Intergalactic Dance

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/meirl/comments/koy2cx/me_irl/

In my note, “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Tweets,”  I suggested that when you mix social media with leaders who have no concerns about spreading lies, violence is inevitable. It seems like it would be true enough, but is it?  The underlying assumption is that violence, particularly group / mob violence,  is a function of the speed at which ideas are spread and communities can be formed.  Whereas in the past this was limited by a variety of physical obstacles, in today’s digital environment, those things happen instantaneously. 

However, there is another factor at play on the path to violence: leaders.

Consider a forest fire: sometimes the underlying conditions are ripe for a blaze to erupt.  There has been no rain and all the wood and natural materials are as dry as can be.  All it takes is a little spark to set the thing off.  On the other hand, an arsonist can also come on the scene and spray gasoline everywhere and be the key factor in getting the blaze started.  I think the question at hand with regard to social media is: has the medium of the internet made the underlying conditions for violence so ripe that we’ve fundamentally reduced the amount of leadership required to get mob violence going?  It’s not to say that social media has no effect (I think it’s made things more dry, to use the metaphor), but has it truly changed the game with regard to free speech and violence?  

It’ll take a lot more research and analysis to even attempt to answer that question well. (if it’s even possible). But I think it’s worth exploring the question so we can at least be clear about the assumptions at play when we talk about regulating speech. 

The Medium:  Does the Internet Make Speech Inherently more Violent? I think the arguments in favor of this are pretty clear so I’m not going to restate them now.  And if this is true the implications are straightforward:  we’ll need more restrictive laws on speech.  But what if the internet has not fundamentally changed the nature of speech? 

The Man: What if the Capitol violence was more a result of a rare ability that leader’s like Trump have to motivate and inspire action?  Of course, social media played a part, but can we say for certain that had this occurred 30 years ago there would have been no riot?  I’m not so sure.  In this scenario it would still be right to shut Trump down, BUT it doesn’t mean we need to fundamentally change the rules of social media or free speech in general.  Censorship becomes a much more narrow proposition (in theory at least).  Here’s a good thread that expands on this point.  It defines what happened as an “omega” event.  Something extremely difficult to predict, and therefore difficult to protect against (and to be clear, this was easy to predict in weeks leading up to the riot. But not necessarily 4 years ago.)   
https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1348549664245628928?s=20

One caveat to all this is that it’s not an either/or situation by any means.  There can be social movements that grow from ground up because the cause is so clear and people need little motivation from a leader to act. And of course, leaders have stirred people to violence well before the internet was around.  Social movements, violent or otherwise, are a combination of bottoms-up actions and inspiring leaders.  But the question at hand is whether the internet has made the quality of leadership materially less important in that equation.  

I think if we’re going to be serious about policy on this front we have to be clear about the assumptions we’re making.  And I’m not so certain that the internet has made speech inherently more violent.   I think the question deserves much deeper consideration before we jump to that conclusion.  

Perhaps it was inevitable.   

This past week Twitter  banned Donald Trump.  Then Facebook and other platforms followed soon after.  Then there were cries of 1984 and that our 1^st amendment rights were at grave risk.   Are we moving towards that type of dystopian future? I think you need to look at two questions:  1)  Does Social Media inevitably lead to violence?  2) Is it a direct trip to 1984 if these companies start restricting  what people can say and do on their platforms?

1984 vs. 2021

My initial reaction to the Trump ban was “Good.” Kind of like that feeling of relief when a drunk heckler is finally dragged out of the room.  But of course, then the broader considerations start to kick in: Is this going to be a slippery slope? Can we trust corporations to do the right thing most of the time?  The answers are complex.  It is not going to be resolved with answers as simple as “private companies should have the discretion to do whatever they want” or “any type of ban is a violation of free speech or civil liberties.” We’re in new territory here (which gets to my second question below). 

But to those concerned about free speech let me just say this: We’ve only had the freedoms of the internet for maybe 20/30 years (and things like twitter and Facebook for about 15 of those).  Prior to the internet, people were not calling the US a repressive, Stalinesqe regime. Quite the opposite in fact.  Speech, in particular the ability to broadcast widely, was highly constrained by a few institutions like the major TV networks, publishers and newspapers, and then FCC regulations on top of that (remember Howard Stern?) Even with the Trump bans in place, he still has way more options to get his message out to the public today than he did 15 or 30  years ago.  

Social Media and Violence:

But I don’t deny that the path to 1984 is still a real possibility.  So I think you need to look at the  risk of keeping these platforms completely open.  Which gets to the question of whether violence is inevitable in that case.  I think the answer is Yes.  

The internet, and social media in particular, enable immediate communication with everyone, everywhere at all times.  In the past you might have believed the election was stolen.  But you would have been pretty isolated or maybe had a small group of people nearby to discuss it with.  With the internet, you find and form communities instantly.    The algorithms do accelerate this community building, but the root issue is that supporters of the most fringe theories and extreme beliefs can now find each other and build actual movements.  I’d wager that the mob that stormed the capitol this week came from all over the country, not just one town.   

Can the Show Keep Going On?

And therein lies the problem:  You’re always going to have people seeking conspiracy-theory type answers;  and there’s always going to be leaders that are willing to indulge them.  Let those two mix for long enough and violence seems inevitable to me. 

The sad thing is that for each fringe group looking to do violence, there’s probably thousands of peaceful groups and millions of people who are just happy to find communities that share their completely benign fringe quirks and interests.  The internet has been a boon for them.   But then people like Trump come along and abuse the system. But at some point the hecklers just get too numerous and loud, and the club is forced to just shut down. 

So, is moderation required? I think Yes. Can we remove the hecklers and keep the show going on? I think so.  Is it going to be easy? Absolutely  not.