Critical Thinking: Why facebook & twitter are bad places for asymmetric discussions

"The beauty of concision, you know, saying a couple sentences between two commercials, the beauty of that is you can only repeat conventional thoughts. Suppose I go on Nightline, whatever it is, two minutes, and I say Gaddafi is a terrorist, Khomeini is a murderer etcetera etcetera...I don't need any evidence, everyone just nods. On the other hand, suppose you're saying something that isn't just regurgitating conventional pieties, suppose you say something that's the least bit unexpected or controversial, people will quite reasonably expect to know what you mean. If you said that you'd better have a reason, better have some evidence. You can't give evidence if you're stuck with concision. That's the genius of this structural constraint."
    - Noam Chomsky 'Manufacturing Consent"

Quite recently I was reported on Facebook for "Hate Speech". Since it was my first ever report, there was no consequence, otherwise I would have been in Facebook gaol for a period of time and unable to post or make comment. Interestingly there was a 'dispute' button I could press. I did so, and was informed less than four hours later that my post and been reviewed and the decision upheld.

Justice is quick on Facebook, apparently.

Facebook has very clear standards on what it considers 'Hate Speech':

 

Facebook's Community Standards go into further detail. I'm not complaining about this. Facebook is a private company. They have been repeatedly determined to be a publisher and not a common carrier - making them liable to content. As such it is perfectly just and fair they be allowed to restrict what is and is not content on their site. 

 

The "Community Standards" are reasonable, however for some reason, they take a different position in their Hard Questions section tacitly questioning the 'boundaries' of free speech. In doing so, they contradict their initial position, replacing the initial fairly strict definition of "hate speech" and introduce a new concept of Dangerous Speech and equate hate speech with violence. This is a very disturbing extension. They justify this by claiming that free speech is under academic debate and there "is very important academic work in this area that we follow closely". This completely ignores the fact that the free speech debate dates back to the 5th and 6th centuries and was fully hammered out a couple of centuries ago by eminent English philosophers John Milton (1608–74), John Locke (1632–1704) and in France by Denis Diderot, Baron d'Holbach and Claude Adrien Helvétius. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) seminal work On Liberty, published in 1859 became a classic defence of the right to freedom of expression. In her biography of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall coined the following sentence to illustrate Voltaire's beliefs: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

 

The standard definition of free speech is perhaps most simply defined by Noam Chomsky: 

"If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."

So influential was the work of Locke that it was used as the inspiration for the United States constitution. 

 

The driving force behind the philosophers of the renaissance and their analysis of free speech and freedom of expression was the invention of the printing press. As the "menace" of printing spread, more governments attempted to centralize control. The French Crown repressed printing and the printer Etienne Dolet was burned at the stake in 1546. In 1557 the British Crown thought to stem the flow of seditious and heretical books by chartering the Stationers' Company. The right to print was limited to the members of that guild, and thirty years later the Star Chamber was chartered to curtail the "greate enormities and abuses" of "dyvers contentyous and disorderlye persons professinge the arte or mystere of pryntinge or selling of books." The right to print was restricted to two universities and to the 21 existing printers in London. Confrontation with authority made printers radical and rebellious, with 800 authors, printers and book dealers being incarcerated in the Bastille in Paris before it was stormed in 1789. (Wikipedia)

Indeed, whenever there is technological change that tends to extend the boundaries of communication, it is opposed by Governments and fascistic elements. The current situation is no different than any other. So called "new" arguments are trotted out relying on the generally ignorance of the previous debates and conclusions. Facebook's musings fit this category as does the Dangerous Speech Project - which is essentially an argument for censorship.

Another complicating factor is the existence of various defamation laws that exist in jurisdictions around the world. No two jurisdictions seem to be able to agree on what is or what isn't defamation, however the basic components involve the competition between a person's right to their reputation not being harmed and the public right to know. Nearly all countries regard defamation (and I'm including libel here) as a civil matter, however in Singapore and Queensland (yep!) it's part of the criminal code. In most cases, absolute truth is NOT a sufficient defence. 

However, Facebook can't have it both ways: It's not a common carrier, so it is subject to defamation and other claims. As a private company, it has both a right and a duty to protect itself from both civil and criminal prosecutions arising from hosted content. This gives it a right to take down content that may be damaging or even content it simply doesn't like. The same applies to all social media companies. But don't pretend this has anything to do with free speech. It doesn't. It never did. And also don't pretend you are trying to work out the "limits" of free speech, because there aren't any limits on freedom of expression. There's free speech, and there's censorship. You may like the censorship, but that doesn't make you a free speech advocate. 

Since the last Facebook infringement I've received two more. The first one was for 'hate speech' when I ironically quoted "Arbeit Macht Frei" in response to a discussion on limiting free speech. The phrase is German for "Work makes you free" and adorned the gates of Auschwitz. 

The warning gave me the option of accepting that I had written hate speech (without any penalty) or appealing. If the appeal failed, then I would be banned for one day.

Since even a casual reading of the context would reveal I hadn't written anything objectionable, I clicked the appeal button. The appeal was instantly denied and I received a one day Facebook ban! Obviously no one had time to actually look at the thread. No human being had actually been involved in the appeal process. It was a sham. The veneer of oversight.

Just recently, I received a third warning: this time for 'bullying and harassment'. No appeal available. No content was provided at all. I don't even know what it was for and received a three day ban. The only thing I can think it was for is that I asked for evidence for a claim that a particular type of nuclear reactor produced waste that lasts for 10,000 years (hint: it doesn't). So apparently, asking for someone to provide evidence for claims made is bullying - depending upon what side of the argument you are on.

And this is where it becomes asymmetric. As soon as you start to split hairs on an issue, you are subject to bias. When only one person is deciding what is and isn't "free speech", this is inevitable. History has shown this. Yet Facebook has chosen to repeat the mistakes of history by introducing its own "star chamber". 

Being in Facebook gaol is serious business now. You can't administer or moderate any pages or groups. Your business may suffer. Although Facebook is not legally a common carrier, it may as well be. For a business, being locked out of your business page can be as damaging as having your phone cut off.

What came out of the renaissance was that the best antidote for any 'dangerous' or 'hate' speech was sunlight: Allow those expressing their views to air them freely - and then debate them. Free speech allows you to say whatever you like, but it doesn't protect you from criticism and debate. The consensus was that the only ideas that needed protection were those ideas that could not withstand rigorous scrutiny. This is why free speech is the enemy of the rich and powerful. Not only does the emperor have no clothes, but he will throw you in gaol for stating it.

A growing number of Facebook users are complaining that Facebook and Twitter are exercising their power to block and ban to further a particular political agenda. Both of these scoial media companies seem to be using the concept of 'hate speech' to cover any ideological they find objectionable.

So, this leads us to one of two possible scenarios:

1) They are ignorant of the history surrounding the development of free speech and are blindly repeating past mistakes.

2) They are fully aware of what they are doing and are following fascistic tendencies to suppress ideas they despise.