January 2021 – post insurrection
I imagine that those reading this understand what the First Amendment of the US Constitution says about speech, and they also understand what that speech that applies to. But to summarize, it protects the public from government restrictions on speech. That is all. It doesn’t force anyone to listen, nor does it force anyone to give you a soapbox to speak from. It merely says the government can’t lock you up for what you say. But even in that statement it leaves out, by omission, certain obvious assumptions about speech. As has been decided by the Supreme Court, it is fair to assume that the founders never intended for incitement to violence or speech that could cause panic to be so protected. The classic claim about falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater as an example.
The speech so protected is limited, and applies solely to Government restriction. So, when Twitter banned off their platform the further speech of the sitting US President, Donald Trump, it was not violating his free speech. It is their business, after all. And as you don’t have to let someone come into your house and scream obscenities at your children, Twitter doesn’t have to allow Trump to use their house to say what he will. They could ban anyone they like. Their decision to do so wasn’t based on his politics, but rather on his incitement of a crowd to violence that was to them, the last straw in a series of obvious and deliberate attempts to raise anger to action amongst his followers by spreading lies and misinformation. To bolster this claim, I refer to the numerous tags they added to false information tweets he has made prior to the banning. They have, just as every other social medial platform has, standards of use that give them legal right to eject you from their sites without ramifications.
Facebook and a host of other sites have done the same.
But the larger question comes to mind, how in this world of mass communication through social media is free speech supposed to be delivered if those platforms can shut you down? Could they, one may ask, eject someone simply for political speech that the platform disagreed with? Well, yes. In fact, on the alternate site Parler, it was common for them to kick off users for disagreeing with the far-right agenda they present (despite the irony in their claims of being a free speech platform). As a note, Amazon web service dropped Parler off their servers for failure to curb speech that threatened violence and promoted sedition. Another example of a private entity choosing who they do business with.
Take a walk back in history and see people picking out public corners to speak. There, so long as you were abiding by some rules, you could say what you will, a freedom you would not enjoy on someone’s private property.
And to reach a larger audience, you could find a printer will to print you message, or later a radio station, and still later a television station to allow you to have your say. And if none of those places would let you have your say through their organ, you could build your own press, etc., etc., etc.
Are we then in danger of having a corporate oligarchy controlling our ability to spread our message? Judging from what I have been easily able to access, no. Not anymore than Thomas Paine was while needed someone to print his pamphlets.
And what newspaper is required to print the opinions and positions of the public? Most accept letters to their editors, but use their own discretion which to print.
And when it comes to extreme rhetoric, what exactly is wrong with some of that speech? And why shouldn’t it be allowed? After all, In the marketplace of ideas, the truth will bear out; is a maxim long established by jurists of great esteem over the centuries. The freedom to reasonably argue ideas and debate them in open and frank discussion is at the core of intellectual honesty. Why suppress it at all? Wouldn’t it be better to hear it, and then have it countered with alternative speech?
Well, yes. I suppose it would if, and only if there were measures taken to get that alternate speech out and have it heard. False speech cannot be countered if the reply is not heard. Platforms of social media are built to exclude alternatives to speech. You see those you follow, and are fed posts that correspond to your taste. You are funneled into an echo chamber of those that agree, and away from opinions to the contrary. Such platforms tacitly limit open discussion.
But what I’m talking about here is not the free expression of ideas and your unwillingness to hear others, I’m talking about deliberate falsehoods, propaganda made and built to be fed into that echo chamber to convince people of some travesty that in fact, never happened. Propaganda.
Propaganda can be used by almost anyone. And it is certainly used by all sides to one degree of another; especially in times of war. But the idea that it should be expressed by the President and used against the other branches of government is wrong and should be restriced. And those who believe it do not have a right to hear it on whatever platform they like. But more importantly, we as a people should reject that speech and make it clear to our leaders that we expect and demand honesty and factually based information. When a person in power speaks, they should be held accountable for speaking untruths. I do not think that the application of free speech should extend to the same degree to those who are elected as it does to the public at large. When then President Trump falsely stated that the election was fraudulent and stolen from him by corruption, this should not be protected as free speech. His authority has weight, and his making that speech inspired others to accept his claim as true and act out against lawful authority as a result.
Public officials should be held to a higher standard of speech and be expected to verify the claims they make. The claims he made were actually checked and found wanting evidence. For him to continue to make those false claims should not be protected, but rather they should be viewed as incitement to lawlessness.
We curb free speech in government regularly. During war government censors blacked out parts of letters written by those in the field if they felt they might compromise the war effort. Details of location or troop strength were censored. That speech was restricted and censored. Diplomats are selected for their ability to self-censor. They must carefully gauge what they say with the understanding that their speech could cause other governments to rise to action. And if they fail to be so guided, they are removed. In short, their speech is restricted.
We must set truth as the standard for speech by those elected to lead us. And when they abuse their official platforms to make false claims and incite the masses to action against the lawful elections they should face consequences.