At the NY Times, Tim Wu protests the Supreme Court's view that the editorial choices of social media platforms represent "free speech":
Over the past decade or two, however, liberal as well as conservative judges and justices have extended the First Amendment to protect nearly anything that can be called “speech,” regardless of its value or whether the speaker is a human or a corporation. It has come to protect corporate donations to political campaigns (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010), the buying and tracking of data (Sorrell v. IMS Health in 2011), even outright lies (United States v. Alvarez in 2012). As a result, it has become harder for the government to protect its citizens. . . .
In the name of protecting free speech, courts have also made it difficult for lawmakers to protect people’s privacy and repeatedly struck down efforts to protect children. For example, Vermont passed a law to prevent pharmacies from selling prescriber data in 2007, but the Supreme Court struck it down in 2011, presuming that the sale of data is a form of speech. And last summer, after California passed a law to prevent social media companies from tracking and extracting data from children, a federal court blocked it, arguing, in effect, that the surveillance of children is also a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.
The next phase in this struggle will presumably concern the regulation of artificial intelligence. I fear that the First Amendment will be extended to protect machine speech — at considerable human cost.
In our era, the power of private actors has grown to rival that of nation-states. Most powerful are the Big Tech platforms, which in their cocoon-like encompassing of humanity have grown to control commerce and speech in ways that would make totalitarian states jealous. In a democracy, the people ought to have the right to react to and control such private power, as long as it does not trample on the rights of individuals. But thanks to the Supreme Court, the First Amendment has become a barrier to the government’s ability to do that. Free speech rights have been hijacked to suppress the sovereignty of humans in favor of the power of companies and machines.
I think this is a strong argument in theory, but in practice I wonder about trusting state legislators to make these choices for us. As even Wu admits, the Texas and Florida laws in question in this case are pretty bad and might force platforms to promote the feeds of people who threaten to sue them.
6 comments:
Absolutely, everyone should have the right to express themselves, unless it's spreading hate or misinformation. We can't just let people spew nonsense and expect society to thrive. Besides, why would anyone defend the right to be offensive? It's like saying we should all have the right to scream in a library just because we can. We need boundaries for a civilized discourse, not a free-for-all where ignorance and bigotry get a platform. So yes, free speech is important, but not at the cost of common decency and social responsibility. It's a fundamental right, but let's be real: Trump and his cronies abused that privilege like kids in a candy store. They used it to spew lies, fuel division, and attack anyone who dared to disagree. It's like they thought 'free speech' meant 'free rein to bulldoze truth and decency.' Sorry, but shouting 'fake news' doesn't make it okay to spread conspiracy theories. So yeah, let's defend free speech, but let's also call out those who weaponize it to manipulate and mislead the masses. We can't let democracy become a playground for bullies.
The Court does have a strange, and very liberal interpretation of speech. All too often it equates wealth to speech, as it did in Citizen's United and in McCutcheon. The more money you have the more speech you have. Weird! But then the older I've gotten the less pleased I have become with the idea of speech uber alles. Now I believe there should be restrictions on where and when people can assemble to express themselves. I thought Skokie was a horrible decision, not because of what the nazis said or represented, but because of where they were permitted to march. I don't think you should be allowed to assemble in the street in front of a person's home to protest. You can say what you want but not anywhere you want sounds more reasonable to me. I also think we should be less tolerant of ad hominem lies, especially now with social media's ability to gang up on someone. The standard for slander (and libel) should be easier to meet. It was good to see Alex Jones get what he so richly deserved, but even that took too long to get satisfaction.
I'm not interested enough to research the incidents mentioned, but usually it turns out the issues involved are more involved than presented.
Rival the power of nation-states? Perhaps he means corps have undue influence over governments, legislators, and regulators because of the money they spread around? They are powerful, but they don't control human rights, imprison or execute you, conscript you, redistribute wealth, or control interest rates or cash flow. Remember how quickly the powerful (and guilty) corporations fell in 08/09? Remember them begging the nation-state to save them? Remember all the non-guilty corps perishing as credit dried up? But also remember that they also have influence because of the number of jobs they create and the products they sell, perhaps two reasons why they should have influence.
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@Shadow
"Rival the power of nation-states?" Yes, indeed.
If corporations were countries, Walmart would clock in at 10th place on a list of annual national revenues.
Of the top 100 spots on such a list, 69 of them would be corporations, with only 31 being actual countries.
Corporations exert MASSIVE influence over governments, legislators, and regulators, because they control such insane amounts of wealth. Entire national economies rely on the willing cooperation of corporations to function properly. Political campaigns rely on corporate donations to remain competitive in elections. Politicians are terrified of offending corporate interests, because they cannot afford to be cut off from access to those resources. They are beholden to billionaires.
Poor or small countries in particular are at the mercy of corporate interests. You can find many stories of countries being pressured to rewrite their own laws - sometimes their very Constitutions - at the behest of corporations who threaten to withdraw operations from said countries, which would upend entire economies in the process, causing national economy recessions, depressions, or worse.
It happens here in America as well. The oil companies capitalized on the outrage over 9/11 to push for the invasion of Iraq. They hired their own private mercenary army for the war - an army that was not subject to American law, and which could not be held accountable to Iraqi law because the local government had been overthrown. This mercenary army perpetrated widespread atrocities, massacres, and war crimes, and they escaped facing justice for all of it.
These mercenaries were the infamous Blackwater Company (quietly renamed to "Xe Services" in 2009 to escape negative associations from the massacres and war crimes they perpetrated in Iraq; then renamed again in 2011 to "Academi" when they got bought out; then renamed a third time to "Constellis" in 2014 after getting bought out again). They are still operating here in America. They are, in fact, still working as "contractors" for the US government to this day. When four high ranking employees were convicted of what few crimes they could be tried for in American courts, they were granted full pardons by Trump during his presidency. Because of course they were.
Not only does our country allow corporate mercenary companies to EXIST and to operate freely in America; but those same mercenaries can wantonly slaughter civilians under the auspices of the American military's operations in a foreign country, and our government will not only keep employing them, but will also pardon them and spare them punishment for their murderous evil. Because our government is afraid of what might happen if we don't please the corporate overlords.
They may not directly, formally control human rights, or possess the power to imprison people, execute people, conscript people, etc. But they indirectly, informally do. It's much the same as how someone hiring / blackmailing a hitman to kill a chosen victim is still a murderer, even if they don't pull the trigger themselves.
"These mercenaries were the infamous Blackwater Company . . ."
My understanding is Biden just signed off on sending contract soldiers to Ukraine. Approved by the state. Anyone else hear that?
@Shadow
Rumors are less than worthless. Cite facts, sources, etc, please.
There are lots of foreign volunteers fighting in Ukraine, for both sides, but the only people I've seen make claims of mercenaries being hired by / for Ukraine are Russian propagandists.
Then you know less than I thought.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/politics/biden-administration-american-military-contractors-ukraine/index.html#:~:text=The%20Biden%20administration%20is%20moving,repair%20US%2Dprovided%20weapons%20systems.
This would be the first step in getting personally involved. I've been listening to alternative news sources, and one of them said he's approved this. But I'm not ready to believe these sources without another, more traditional, source also citing it. That's why I asked. That he's considering it is not in question.
We've also sent the Amphibious Assault Ship The Wasp to the Eastern Mediterranean, both to deter war in Lebanon and possibly to participate in one if one happens. The ship carries up to 1,684 troops, plus marines.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-sends-uss-wasp-assault-ship-marines-eastern/story?id=111490896#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Navy%20amphibious%20assault,according%20to%20three%20U.S.%20officials.
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