessed to have people such as yourself for such conversations.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Thanks, Chris. I personally prefer democracy to the alternatives. It's not exactly a scepticism. Historically speaking, democracies don't last. But then, no regime lasts. Everything is alive I suppose and must be born, reach it's apogee, decline, and die. I guess I'm trying to prepare for the inevitable. What I mean by "evolved" is spiritually and psychologically. I do see a trend in that direction. I do not eschew evolution per se, just dogmatic Darwinism which denies an internal driver of evolution. Anarchy is nonsense. It just winds up meaning the strong take what they want until we wind up with a medieval order.
Thanks for continuing our discussion, Asa.
For me, anarchy is no more nonsensical than most political ideals, and its history is more interesting than most of the others. My position is that all vectors of resistance matter right now, and what matters about them has little to do with their motivations or political images. What matters is that they are willing and able to resist what's being done to the collective political spaces, what they choose to resist (which is where the anarchists get distracted...), and whether they can co-operate with others with differing ideals. This is why I keep an eye on the contemporary anarchists, just as I do all the other available angles of resistance.
Also: apologies if I seemed to say you were anti-evolution. It's clear to me that you're not. You could not have run my squirrel piece otherwise! 🙂
All the best,
Chris.
Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, especially since you qualify with "contemporary." If we erase the history of anarchy, one can make any claim about the movement. But it started with bombing a crowd, so I don't think it's history is especially interesting. Moreover, it is by definition perverse and most certainly nonsensical. It leads to Sadism and by that I mean the whole value system of the Marquis de Sade and the notion that "might makes right."
Chris,
You address the complexity of human communication on a community basis without getting to the basis, purpose or objectives for the problems you cite as censorship. Whatever issive or ism which you identify as the primary offender actually spans the full spectrum of human engagements whether they be characterized as Left-Right; Conservative-Progressive; Secular-Religious; Scientific-Religious; ....
You might find of interest in todays Washington Post "Why Jack Dorsey gave up on Bluesky" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/14/why-jack-dorsey-gave-up-bluesky/)
"What both Dorsey and Musk seem to overlook is that it isn’t just big corporate brands that dislike social networks riddled with bigotry and extremism. Most ordinary users don’t want that stuff either."
"“No matter what, even in a decentralized system, it will be impossible to do moderation well, and people are still going to hunt down someone to blame,” Masnick wrote. “That is human nature.”
When does Moderation of Communication become censorship?
Thanks for engaging here, Bob!
You are correct that both the 'left' and the 'right' ask for censorship these days... but the 'right' asking for censorship is hardly surprising (blasphemy laws, anyone...?), while it's conceptually problematic - perhaps even disastrous - for those who are seeking 'progress' to support censorship.
You ask: "When does Moderation of Communication become censorship?"
Short Answer: when the government is the one demanding it. This is the essence of Missouri vs Biden (now Murthy vs Missouri) currently at the Supreme court in the US, and the whole issue just gets worse every month that more comes out about what's going on across the globe. Just today it came out that the British army's 77th Brigade was ordered to (illegally) spy on British citizens and suppress their free speech when it contradicted government dogma, while Canada recently passed a law that goes beyond censorship and into punishing 'pre-crime' - a first for anywhere in the world, I think! And for a study in the problem of pretending that all opposition to the ruling order is 'extremism', just look at contemporary Germany and the demonising of the opposition party, the AfD.
All in all, the issue is exactly as Shaw argued in the nineteenth century: how can we expect to address problems with our institutions if we cannot criticise them...? Calling government censorship 'moderation' (as the legacy media is wont to do) is misdirection. There are numerous well-established mechanisms in social media for moderation of content, but the moment you prevent people speaking you have crossed from moderation into censorship. Incitement of violence is illegal almost everywhere, and this can be legally interdicted as such, but 'moderation' is functionally a weasely way of describing 'preventing people saying things I don't like'. In the US this violates the First Amendment if it is done at the governments behest. And that is exactly what is happening, I'm afraid, for all that the legacy media largely refuses to report on it.
We are in the midst of an abject refusal to engage in the problem of free speech. This euphemism 'moderation' is a canard... what is happening is that people are abandoning the commitment to free speech out of an Orwellian campaign that presents itself as 'people shouldn't say mean things' and really means 'people shouldn't say things I don't want to hear'. We're firmly on the road back to blasphemy laws - indeed, Canada and Scotland are already there!
Welcome to the twenty first century. We're fast regressing, and it won't be long before the Enlightenment has been completely voided.
Many thanks for engaging with this one, Bob - I appreciate it! I left out in my reply another situation where censorship is not moderation (i.e. in scientific discourse), as I think what I wrote here is more salient to your challenge, but if you want that side-bar discussion as well I'm happy to open that path, although it is a rather more complex subject being essentially the question of whether closed peer review makes any sense at all.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Just to be clear, I was not referring to Government Moderation. Social Media companies in the US are private and like other businesses they can reserve the right to set conditions on service.
There is a common statement found in terms of service agreements: "We reserve the right to set conditions on service" (see for example https://www.lawinsider.com/terms-of-service ). It basically means that the company providing the service (like a website, store, or app) has the authority to establish specific rules that you have to agree to in order to use their service.
Here are some reasons why a company might set conditions on service:
To maintain a safe and orderly environment (e.g., age restrictions, dress code)
To protect their property and staff (e.g., no fighting, no theft)
To ensure the smooth operation of the service (e.g., following posting guidelines on a forum)
To comply with the law (e.g., age verification for purchases)
There are however some limitations in the United States:
Anti-discrimination laws: Businesses cannot set conditions that discriminate against customers based on protected characteristics like race, religion, disability, or national origin (protected under laws like the Civil Rights Act).
Unfair or deceptive practices: Conditions can't be unfair or excessively burdensome, or mislead customers.
Local regulations: Some cities or states might have additional regulations on what conditions businesses can set.
You finished by referring to Peer Review. Again, Journals are published by private companies and they can setup whatever terms they choose.
Interestingly today in the Wall Street Journal "Flood of Fake Science Forces Multiple Journal Closures: Wiley to shutter 19 more journals, some tainted by fraud"
https://tinyurl.com/FloodofFake
"Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday will announce that it is closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud.
In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn’t alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers."
See more https://tinyurl.com/FloodFakeSearch
Please recall:
private companies in the United States are generally not subject to the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech from government censorship. It applies to actions by federal, state, and local governments.
This means private companies have a lot of leeway in setting their own rules about speech on their platforms or workplaces. For instance:
A social media company can remove your posts if they violate their content guidelines.
A private employer can fire you for expressing certain political views on the job.
There are some exceptions, however. For example, a private company might be considered a "state actor" if it's acting on behalf of the government.
The First Amendment protects speech from government censorship, not private companies.
Private companies can set their own rules about speech on their platforms or workplaces.
There are limited exceptions, like situations where the company acts as a "state actor."
Thanks for continuing our discussion Bob! Let's start with this small point:
"You finished by referring to Peer Review. Again, Journals are published by private companies and they can setup whatever terms they choose."
It is true that scientific journals have no legal reason to adhere to scientific process. In one sentence, I think you have captured a great deal of what has gone wrong with empirical science in the last few decades, actually! 🙂 A reckoning on this issue is still quite distant, but it is coming.
Now to the question of social media censorship, and its distinction from moderation and therefore adherence to content guidelines. Presumably you are not following Missouri vs Biden (now Murthy vs Missouri), which I view as the most important legal case in the history of the sciences/natural philosophy since at least the Galileo trial. This is not surprising as the legacy media won't touch it with a barge pole (except to pretend it doesn't matter), so one has to commit to independent investigation to understand the issues here.
As I mentioned above, you are of course correct that private companies are not bound by the First Amendment. However, when they remove posts at government behest they become 'state actors', and violate the First Amendment. Disclosure in Murthy vs Missouri has revealed that the social media companies did in fact push back against this scurrilous behaviour by the US government... but ultimately kowtowed to the government on threat of changes to regulatory conditions. This is the bizarre world we live in now with respect to free speech. Even tech companies have more respect for the First Amendment than the Federal agencies!
Also, while you are correct that social media companies have every reason to remove content that violates content guidelines, that's not at all what I'm talking about. As a result of pressure from Federal agencies, social media companies removed a great deal of content that *did not* violate their guidelines (and banned the people who posted it to boot). This was at the centre of the court case between Alex Berenson and Twitter - the first ever time that a private defendant won a court case against a social media company. It did not go to judgement, alas, Berenson accepted a settlement - but he now has a new court case opened up by what disclosure revealed in that previous case, and once again Federal agencies are in the firing line for violating his First Amendment rights. This case is quite likely to also end up in the supreme court, so I know Berenson is following Murthy vs Missouri very closely...
So everything you say is true, but not entirely relevant to the issue at hand. No government can set itself up as the arbiter of truth without strolling merrily into Orwell's backyard. Both the US government and the EU have done just this. We the people who are supposedly allowed to democratically elect those who rule over us ought to be horrified and appalled by this, but we are not because we are so ideologically polarised that commitment to principles has taken a long holiday. Let us hope and pray this is not gone forever.
Genuinely delighted at your engagement here - much appreciated!
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Well you raise quite a few issues in political philosophy in denying or objecting to a role for the Federal Government in protecting its citizens from communications which are purposefully meant to deceive, to misinform, to commit fraud, etc..
One of the roles of government is to protect its citizens person and property. In the United States that is in principle determined by the Constitution and related hierarchy of laws and legislation. But none of the texts are written well enough that there are not ways around them. Take for example the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution and how successful are initiatives to limit voting; or how corrupted has become the Second Amendment; or how the 14th Amendment is being limited. Why should Government have no First Amendment Role in speech moderation while it is okay for laws to countervail bodily autonomy and limit Family Planning choices?
Living and surviving in the world has always been dangerous, but now in the current world we live in has hybrid terrorism and hybrid warfare which constitute new types of threats. Free speech should not be structured to enable harm. Clearly new private and public mechanisms are needed for transparent information moderation. Free speech should not be used for allowing information to be used as a kinetic weapon.
An example is how this played out during the Covid pandemic where confusion over masks and vaccines resulted in many avoidable deaths. (All Covid deaths were intentional or unintentional manslaughter, so presumably the Government should have had a responsibility for limiting deaths with Public Health initiatives.)
As you have often written, Wikipedia is a good example of how information moderation does not always lead to better information reliability.
For many situations, perhaps public debate is probably a good pathway....
Thanks for continuing our conversation, Bob! I have a reply, but it needs some editing before I'm happy with it. I will share it for you as soon as I get it into a form I think is suitable to the task of taking this discussion further. Many thanks for your engagement, which is appreciated!
Bob,
Evidently we do not agree here, although on some points we agree in principle but disagree on the facts and their interpretations. I would suggest this is largely because you have taken up the legacy media's view and have not spent any time doing your own research on this particular topic. I entirely realise that research takes time. For instance, I spent about 500 hours researching the effect of face masks on respiratory infections, which was very depressing work.
I'm going to lay out the case for the alternative view that you reject, simply because the door has been opened. Your position - the orthodox government position - is well known, whereas the opposing position (being forbidden and censored) is not well-known, and deserves to be aired. However, I am also going to suggest that any productive engagement between the two of us on this topic is not likely to proceed over the specifics of these issues, and must instead revolve around the larger questions of principle. I include the scientific counter-point because without it our discussion would be incomplete, not because this is where I think our discussion should focus.
I want to frame this parenthetical discussion with this thought: we each offer a different paradigm for interpreting the events that you call 'the pandemic' and I call 'the Nonsense'... One of us holds the Ptolemaic view and the other the Copernican view, if you will, but which of us is which? And how do we find out? I will return to this at the end, as this is where the important part of our discussion lies.
I will divide my comment into three parts: this introduction, the parenthetical remarks (which I would suggest is not where we should be engaging), and a conclusion that frames where I think it would be productive for us to have a discussion.
Thanks for your patience with this rather long reply!
Chris.