Tag Archives: free speech

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Weak Thinking

I’ve been a student of philosophy for most of my adult life. It’s a passion, it’s an indulgence, at times it’s an obsession, and it’s a driving force in many of my most consequential actions. Digging through the canon of thousands of years of argument — hundreds of thousands of pages of dense text — can be vastly unsatisfying. It’s not for everyone. It becomes obvious there are far more questions than answers, and the answers that emerge do so largely to be impeached and reconsidered.

One of my key takeaways from this often senseless pursuit of the abstract is that the difference between reasonable inquiry and fabricated drivel is discipline. A noble premise or argument usually embraces long periods of study, focused meditation, and incorporated strings of historical context. Saying stuff because it happens to occur to you is not the same as constructing a point of view built on the readings of diverse schools of thought.

Weak thinking seems to be thriving these days in our universities. While I am fully in the camp of maintaining free speech on college campuses, praising the right of individuals to speak their minds is not the same as celebrating poorly articulated points of view. I also think some of these students better learn to get a thick skin and learn to hear words that are objectionable without expecting institutional protection. If students think they are graduating into a world where their feelings are going to matter to their adversaries, they better understand that there are few anointed referees handing out self-esteem shields.

So let’s assume we all have a right to weak thinking, we all will be exposed to it, and almost no one is going to protect us from it. Does that leave us in a world where all opinions are valid and to be polite we should smile and nod when we hear garbage thought? We should not. When we fail to incorporate proper intellectual discipline into our viewpoints, we should be knocked back to sensibility.

When Sam Bankman-Fried said he would willingly flip a coin if he knew that heads would make the world twice as good and tails would enact its destruction, he wasn’t expressing a valid philosophy. He was expressing the kind of stupidity that results in dangerous consequences, even beyond the absurdity of the abstraction. Imagine if he had retained wealth and power with this worldview. He would have made even more bad decisions that affect too many of us. The world should be spared this dose of weak thinking while he contemplates his theories in prison.

When viewers on TikTok recently discovered the manifesto of Osama Bin Laden expressing his fanatical Letter to America, some decided that this was a hidden revelation that pointed to an alternative point of view on terrorism. Are there two sides to the tragedy of 9-11? Does the weak thinking of a handful of younger citizens not yet born when terrorists took the lives of thousands in the attack on the World Trade Center warrant further discussion? No, this is not serious inquiry, not a valid call for plurality of opinion, it is rubbish. It is appalling and they should be told as much.

When a prominent business leader like Elon Musk decides to publicly acknowledge that an antisemitic rave is the “absolute truth,” is this just another opinion from a high-profile individual who has deeply considered the implications of his political expression? No, it’s lazy, spur-of-the-moment madness from someone who has convinced himself that success in some aspects of his career translates into broad intellectual authority. It is essential that we separate Musk’s technological accomplishments from his broader persona. He is a philosophical lightweight with an attention span disorder and grotesquely poor manners. His weak thinking is glaring, tone-deaf, and hateful.

These are but a few examples of the power of weak thinking to undermine civilized discourse and lead masses astray. Too many people still gravitate toward iconic figures to do the hard thinking for them. They also choose to invest unlimited time in scraping the surface of summarized ideas rather than focus on the detailed construct that might or might not support the idea. Said another way, if you want to buy into an idea, you can’t read enough about where it came from, how it’s been argued, and what it might really mean.

You might be left wondering who I think gets to be the arbitrator of weak thinking. Each of us has this specific right as well as the power to exercise it as it applies to our own opinions. The amount of energy we invest in considered thought is a choice. In my current observations, weak thinking is becoming endemic and putting our shared interests at risk. If you agree, read more, listen more, and at the risk of producing more unnecessary conflict, apply the discipline necessary to separate debatable philosophy from buckets of bull.

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Photo: Pixabay

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When Friends Rally

This will be a bit messier and less polished than my normal work. It’s timely and a moment is upon us. I may edit or add to this later, but I want to share it now.

It was a curious Christmas Eve. Somewhat out of the blue, an antisemitic leaflet was left outside our house. It referenced a claim that, “Every single aspect of the media is Jewish” and that “6 Jewish corporations own 96% of the media.” Even more curious, in smaller print it also stated that, “These flyers were distributed randomly without malicious intent.”

None of that requires much in the way of interpretation. The flyer was placed in a plastic bag anchored with small pebbles so it could be tossed from a passing car window (my guess) and not blow away. The cowardice of that free speech exercise is apparent.

As a matter of course I reported it to the local police, who informed me that many of these had been distributed in the neighborhood and my home was not singled out. That didn’t make it better, but it did give me reason to believe something more threatening was unlikely to follow. Remember, these are cowards who operate in the shadows. For me, free speech only has gravitas when it has a clear author willing to stand by the expression of their considered thoughts.

None of that is why I write this on Christmas Day. I write this because emerging from that heinous expression of bigotry was a mitzvah, a blessing of goodness. You see, as an author, I have been pounding out these posts for years and years, alongside three published novels, all of which likely add up to a somewhat progressive worldview. You might expect as much from the later generation of an immigrant family that sought freedom, opportunity, and acceptance in this imperfect but still idealistic place called America.

Well, guess what, I have all I wanted. The cowards lost. I won.

Here’s why.

Shortly after I received the ugly missive of antisemitism, I posted a photo of it on social media. You know that old expression, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” It’s true.

I guess I wanted to warn others in my area that bad actors were doing malicious deeds on the seventh day of Hanukkah, which also happened to be Christmas Eve. I also wanted to share outrage with my community, as if to wonder how on such a sacred day that speaks to joy and peace, someone took it upon themselves to exploit that occasion for fear and hate.

I didn’t expect much response. I write a lot and never quite know how it lands. That’s the thing about being on this side of the screen. You compose thoughts, share them, sometimes you get a response, more often than not you don’t hear from people you know. They are busy. They get accustomed to seeing your posts and only occasionally comment.

If you write a lot, you do receive a fair amount of criticism from people you don’t know. Some of it is warranted. Some of it helps me to be a better writer. Sometimes it comes in the same form as the antisemitic leaflet delivered on Christmas Eve. If you offer a public point of view, incoming invective comes with the territory. The worst of it is anonymous, more cowardice, and you become largely immune to it. I had excellent teachers on this topic.

I don’t write for a response. As I’ve said many times, I write to breathe. The written word is air to me. It’s my breathing pattern. Whether you hear me or not, I still need to breathe.

To my surprise on this one, on busy Christmas Eve, you heard me. You responded, full-throated and magnificent. You reminded me that it matters to many of you that I do this, that I type these words, why each breath matters.

Here’s a sample of what you said on social media:

You know, there are many hundreds of us who have your back.

We are standing with you.

Oh no. No no no,

That’s awful, I’m sorry, Please keep safe.

Love to you and your family.

Wishing you much peace and safety.

May your light shine bright this Hanukkah season.

These heartening comments are still coming in and probably will be for a while. That’s because there are shared values we can count on in the circles we travel, and when one of us blows the whistle on malfeasance, our communities rise together in response.

When do we know we have made a difference? When friends rally.

To know there is a community standing in solidarity together is to know that one’s voice is being heard. We are not alone when we are attacked for race, gender, ethnicity, origin, age, preference, or any other identity trait that makes us who we are. We stand on that platform of diversity, acceptance, kindness, and reject all who stand against our freedom to embrace our living history and self-define without ignorant critique.

You heard my voice. I heard yours. You acknowledged me as someone who matters. The cowards drift into irrelevance.

Our community is strong. Our community is ours.

Isn’t that the message of the day, that in this world of constant conflict, the voice of love is the platform we celebrate? Yes, we celebrate the idea of peace—the peace that begins in our hearts, resonates through our community, repels the ignorance that would undermine our shared compassion, and returns to our hearts to rekindle the flame.

We light the menorah to remind us there is light in the world. The candles are iconic, a visual metaphor of commemoration. We are the light when we choose to be, when we empower each other, when we stand by each other, when we commit to build a better day as the reason for the season.

I deeply, profoundly thank you for reminding me what is too easy to forget, that our work is never done. It is best done together when we show each other how much we care.

I believe it’s one part coincidence and one part fate that today is both Christmas and the eighth night of Hanukkah. Whatever you are celebrating, or even if you’re not celebrating but just contemplating the potential for good in our troubled world, I write today to assure you it’s there if you look hard. People will surprise you out of nowhere if you let them.

So let that be.

As I wrote to my social media community: Stay vigilant, teach all who come your way the beauty of diversity, the power of compassion, and the healing strength of love.

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Photo: Pixabay

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Are You Smarter Than Elon Musk?

I’ve written before about Elon Musk. He’s impressive on many levels, but he needs a bit of humbling on behalf of his peer group. He knows what he knows. He doesn’t know more.

I don’t need Elon Musk to teach me about free speech. He doesn’t have the credentials.

I also don’t need Mark Zuckerberg to teach me about community, openness, or how we’re going to live in the meta future. He’s a guy who sells online ads. He’s not a futurist.

The opinions of these people outside their realms of expertise aren’t just conflicted; they are arrogant, self-serving, naive, and potentially dangerous.

Wisdom is not fungible. Insight is not fungible. A person can be really good at something and nothing else. They just don’t know it, or perhaps they choose to embrace a platform of pretension. Self-aggrandizement is often a spoil of war.

A thought leader with demonstrable success in one category has no de facto claim to distant adjacencies. A celebrity, even a business celebrity, doesn’t become a subject matter expert beyond their recognized success simply by claiming the public microphone and turning up the volume.

Knowledge is not transferable by sheer force of will or cult of personality. An ego like Musk would have you believe he can layer meaning where none exists. An agenda is not the same as a common belief set, or even a clearly defensible philosophy.

Your opinion of what constitutes the normal social limits or lack thereof around free speech is every bit as valid as that of Musk. He can spend billions and buy anything he wants, but that does not make him right, only influential. He can call himself a free speech absolutist, but he made that up. It’s a pithy expression meant to draw attention to himself, but consider Los Angeles Times writer Michael Hiltzik’s extrapolation of Musk’s mandate in a more chaotic application of the extreme unleashed:

“If that means that users will be able to post anything they wish on Twitter, no matter how redolent they are of ‘sexual harassment, group harassment, insults or name-calling, posting private info, threatening to expose private info, violent event denial, violent threats, celebration of violent acts’ or any of the other violations of Twitter rules that currently allow the platform to shut down an account, that would be bad.”

You may agree or disagree. You may say Musk has agreed to abide by the law, but his interpretation of the law may not be yours. Musk is a contrarian who finds delight in arguing against laws and has no trouble surfacing the means to challenge high court opinions in endless adjudications. As long as there remains an appeal to be had, Musk can prevail with his opinions despite the collateral damage of their impact. None of that makes him correct in the abstract, but too often the power of holding today’s authority is confused with ethical vindication.

Your point of view matters on the issue, because you have the same foundation and standing to express your own point of view. What you likely don’t have are the resources at his disposal or the same hidden agenda he is not going to publicly express. What you probably do have is a touch of measured humility, balanced perspective, and everyday graciousness for those around you.

You’re also likely not putting on a show. Healthy policy debate deserves better than purchased amplification.

Proclamations can be noise alone, or they can have severe implications. We get fooled all the time by the loudest voices in the room claiming an ask that is more than what it appears.

Rich is fine. Successful is fine. Neither offers someone transitive intellect.

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye sings, ”When you’re rich, they think you really know.” He wrestles with the irony of his dream. He wants to be sought by his fellow villagers as an all-wise sage and would gladly play that celebrated role in his community. Yet he knows from his deep faith he’s an ordinary man with or without money, not an inspired prophet.

We all have claim to an opinion. The validity of that opinion stands or falls on the credibility of its supporting argument and disciplined construct, not on the bank account or unaffiliated resume of its speaker.

If you think you know more about free speech than Elon Musk, it’s entirely possible you do. That would make you smarter than Elon Musk. I’m not sure it’s a compliment, but hold it in reserve should the foolishness you hear each day give you reason to stand up for your own well-considered belief system.

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Photo: Pixabay

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My Take On 230

A good friend on social media asked for my opinion on why Donald Trump would be so adamantly opposed to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. For years it is precisely Section 230 that has allowed him to expand his unedited voice and create his vast following. Now he’s banned on most of these platforms including Twitter and Facebook, which some would argue are at long last exerting a form of editorial oversight. Rather than hide behind their legal ability to allow him to rant, they have essentially silenced him.

Ironic, huh? Not exactly what he wanted in limiting this broad permission.

Has something good or bad happened? I think the answer is neither, but something evolutionary is unfolding, and depending on where that takes us, we can decide later like most history if it was good or bad.

Confusing stuff, no question. Let me try to unpack some of it as someone who has been working in this space almost since day one of the commercial internet.

While personally I would say my life has improved without the constant noise of Trump tweets, I’m afraid the world is not that simple. The resolution of this exercise may have frightening connotations in the abstract. Many are worried about free speech and arbitrary limits on the power of a single individual to curtail the public expression of another, which is something that matters dearly to all of us.

I’m not a legal professional by any stretch, but I don’t think a specific defense of ex-President Trump is what matters here. Trump no more understands Section 230 than he understands global trade and tariffs. He wants his speech free and speech against him controlled, like any dangerous autocrat. Let’s set him aside (doesn’t that feel great?) and think about the real risks and privileges waltzing into the arena of public discourse.

For reference, the historic 26 words that constitute Section 230 read: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

As simply stated as possible, that means the technology platforms are not liable for what they publish. They don’t want to be considered authors, publishers, or broadcasters. If the Wall Street Journal prints something that bothers you and you think is unfair or sloppy, you can sue it. Same with legacy brand survivors like CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, Us Weekly, or your local talk radio station. You can sue the person who said it or wrote it, too. If you think you have been libeled, you can sue everyone. You are way more likely to lose than win, but your case can be heard in court.

These kinds of traditional media companies have accepted the responsibility to abide by legal standards of accuracy and honesty of some sort, and they must stand by the messages they share. Mostly they print retractions when they find themselves wrong, but that doesn’t stop you from seeking damages. It’s an imperfect system dependent on evolving standards, and whether we like it or not we have learned to live with it.

If you don’t like what I say about you on Facebook or Twitter, you can sue me. You can’t sue Facebook or Twitter.

What’s the difference? Section 230.

Why is there a difference? That’s what’s about to be debated heavily.

Why was the exception created? That will also widely be debated in the months and years ahead, but having been there at the outset, my sense is that it was because federal lawmakers wanted the internet to grow. They wanted to increase free speech, so we all could bring our voices to the marketplace of ideas. They probably had an inkling some of us were wacky and would make up lunatic fringe falsehoods like QAnon, but they also knew if they held the platforms liable for everything published, very little would get published. The internet would have the same filters on it as traditional media, a funnel and a gatekeeper on opinions that limited expression with editorial oversight. They hoped for something more accessible.

Remember, this was a quarter-century ago. Better angels were optimistically anticipated.

The problem here is the division is not clean when all of our voices are collected. If the technology platforms exert no control, we have the chaos we have experienced. If they exert traditional editorial control to manage or reduce liability, all internet dialogue becomes gated, and as a practical matter, the scale of the task makes it impossible to be done by humans. That would put the editorial control at the mercy of algorithms, which at this point in their evolution given the nuance of language will be even less successful than humans.

That brings us to the present conundrum. If a platform now and again edits a comment to conform to its terms and conditions, has it crossed over to becoming an editor liable for everything else on the platform? According to current law, as private companies, these platforms have a right to state terms and conditions and assert the right to enforce them.

The real question becomes whether multiple infringements of terms and conditions can justly lead to the banning of an individual, like Trump. This is the heart of the matter: Do we want an individual company or CEO deciding who gets to have a public voice and who doesn’t?

I think the banning of Trump is going to open a huge can of worms to the platform companies because they just made policy on the fly and that can’t be extrapolated fairly.

Free speech is an interesting corollary, but only because we largely understand it must have limits to work in practice. Today we know there are legal restraints on free speech because it has been tested and adjudicated. While we now understand that a Nazi group had the right to march in Skokie, we also know that is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater. We didn’t always know that. It took a lot of time and argument to unfold and reveal itself to multiple courts. It’s been messy, and yet free speech survives.

I think we’re there with Section 230. It’s the right big idea, but 25 years later with wildly consolidated corporate power and big new media money at play, it requires a great deal of interpretation, nuance, and finesse. It’s no more an absolute than free speech. Yes, we really can disallow direct, personally threatening hate speech without fully destroying the First Amendment. The reasoning is not straightforward except in hindsight, when we consider the more pernicious alternatives.

Regulation here is our friend, not our enemy. My sense is the dialogue we need to have is not about throwing out Section 230, but reasonably debating the rights and responsibilities of social media platforms without making them liable for every post crossing their servers. Here is where it gets even more tricky, because the law clearly allows a private business to ban an individual for violation of its stated terms and conditions, yet provides very little in the way of enforcing those standards evenly beyond obvious discrimination.

One person gets banned, another does not. How does one challenge or appeal the equal application of silencing rules? In the final analysis, what ensures us or at least gives us confidence that authority is anything but arbitrary? There is no such thing as goodwill or trust when the profit motive of the platform benefits enormously from throwing kerosene on the fire of controversy—fueling viral engagement equates to generating revenue—yet it can eliminate its critics at will under the guise of decency. That is a mega problem we aren’t even close to solving!

We don’t want to make the economic consequences of our discourse addressable only at a practical level by silence. Likewise, we don’t want any business individual with a profit motive to have the power of doling out silence for convenience. Hearst had that kind of power. Zuckerberg can’t.

The Trump legacy may be the bookends that form around Section 230, which clearly are necessary because the platforms are neither fish nor fowl. This is new ground. Internet platforms are not voices per se, but the application of needed editorial standards around facts and lies does not make them voiceless. As I write often, technology advances much faster than our ability to understand its ethical consequences.

Sadly, this morass is likely to be argued largely on economic grounds, because the remedies surrounding liability are compensated in our system through cash settlement of lawsuits. The key problem with lawsuits is they favor the well-funded, and while legal, that will never approximate the ideal of fairness. I think there is a lot more at stake than whether a company might be brought to bankruptcy paying fines and settlements, which might cause it to be overly cautious, or bold and flagrant if it has deep pockets to defend itself. Financial penalties can’t be the point, be they absorbable or game-ending. There is a public-interest necessity in our ability to express ourselves. Our government has to protect that and let the business of the internet expand.

Yes, we can.

As for Trump’s point of view, he has demonstrated repeatedly that he only cares about what serves his agenda, not nuance or principle. He has succeeded in blasting open this door, but his own point of view remains self-serving. He is purposefully ignorant, a blunt object in a fragile ecosystem that requires reflection.

We are once again facing the question of whether we do truly relish the marketplace of ideas, or if this only matters when it is safe, convenient, and nominally polite. We don’t need to open the door to criminal insurrections that put our democratic nation at risk; the off switch just worked well in that regard and I’d comfortably welcome it again, if for nothing more than a badly needed time-out.

We have addressed this before, however imperfectly, and I have great faith that given the breadth of legal minds in our nation we will begin to solve it again. Trying to make it an either/or decision is a fool’s errand. We need to retain the big idea of Section 230 and add some guard rails. Once they are tested, we can adjust them. This is likely to be a combination of legislation and judicial resolution. It will be slow and complicated and evolving. It’s worth the ambiguity to sort it out carefully.

Let the real debate begin.

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Photo: Pixabay