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I’m Peyton, and this is your reminder that while platforms we use may not cost money, they certainly are not free. Are the alarm bells ringing? Your participation is both limited in some respects and unlimited in others. The former’s entendres lead one to question, is it worthwhile to live under the thumbs of technical titans; Are we assuming that their opposables are busy moderating platforms?
The public square has never been pretty, but it has tended to be open to all. The same is difficult to say about social media rules on expression. The US government has to answer to the people whom they serve:
The Public Forum Doctrine is used to ensure that this is made so. However, governments can find ways around it, such is the case when they “delete” an app they do not support legislatively, sentencing it to a ban and subverting the public square. So long as we do not do anything that either the government or the website’s admins have intense distaste for, we can participate; One can generally say whatever they want. A drawback to this freedom is the meager attempts to regulate hate speech and abuse. Majorly, there is a disagreement about what is hateful but covered by the doctrine of unpopular speech under the first amendment, and what is stochastic in nature. The government should not be the one to solve this; Regulatory bodies will not be of help either. Facebook’s decision to fight misinformation in the past and present contrast with it’s business model AND it’s abilities to fight human nature. They also, simply, cannot bear it.
It is too easy to spread problematic messaging on that website.
A top-down approach in general seems to be ineffectual; It is not easy as the (or one of the) main platform(s) facilitating a public square to change it around successfully. Elon Musk edited his site’s main goals and manner of business and the only thing that has occurred is a lessening of framework and sharp decline in profitability. Did he get a moral victory? Was this all an elaborate way to show that he can be successful on his own? No, and it wasn’t successful either. The rules on the books for Twitter changed, but only in fairly poor ways. We lost quite a bit when Musk inadvertently shifted the credibility of endorsements to even less than a standard user has by adding a
pay-to-endorse checkmark.
One solution if one were to want one, decentralized platforms! These digital media locales hold a few new things close to their heart: User ownership of data, portability of your info, and democratically decided decisions. I love the idea of data portability so my communities can travel and so will the information we share. Users having stronger control over what is allowed to be shared, like that done in Europe, is of the upmost importance: privacy is disclosed and the actual information being taken must be guarded and transparent. I don’t think this is necessarily a silver bullet, but every step helps.
The only free speech is private speech. Ultimately it is up to us to decide what we share and consume online; It can be difficult to decide not to participate. My friends are all online: They freely feed the machine, and I don’t wanna decide to isolate myself from the rest of ’em. I’m sorry I don’t have any definitive answers for this hurdle in human happiness, but I hope you’ll stay curious and creative along with me as we cross these new paths together.
-Peyton
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