Free Speech Online should be decided by the Courts
Part 2 of Culture Armageddon
I came across this video because I check YouTube trending regularly and this is the #1 trending video right now:
TL;DR: Pewdiepie made some nazi jokes over the course of the past six months and the WSJ hired people to watch all of his videos and compile all of these jokes, then write a hit piece on him. As a result, Disney and YouTube severed some commercial ties with him.
Free Speech 101:
By default, speech is protected against criminal/civil punishment unless there is a “clear and present danger” (also referred to as “producing imminent lawless action”. This means, even if Pewdiepie was seriously calling for the extermination of the jews, unless there was evidence to believe that the call to action provokes an immediate attack, he is free to say it. Note that when nazi germany was defeated my GRANDPARENTS hadn’t met each other yet. My parents weren’t born yet. Proving that these videos are unprotected speech when nazism is hardly a memory to a lot of us will be a challenge. The claim that neo-nazis are using Pewdiepie’s videos to gather strength (1) doesn’t fall under imminent lawless action, and (2) gives an incredible amount of power to neo-nazis: anyone claiming to be or labelled as a neo-nazi can control communication by endorsing whatever they want to silence. If this sounds far-reaching, recall September 28th 2016 when a cartoon frog was declared a hate symbol by the anti-defamation league. Learn2GameTheory.
YouTube is such a powerful vehicle for communication that their rules define a second justice system in parallel with the supreme court. Unlike the supreme court, the American people have no control over what a few YouTube execs living in San Francisco decide is unprotected speech. While we don’t directly pick supreme court justices, we have indirect control through other branches of government that we do elect.
As a child of the “shock jock” era of FM radio, I have a soft spot for dark humor and satire. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then satire and ridicule is how we reduce such power without forcing those in power to yield their control. Comedy is the vehicle for commoners to check and balance those who have great power. Satire is the bridge upon which we imagine alternate policy spaces, some of which are more idyllic than what we have now, and many of which are not. Satire is A/B testing for humanity.
Society has moved on from the shock jock era of the late 90s. We now use corporate policy as a contemporary form of civil justice to financially punish thought leaders who don’t follow some unwritten codex (See the following chapter for details). This has serious consequences. Not only does limiting free speech disable us from speaking from our hearts, but it limits what we can hear with our ears. Is there any surprise that people are now so gullible that they will believe any hoax they see posted on Facebook?
Our personal policies are a consequence of our familial and cultural values. As with algorithms, there is no free lunch with values. There is no way to value free speech more without paying a price somewhere else. If there weren’t benefits to reducing the freedom of speech, China wouldn’t spend so much time and energy censoring information that crosses their border. Saudi Arabia wouldn’t give 2000 lashes to atheists.
I sincerely hope that the supreme court & the FCC investigate free speech online and provide a set of rules that companies must follow (at least in the US), instead of this cyberpunk dystopia where each company has it’s own interpretation of the first amendment.
“It’s easy to protect speech we agree with, but more important to protect speech we abhor.” — Lee Rowland
