On March, 25th 2022, business magnate and entrepreneur Elon Musk used his Twitter account to conduct an open survey, which eventually got over two million responses. The question ran as follows: “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” Seven out of ten respondents thought Twitter did
I have to admit I'm pretty disappointed with this analysis — from a person I take regards himself as a virtue ethicist. Of course free speech is an issue, but what is at issue here is how to construct it. I appreciate the matter of free speech is salient to you given your circumstances, and, at least from what I've seen, I think you have been badly done by.
But all the social media sites began as free speech sites and I expect, other things being equal, would prefer to be that way. But they've been confronted with the dilemma of what speech to allow. Thus the platform you're now on — Gettr — bans porn and just banned a white nationalist — presumably for being a white nationalist.
The hyperconnectivity of the web is posing huge problems for our society of precisely the kind that, it seems to me virtue ethicists have more to say than most people. I've had a go on another subject here https://quillette.com/2019/02/16/polarisation-and-the-case-for-citizens-juries/ though I hope you can see some parallels between what I talked about and your subject here which is how to govern social media platforms.
OK I’ve had a look at the piece you sent me. Yes, I am aware that mass social media is a very messy and ethically compromised method of dialogue and deliberation, with lots of pitfalls. I focused in the article on limiting the damages of censorshio which render social media even more toxic than it may already be. But you’re right, I need to draw attention to the structural and cultural limitations in our current public sphere. Even if censorship of ideas is lifted, these remain and need to be tackled.
I'm not sure the way you've cast the issue — of coming up with the right rule — satisfies me. I think we have two sides of a debate and a very difficult, evolving situation and both sides are impatient — impatient to get to the answer using the puny intellectual tools at their disposal. One side has some bowdlerised critical theory quickly shunted into a bureaucratic system. The other has the Enlightenment idea that a universal rule is the way to solve this.
All fair enough — I can't say I have any quick response that's better. But we could at least dwell on how inadequate these things are. We learned from the USSR and perhaps from the French terror that you can have any rule you like, you also need a culture which honours and supports the values from which it comes. Right now it's pretty obvious that neither the silicon valley digital overlord, nor the serfs at the edge of their social networks give too many figs for any of that.
So the wider task, it seems to me, is not to agree on some RULE that can be imposed and is the best we can design. That's the problem Twitter has I guess and the problem which they've got you to suffer from — they've applied a rule that suits them. It is to ask ourselves how we can rebuild sufficient trust and goodwill between people in both the digital and analogue world that would make the mutual respect between people AND THE RESPECT FOR VIGOROUS CONTEST IN IDEAS live vividly in our lives.
At least as far as I understand it, virtue ethics was an attempt to get away from modes of modern ethical thinking that reach up to a singular apex principal. (https://www.abc.net.au/religion/altruism-economics-and-the-need-for-the-virtues/12605938). What is the alternative? Some attempt to engage human being's ethical sense more directly — not through a pyramid of sovereignty at the top and accountability to the top all the way down that pyramid, but in small communities which might come up with different answers.
Of course that doesn't work on a global network so both you and Twitter have the same problem — though you'd solve it differently — you both need a singular rule. I think neither of you properly problematise what the rule should be. You say it should be 'free speech'. I'm not so sure. I was once the chair of an online news site (https://onlineopinion.com.au/) and the editor published a piece that entertained the idea that black people were dumber than white people. I didn't object to the idea being expressed, but I did insist that, to be published, the article should show a degree of moral and intellectual seriousness that the article palpably did not show.
The reason I think you have been hardly done by is that your seriousness on both counts shines through. But I don't have a problem with Twitter 'banning' 'disinformation' of which there is a great deal. I'd add that my guess is that most (not all) of Twitter's behaviour is explained by the fact that it's run by profit maximising bureaucratic decision makers. There's an obvious ideological slant to the decisions it takes, but in most large organisations, ethics usually ultimately comes down to PR. (Think of the utterly outrageous sacking of James Damour(?) from Google for confidentially circulating a well argued position that turned out to be a PR problem — SACKED! Stunning. There too there was an ideological trigger, but the real action was that the senior people wanted to 'move on' from some tricky PR — including internally.)
In your case with Twitter, I suspect it wouldn't warm to my 'rule' because it's both messy and expensive to administer and it wouldn't be easily understood out in the world.
My own hunch for a way to work to a better solution is to say that the CULTURAL rules on a dominant social platform should be constructed within the community in some way. One could do this with a mix of sortition and what I call 'de-competitive' merit selection mechanisms as outlined in this piece (https://www.themandarin.com.au/83008-leadership-without-careerism-possible/). And why not allow a number of experiments be run where different sortition based groups come up with different approaches in different parts of Twitter — perhaps divided by subject matter, geography or one might come up with some other criterion (every one would be easy to quibble with!)?
Fascinating. I don't think we can avoid reliance on rules but I do agree that the application of those rules depends on a storehouse of wisdom and virtue, and breaks down when reductive legalism comes on the scene. You have given me a lot of food for thought which I will need to digest. In the meantime, I've made some changes to the article to reflect some of the concerns you have raised. This is what I love about Substack. That an author can get quick and thoughtful feedback from readers and grow!
I have to admit I'm pretty disappointed with this analysis — from a person I take regards himself as a virtue ethicist. Of course free speech is an issue, but what is at issue here is how to construct it. I appreciate the matter of free speech is salient to you given your circumstances, and, at least from what I've seen, I think you have been badly done by.
But all the social media sites began as free speech sites and I expect, other things being equal, would prefer to be that way. But they've been confronted with the dilemma of what speech to allow. Thus the platform you're now on — Gettr — bans porn and just banned a white nationalist — presumably for being a white nationalist.
The hyperconnectivity of the web is posing huge problems for our society of precisely the kind that, it seems to me virtue ethicists have more to say than most people. I've had a go on another subject here https://quillette.com/2019/02/16/polarisation-and-the-case-for-citizens-juries/ though I hope you can see some parallels between what I talked about and your subject here which is how to govern social media platforms.
OK I’ve had a look at the piece you sent me. Yes, I am aware that mass social media is a very messy and ethically compromised method of dialogue and deliberation, with lots of pitfalls. I focused in the article on limiting the damages of censorshio which render social media even more toxic than it may already be. But you’re right, I need to draw attention to the structural and cultural limitations in our current public sphere. Even if censorship of ideas is lifted, these remain and need to be tackled.
Thanks for your feedback! I will make some appropriate qualifications to the argument.
I'm not sure the way you've cast the issue — of coming up with the right rule — satisfies me. I think we have two sides of a debate and a very difficult, evolving situation and both sides are impatient — impatient to get to the answer using the puny intellectual tools at their disposal. One side has some bowdlerised critical theory quickly shunted into a bureaucratic system. The other has the Enlightenment idea that a universal rule is the way to solve this.
All fair enough — I can't say I have any quick response that's better. But we could at least dwell on how inadequate these things are. We learned from the USSR and perhaps from the French terror that you can have any rule you like, you also need a culture which honours and supports the values from which it comes. Right now it's pretty obvious that neither the silicon valley digital overlord, nor the serfs at the edge of their social networks give too many figs for any of that.
So the wider task, it seems to me, is not to agree on some RULE that can be imposed and is the best we can design. That's the problem Twitter has I guess and the problem which they've got you to suffer from — they've applied a rule that suits them. It is to ask ourselves how we can rebuild sufficient trust and goodwill between people in both the digital and analogue world that would make the mutual respect between people AND THE RESPECT FOR VIGOROUS CONTEST IN IDEAS live vividly in our lives.
At least as far as I understand it, virtue ethics was an attempt to get away from modes of modern ethical thinking that reach up to a singular apex principal. (https://www.abc.net.au/religion/altruism-economics-and-the-need-for-the-virtues/12605938). What is the alternative? Some attempt to engage human being's ethical sense more directly — not through a pyramid of sovereignty at the top and accountability to the top all the way down that pyramid, but in small communities which might come up with different answers.
Of course that doesn't work on a global network so both you and Twitter have the same problem — though you'd solve it differently — you both need a singular rule. I think neither of you properly problematise what the rule should be. You say it should be 'free speech'. I'm not so sure. I was once the chair of an online news site (https://onlineopinion.com.au/) and the editor published a piece that entertained the idea that black people were dumber than white people. I didn't object to the idea being expressed, but I did insist that, to be published, the article should show a degree of moral and intellectual seriousness that the article palpably did not show.
The reason I think you have been hardly done by is that your seriousness on both counts shines through. But I don't have a problem with Twitter 'banning' 'disinformation' of which there is a great deal. I'd add that my guess is that most (not all) of Twitter's behaviour is explained by the fact that it's run by profit maximising bureaucratic decision makers. There's an obvious ideological slant to the decisions it takes, but in most large organisations, ethics usually ultimately comes down to PR. (Think of the utterly outrageous sacking of James Damour(?) from Google for confidentially circulating a well argued position that turned out to be a PR problem — SACKED! Stunning. There too there was an ideological trigger, but the real action was that the senior people wanted to 'move on' from some tricky PR — including internally.)
In your case with Twitter, I suspect it wouldn't warm to my 'rule' because it's both messy and expensive to administer and it wouldn't be easily understood out in the world.
My own hunch for a way to work to a better solution is to say that the CULTURAL rules on a dominant social platform should be constructed within the community in some way. One could do this with a mix of sortition and what I call 'de-competitive' merit selection mechanisms as outlined in this piece (https://www.themandarin.com.au/83008-leadership-without-careerism-possible/). And why not allow a number of experiments be run where different sortition based groups come up with different approaches in different parts of Twitter — perhaps divided by subject matter, geography or one might come up with some other criterion (every one would be easy to quibble with!)?
Fascinating. I don't think we can avoid reliance on rules but I do agree that the application of those rules depends on a storehouse of wisdom and virtue, and breaks down when reductive legalism comes on the scene. You have given me a lot of food for thought which I will need to digest. In the meantime, I've made some changes to the article to reflect some of the concerns you have raised. This is what I love about Substack. That an author can get quick and thoughtful feedback from readers and grow!