Backlog: this article was written August 23rd 2018
An issue which has been doing the rounds recently online, but which has so far failed to attract much mainstream media attention in the UK, is the decision by three major tech companies – YouTube, Apple and Facebook, to ban the controversial content of Alex Jones and his site InfoWars. Those unfamiliar with Alex Jones and his work should probably take a few moments to count themselves lucky.
InfoWars is an online hotbed of frenzied political rhetoric and elaborate conspiracy theories, which in the past have included claims such as that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, that Barack Obama is the global head of Al-Qaeda, that the U.S. Government is using juice boxes to “make children gay”, and that the U.S. Air Force has in the past created weaponized tornadoes in the Midwest as part of an enduring geo-war against the American people. Come to think of it there may just be a H.G. Wells-style short story in that last one…
Back to the point: I would hope that I don’t need to spend much time debunking these theories. Yet, the major problem here is exactly how much popularity such content enjoys online. The influence that InfoWars has had in public discourse since the 2016 US election is a pressing concern, as is increasing political polarization across the West, with right and left pulling apart into angry, insular tribes.
The pressure on social media sites to act as arbiter for the content on their platforms has also been mounting as the wider political climate grows increasingly toxic. So, it is unsurprising that the Big Three mentioned above have finally brought the hammer down and issued a ban. Unfortunately, this is quite likely a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
It cannot be denied that private companies have the right to decide what is allowed on their sites, and that the banning of InfoWars will no doubt prevent the spread of much misinformation online. Some may even want to argue in favour of the ban based on a position of combatting hate speech. Certainly, this is the mantle taken by the companies themselves, who cite hate speech as the principal sin committed by Alex Jones and Co which has led to his expulsion. These points aside however, the banning of InfoWars may prove to have dangerous unforeseen consequences, and its implications for the future of free speech are bleak. The vital question which the mainstream media has failed to ask yet is this: “should private companies be responsible for deciding what does and does not constitute acceptable political speech?”
The question should not be whether the Big Three have the right to decide what is featured on their sites, but rather whether we as consumers should tolerate the censorship of political ideas in such any public forum, social media included. Consider this: the removal of InfoWars from these platforms not only removes the right of Alex Jones and his followers to speak, but also removes the right of the people to listen.
Why would anyone want to expose themselves to such naked fear mongering and paranoid conspiracy, you ask? Well, for one thing there’s considerable utility in knowing exactly what are such people are thinking, especially those with a readership large enough to help elect a President. The censoring of InfoWars does little to combat the growing popularity of right-wing populism, merely cutting off the head of the radical Hydra – forced underground and galvanised by a narrative of left-wing oppression, two heads are bound to grow back in its place.
There are other reasons to question the actual benefits of such a ban. Let’s consider for a minute a possibility (a controversial one perhaps, but a possiblity nonetheless): what if not everything Alex Jones has ever said has been entirely crazy? Can we prove categorically that there isn’t a kernel of truth hidden somewhere in the dark, labyrinthine corridors of InfoWars? Perhaps 0.01% of the content of Alex Jones’ rants have some basis in reality – perhaps less than that, but perhaps even more?
Amongst the conspiracy and rage, might there not be a small glimmer of truth which has been overlooked by the majority? In his classic defence of free speech, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill made the case for listening to the scorned and rejected dissenter. The possibility that this individual may know something that has been missed by the establishment of his day is simply too great a risk.It is therefore vital to allow him his say and give him true scrutiny, so fact can be separated from falsehood, and ideas laid bare. Alternatively, Alex Jones could have spoken nothing of any value in his entire career (a charge that can be accurately levelled at very few political commentators in reality). The point is that we cannot know, and we never will know now that the gates to the InfoWars underworld has been closed off for us “decent” ordinary folk.
There may indeed be many who have been led astray in the past by InfoWars misinformation and lies. Yet should the solution to this really be to ban such speech outright? Indeed, is there ever going to be any quick fix to human gullibility? Further, what makes tech companies qualified in deciding what constitutes incorrect or hateful speech? These are not easy judgements to make. The ambiguous nature of the terms “fake news” and “hate speech” only increases the risk of more legitimate political speech being censored in the future under the same banner.
On the surface, the limitation of harmful speech (excluding direct incitement to violence or criminal activity here) seems like a reasonable proposition. However, problems inevitably emerge, due to there being no value-neutral way of deciding on such limitations. What constitutes hate or falsehood cannot always be defined with accuracy. Inevitably, such judgements are often made through the paradigm of pre-existing, narrow political agendas. This means the imposition of one political stance over others, either through the biases of the arbiter or those of the majority which they are answerable to.
.The paternalism inherent in the decision to “protect” people from speech – both hateful and untrue, also contains the assumption that individuals are doomed to be led astray by whatever loudmouthed demagogue barks at them first. This pessimism has undoubtedly been fuelled in part by the success of Donald Trump. Many Liberals are currently suffering from an existential crisis, doubting some of the fundamental axioms of their belief system. They must now come to terms with the fact that, under the plurality of their system, people like Alex Jones can gain a huge following and Donald Trump can be elected President. Whatever lessons can be learned from the past few years however, one of them cannot be that human beings are fundamentally incapable of thinking for themselves.
We must also not conclude that people are so frail that they will shatter like glass the moment a hateful utterance is spoken. Once again, there is utility in knowing exactly what ugly beliefs reside in people’s heads. Misguided efforts to impose order on political discourse by cracking down on distasteful views, even those which express hate, may well prove suicidal for the liberal project in the long run. To counteract this, liberals need to rekindle their conviction that, despite its faults and considerable costs, the unencumbered clash of ideas in a free public forum will ultimately provide more benefits than the paternalistic interventions of “benevolent” tech moguls.
In a world where the mere mention of hate speech and fake news can cause otherwise liberal people to justify the banning of marginalized speech, what more is needed than good intentions to pave the way to tyranny? For the sake of preserving what truly matters through this existential crisis of our culture, I say let the mad dog bark.