A briefing from Google says that Google should reduce free speech in order to favor "civility". Google claims that the briefing is merely research but it reveals Google's biases.
The utter cluelessness or dishonesty, take your pick, of Google is evident in the briefings title:
"The Good Censor
How can Google reassure the world that it protects users from harmful content while still supporting free speech?"
Every censor from those employed by the Soviet Union to those employed by the modern Left always think that they're doing good by keeping evil from the people. The problem is that one man's evil is another man's good. To the Nazi's the truth about Jews was evil whereas to good people the truth about Jews was good. Similarly today to the Left the truth about Kavanaugh is evil and harmful.
The whole idea that a bunch of historically, politically, and philosophically illiterate computer programmers know better than the people what the people should see is missed placed paternalism at its most extreme.
To leftists it's likely that a picture of an unborn child butchered in the third trimester because her mommy wanted a boy is "harmful" content as is a post that points out what a great job Trump has done in reenergizing the economy.
The presentation goes on to say:
"...debates about who can and should be heard on the internet rage like never before."
But the only people who are debating that are the left-wing wanna be censors. Conservatives have never called for silencing voices, other than those who are actually committing crimes like sharing child pornography or recruiting terrorists, not even voices of the modern fascist left.
The briefing then gives lots of reasons why free speech is good followed by examples of why it's not. Interestingly many of the reasons it's not are that political views that the left doesn't like get heard. Many of the other "reasons" have to do with platforms conforming to government censorship--which is hardly a reason to support censorship--, the display of age inappropriate content--something that can be controlled without censoring what adults can access--, and the live casting of a shooting-- something that can be controlled without hindering free speech.
The next point is that users, that's you and me, are behaving badly. Those evil users--who in other industries would be called customers since they generate all of Google's revenue-- troll, they intimidate, they type "hate" speech--whatever that is--, they harass people, they are racists--who of course are always white-- and they vent. That's right venting is cause for suspending free speech according to Google.
The insane conclusion that the briefing cites is from Jason Pontin a journalist and former editor of MIT's Technology Review magazine who says:
"...in the absence of rules and consequences, everyone has behaved maximally badly."
The conclusion is insane because clearly everyone hasn't behaved maximally badly. In fact anyone who uses social media knows that there are plenty of reasonable voices albeit they almost always are on the right. Further the vast majority of users who are just random folk are civil.
Further Pontin is wrong because there are rules and consequences today. If a teacher tweets that someone should kill Justice Kavanaugh she will lose her job for example.
What Pontin appears to really be saying is that there are no rules against or consequences for writing things that people like Pontin don't like. Reading the whole briefing makes it clear that while a few examples of mistreatment of conservatives are mentioned the problem that the briefing is addressing is mainly from the right.
The briefing then says that it's bad for someone to utter their opinion if they're misinformed. Given that Democrats say that Republicans are misinformed and Republicans point out the prevalence of #FakeNews who decides who is really "misinformed"? Leaving that decision up to the people is what free speech is all about. The left however believes that they must guide us to the "correct" conclusion because we're not smart enough to get there on our own.
The controlling nature of the slides authors comes out in this quote about why users are behaving badly:
"This [people behaving badly] is especially true when we aren't forces to empathize."
They're saying that it's bad that people aren't forced, i.e. compelled against their will, to empathize. The idea that the software nerds at Google can decide what truly empathizing means is absurd on its face. To the Left Republicans empathizing with the unborn who are killed for convenience is not really empathy; to the left only the mother who wanted a boy but got a girl should be empathized with.
The briefing goes on to attack the tech firms for "incubating fake news". The problem is of course that the Silicon Valley billionaires never view the #FakeNews pushed by places like the New York Times or the Washington Post as fake news. All but one of the "trusted" American news sources cited in the briefing are left wing propaganda machines. This reflects the bias of the report’s authors which in turn provides strong reasons why their compatriots at Google would be horrible at "unbiased" censorship.
While the briefing blames the tech giants for "Ineffective automation" that accidentally censors legitimate content they don't explain why those "errors" seem to apply only to conservative content and rarely, if ever, to leftist content. Though to be fair there is a quote from Pontin pointing out that the asymmetry exists. The problem is that the issue isn't really ineffective automation but biased, either intentionally or unintentionally, automation.
The fact that leftists are more likely to report or ban voices they don't like means that conservative content will appear to be more controversial even when the reactions of readers is the same. Essentially the rejection of freedom of speech by leftists fuels algorithms that remove free speech by conservatives but the tolerance of conservatives means that the same algorithms will leave leftist screeds untouched.
The bias of the authors also comes out in this statement:
"In response to public outcries about the accessibility of unsavory and harmful content..."
Those outcries are nearly all from the left and about political opinions they don't like; the few exceptions are about criminal activity such as terrorist recruiting or child pornography. The "public" is not uniform in calling for the hiding of opinions they don't like but the left is united in declaring that content they don't like is harmful. That's how the left justifies Antifa and college mobs silencing voices that they don't agree with. Conservative complaints have all been about the silencing of conservative voices not about demanding left wing voices be silenced.
The authors moral problem is summarized by their definition of the two positions that the tech companies are supposed to balance:
"Create unmediated marketplace of ideas
100% commit to the America Tradition that priorities free speech for democracy not civility"
vs
"Create well ordered spaces for safety and civility
100% commit to the European tradition that favors dignity over liberty, and civility over freedom."
Given that dignity and civility reside in the eye of the beholder what the authors are saying is that social media has to balance freedom and tyranny. That's right the authors are putting freedom and serfdom on equal footing as things that need to be balanced.
The conclusion of the briefing is that fairly applied censorship is good. That's precisely the idea that our Constitution rejects because as a practical matter there is no way to find censors who are fair because in a world of opinions there is no way to objectively define who is right and who is extreme.
The briefing does admit that Google et al are no longer platforms but publishers which means that they can be sued for their content. Perhaps Google's fear of losing money is a way to induce it to lean towards free speech rather than civility because if they don't censor they can't be sued.
Even if this is only research by Google it provides us with insight into how the socially disconnected techno nerds who run giant internet companies think. They're like fish in water; they are totally unaware of the leftist bias they swim in and they have no idea that they live in a bubble where dissenting voices are instantly exiled. The report’s authors are apparently unaware that the same problem they condemn, like minded echo chambers, is what they themselves live in in real life.
What is chilling though is that as Google moves forward to provide China with full censorship over Google in China, blotting Tiananmen Square out of history for example, a huge amount of money was spent researching the idea that the Internet should tilt towards tyranny rather than civility.
That the Silicon Valley "brain trust" is totally ignorant of why there can be no "benign" censorship is a real threat to the First Amendment.
This is especially true when we aren’t forced to empathize
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