The Right to a Nonconsensus Opinion
Self-censorship is reaching all-time highs across the globe. It is unpleasant, and by preventing free discussion, it is inhibiting progress. We need to stop it.
How did it get so bad? Technology. We have transitioned from a world of unrecorded communication to one where every e-mail, text message, and social media post is not only documented but potentially used against you. Internet-enabled phones are portable concealable video and audio recording devices that can be used at any time by anyone. The problem does not just exist on social media. Messages between friends are a screenshot and a share away from major life consequences. Worse still, the coronavirus is exacerbating the situation by increasing our proportion of distant digital communication.
This has resulted in never-before-seen levels of self-censorship. In 2020, regardless of your identity, expressing a non-consensus opinion risks loss of friends, reputation, or employment.
Suppose today you decide to take a stand and express a non-consensus opinion on social media. You and your view may be attacked. The more people attacking you and your position, the more others will feel comfortable doing so. Those who share your view, seeing your experience, will not only become less likely to share as you did, but will also decline to show their support, making your view seem more non-consensus than it is. Social media accounts that have developed homogenous followings of a single viewpoint, may take your post, screenshot it, and share it with 10s of 1,000s of their followers who will then further pile on with insults and attacks.
With each successive attack, bystanders who hold similar views, make a mental note to stay away. It is a self-reinforcing cycle and as it matures it divides people into two groups: vocal detractors of the non-consensus view and the silent, fearful for being attacked. Opponents to your view might say: “If you’re silent, you’re against us and if you’re against us, you are bad.” The silent, fearing the consequences of non-compliance, reluctantly join ranks with the consensus majority.
Were this problem to remain on social media, it could be tolerated, but the same technology that allows people to rapidly assemble to attack non-consensus views also allows them to attack businesses, the businesses that employ you. Your employer wants no trouble. They just want to make money and you did share a view that no one else seems to support, so they fire you, because if they don’t, sales might fall from the large vocal apparent majority that opposes your view.
The more people who are attacked on social media and then subsequently fired for their non-consensus views, the more these views become non-consensus. The more these views become non-consensus the easier it is to punish them through firings and attacks. The cycle repeats until everyone with a non-consensus view is either silent or unemployed without health insurance but with two loving cats.
And anonymity is no savior. The mob can use identifying information about your social media profile to find your true identity, also known as doxxing. Unfortunately, the consensus view is not always well-reasoned. Positions that were, 10 years ago, mandatory are today fireable offenses. One way to stop the mob might be to reach out to friends who may share similar views, but what if they don’t or they say they don’t? You’ve only dug yourself a deeper hole.
This process is a “Social Media Snowball”. Over the past 10 years, as more and more communication has moved online and social media has replaced traditional forums of conversation, the snowball has only gotten bigger. The bigger it gets, the more destructive it is when it collides with you and your non-consensus view. We need to stop it. It’s not just about it being annoying or the injustice of loss of employment or livelihood for innocuous opinions. The increasing lack of free discussion is preventing us from discussing the problems we face as a society. After all, if we cannot freely discuss a problem, proposing new ideas, how will we ever be able to solve it?
We can fix this by making employment discrimination against non-consensus views illegal.
This seems crazy at first, but it’s not. We already do this for race, sex, sexuality, age, disability, and HIV status. It’s better when we use markets to solve these problems, but it’s been 10 years and self-censorship and firings for holding the wrong views of the day have reached a fever pitch with no sign of stopping. When HR is afraid of being fired for not firing you, we have a problem. Whether or not you keep or get a job should be a function of the quality of your work, not the views you hold.
By preventing the mob from causing your firing for your non-consensus view, it will create a freer and more open atmosphere. Yes, you will likely still be attacked for expressing non-consensus views, but people, no longer encumbered by the threat of job loss, may actually come to your side. Without fear of retribution from the social media mob by way of their employer, the tables will turn and it will cease to be 100 on 1 dog-pile. The more people speak up and do so without negative consequences, the more it will spur others to do the same. Instead of every controversial topic being divided between fervent supporters and the silent, we can have an open debate where we hear from both sides.
The censorship we face today is a snowball tumbling down a snow covered mountain. If you stand up to it alone, you get run over. The longer we let the snowball roll down the mountain the more people are hurt and the more destructive the snowball becomes. We don’t need a national law. A state or local law would be sufficient to see whether we can stop this unbearable atmosphere of self-censorship. Let’s try it.
