Category: Digital Culture

The Precarious Politics of Reigning in Silicon Valley

As our attention turned to concerns about disinformation, hate speech, and data security after the 2016 election, it became clear that the big cyber policy on deck was going to be a fight about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (1996).  For some detailed discussion about this legislation, see posts here, here, and here; but in nutshell, Section 230 shields online platforms against liability for potential harm that may result from the conduct of its users.  It is occasionally and improperly associated with copyright infringement, from which platforms are largely shielded by Section 512 of the DMCA (1998). 

Although 230 was never intended to provide blanket immunity for all sites hosting any kind of user-generated content, most courts over the 24 years since the law was adopted have interpreted it as a blanket immunity for all sites hosting any kind of user-generated content.  This includes content that may be posted for the express purpose of causing harm like harassment, defamation, revenge porn, fraud, or disinformation.  230 is the statutory reason why site owners respond with a shrug or, at best, a feeble explanation for hosting material that goes beyond mere offense, as we have seen its power to alter truth itself.  If you were mystified, for instance, by Zuckerberg’s sphinx-like reasoning that Facebook would maintain Holocaust denial pages because they are merely “misinformation and opinion” rather than “hate speech,” that was just one manifestation of the ideological flaw, which helped write Section 230 two decades ago.   

“We were naïve. We were naïve in a way that is even hard to recapture. We all thought that for people to be able to publish what they want would so enhance democracy and so inspire humanity, that it would lead to kind of flowering of creativity and emergence of a kind of a collective discovery of truth.”

Those are the words of former FCC Chairman Reed Hunt lately expressing regret for the adoption of Section 230, clearly identifying the erroneous underlying premise, which many critics now refer to as tech-utopianism.  And while it is somewhat encouraging to finally see a greater appetite for holding platforms accountable for some of their ill-effects, this mood change is anything but clearly definable.  Instead, we hear cacophony of disparate—even competing—rationales for reigning in Big Tech, and if this chaos cannot manifest as rational policy, Big Tech may win the status quo, which they spare no expense trying to maintain.   

For example, voices as incompatible as Vice-President Joe Biden and Senator Ted Cruz have both raised the specter of abolishing Section 230, but for very different reasons.  Biden and others see the liability shield as encouraging a platform like Facebook to continue hosting false information (e.g. Holocaust denial), while Cruz and other Republicans complain that social platforms are biased against conservatives.  But good luck trying to reckon with the devil in those details.

Would Biden include headlines or stories from left-leaning organizations that are inaccurate?  Would Cruz consider social media platforms removing Alex Jones, or the hosting providers dropping The Daily Stormer as examples of anti-conservative bias these days?  It becomes easy to imagine how a pragmatic and sober debate about Section 230 can get lost amid the inherent tribalism implied by just those two voices alone.

From a very different sector, David McCabe reports for the New York Times that a “motley” group of corporations, including Disney, IBM, and Marriott, are gunning for Section 230. “The companies’ motivations vary somewhat,” writes McCabe.  “Hollywood is concerned about copyright abuse, especially abroad, while Marriott would like to make it harder for Airbnb to fight local hotel laws. IBM wants consumer online services to be more responsible for the content on their sites.”

As prefaced above, note that even The New York Times will erroneously include copyright in a conversation about Section 230, though in fairness, the underlying principle—namely that no platform should ever be responsible for material published by users—is fundamentally the same in 230 as the DMCA’s 512.  Still, let us assume that especially because the Times used “Mickey Mouse” in the headline, this story will be interpreted by many as “Copyright maximalist Walt Disney Company wants to break the internet again,” or something to that effect.  And viola!  We are no longer having a conversation about platform responsibility. 

In a similar vein, the Center for Democracy and Technology published an article on its site criticizing a proposal introduced by Sen. Graham to combat child sexually abusive material online; and the article and associated tweet exploits distrust for both Graham and Attorney General Barr as reasons to fear the proposal itself.  Sure, I personally think Sen. Graham is the most prominent wuss in America today; and Bill Barr is batshit crazy, spluttering his views that people without religion lack moral judgment, but …

I don’t trust the folks at CDT either because they are ideologues too—OG tech-utopians who just happen to receive significant funding from Google.  (That, and I am very much opposed to child sexually abusive material.) So, whether the harm that needs addressing is child exploitation, revenge porn, online harassment, or mass disinformation campaigns, if we want to cope with any of these still somewhat novel challenges, we just might have to entertain the possibility that a sound policy proposal will come from some party we do not like in a different political context.

The subtle irony in this last example, of course, is that the folks at CDT would probably never entertain the notion that blanket platform immunity has been a major catalyst to creating the alternate realities that people like Graham and Barr now occupy.  That’s not a partisan view—Senator Wyden is probably Big Tech’s greatest ally in Congress, and I unequivocally called him a liar with regard to the CASE Act—it’s the view of someone who, like many Americans, is weary of policy discussions in which outright bullshit is given equal weight to evidence-based theory and practice.  And with respect to Reed Hunt’s observation, this was an inevitable consequence of giving every citizen a megaphone; but platform immunity like Section 230 is the reason Zuckerberg will call outright bullshit like Holocaust denial an “opinion.”  

Pardon Our Appearance – “Guest Post” by Helena Handbasket

David knows of course that it is the start of a new year—a time when one is expected to write some kind of review of the year gone by and/or a few thoughts anticipating the year to come.  But as 2019 careened toward the obligatory crescendo of December’s final days, I would find him staring blankly at his computer monitor muttering, “We have abandoned all reason” over and over.  I poked him with a cocktail fork a couple of times and wafted small-batch bourbon under his nose but was unable pierce the veil of his melancholic gaze.

I cannot say that I was very surprised to find him in this gloomy state.  Given that the editorial nature of The Illusion of More is a skeptic’s view of tech-utopianism—namely the proposal that the information age is actually improving democratic societies—the events of 2019 can leave one in a fumbling search for enough consensus on the truth just to begin a discussion grounded in reason.   At the start of the New Year in 2017, in the wake of the “techlash” following the last election, David wondered whether people might take a more sober approach to the belief that social media was elevating political discourse.  And to some extent, this sobering did occur.

I know, for instance, that he expressed enthusiasm for the number of stand-up comics—Chappelle, Gervais, Sleshinger, Jeffries to name a few—who were eagerly riffing on the theme that social media beckons the ill-informed and self-righteous.  I even caught him almost break a smile at the opening of Ronny Chieng’s performance, in which (after mocking anti-vaxxers), the Singaporean comedian says,  “Yo, the internet is making people so fucking stupid.  Like who knew that all human knowledge could make people dumber?”  Indeed, who would have thought that?, David muttered.

If I had to pinpoint a moment when I began to notice David yielding to his taciturn despondency, I think it was while he was watching congressional hearings in September.  Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin referred to executive privilege (in context) as imaginary “like the tooth fairy,” to which Lewandowski responded sarcastically, “Thank you Congressman.  My children are watching.”  

David muted the television and, tilting his head like a contemplative Weimaraner, asked, “Is Lewandowski saying that children young enough to believe in the tooth fairy are watching committee hearings on Capitol Hill?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “As I certainly do not know the Lewandowski children.”

“Fair enough,” he said, content to let it go for a moment, but then continued, “Okay, but if these political prodigies have in fact chosen C-Span over Clifford, can’t we assume that they have figured out the whole tooth fairy thing?”

“I suppose that would make sense,” I said, “but why does it matter?”

“Because barring those considerations,” David pressed on, “Lewandowski is suggesting that Members of the United States Congress, while conducting the business of the nation, should not speak metaphorically in any way that might disabuse juvenile viewers of their mythical, childhood fantasies.  Or by “his children” did he mean the flock, whose blind adulation of the president demands clinging to illusions no less fictional than the tooth fairy?”  And then, without saying another word, he left and drove to the liquor store.

The Lewandowski/Raskin exchange was a tiny moment of political theater in the scheme of things.  But I suppose David found it both characteristic and symptomatic of the twenty-year acid trip we have been on since the dawn of the digital revolution—an acute example of raw insanity that has become normal conduct for people in positions of influence.  Upon his return with a bottle of Polish vodka, David played The Clash at an impolite volume and presumed to do what he called “writing” for about an hour—an intermittent ack-ack of plastic keys between fits of scatological outbursts and the replenishing of ice cubes in the glass.  He managed to produce the following …

Those in positions of authority and leadership have utterly failed to meet the challenge of galloping bullshit in the digital age.  Instead, they brought bigger shovels.  For instance, what began as bi-partisan congressional hearings to investigate the nature of the Russian hack and disinformation campaigns in the 2016 election soon mutated into a Trumpian (I cannot call those politics Republican) narrative in which Facebook et al should be sanctioned for kicking “conservatives” like Alex Jones off its platform.  

That inversion of the whole purpose of oversight (i.e. to mitigate raving lunacy in public discourse) was a prelude to two major events in 2019:  the Republican party unanimously shedding any hint of integrity in response to a clear abuse of power by the president; and Mark Zuckerberg declaring that the utopian promise of social media can still be fulfilled if we just give the experiment more time—and more of our data.  It was hard to miss the visual of Zuckerberg fiddling at Georgetown while the Capitol in the background was beginning to smolder.

Of course Zuckerberg seized the moment to double down on the tech-utopian narrative in his October speech.  As long as we remain neatly organized into our various competing realities, we can never effectively hold a platform like Facebook accountable for profiting from disinformation.  There is no disinformation because there is no information.  This is exactly why some 40% of Americans will nod, or at least shrug, when Donald Trump says that he knows better than generals, scientists, economists, State Department officials, the FBI, the CIA, etc. about any topic we can name.  Of course this brand of mad hubris works in the digital age:  it is a politics of memes.  The pinnacle of tech-utopianism.

That was probably about when The Clash was exchanged for The Smiths; at least half the vodka was gone; and David slipped back into a dejected silence—a state in which he is frankly a prick, so I left him to it.  But about thirty minutes later, he came bursting into the other room, having read an article by Joseph Bernstein about the failure of the digital age to deliver a new enlightenment.  Reading from his tablet, he quoted, “When they opened their eyes, they did indeed see that the Digital Nation had been born. Only it hadn’t set them free. They were being ruled by it. It hadn’t tamed politics. It sent them berserk.”  

This was ringing in 2020 for The Illusion of More.  Please pardon our appearance.  Restoration is in progress. 

Posted on by Editor

Promoting Progress in the Digital Age

progress

Over the past three years since the internet industry first had to respond to the so-called “Techlash,” various comments on the theme that “the internet didn’t turn out like we expected” have generally shared one common flaw—a failure to acknowledge that the expectation itself was folly.  Whether parties are debating the amount of moderation that should or should not be done by a platform like Facebook; or whether breaking up the internet giants to foster competition would ameliorate the negative effects; or whether curtailing liability shields and treating platforms like publishers would do the trick, the big lightbulb that has not dimmed nearly enough is the original assumption that more people expressing, sharing, posting more stuff could only benefit the world.  All evidence points to the contrary.

When I started this blog in the Summer of 2012, I was partly motivated to advocate artists’ rights (copyrights) against the agenda of Silicon Valley, but I was also skeptical that the underlying assumption justifying the abrogation of those rights—that the information age was fulfilling its promise—was true in any meaningful way.  I asked at the outset whether the internet, as it was shaped since the 90s, was in fact empowering our better angels and ushering in a second Enlightenment grounded in science; or whether it was more effectively aggravating our worst instincts and undermining the pillars of republican democracy.  

In this context, I use the word science in its broadest sense to encompass the principle of a politics rooted in knowledge and reason, and this expansive reading is roughly how we have interpreted Madison and Pinckney’s use of the word science in writing the constitutional clause that gave Congress the authority to adopt copyright law.  This is why the tech-utopian assumption that the internet would bring about the aforementioned second Enlightenment is directly tied to the anti-copyright agenda. 

What authors of works see as the protection of their rights, the digital-age copyright critics characterized as barriers to access, rent-seeking mechanisms, and corporate gatekeeping, all of which results in what they call “artificial scarcity” of expressive and informative works.  Hence the critic’s logic that “free” digital distribution inherently abridges—if it does not simply obliterate—the original purpose of adopting copyright as an incentive to produce and distribute works of science.   

Bizarrely, this utopian narrative persists despite the fact that the United States has now arrived at an existential crossroads.  Mired in what some observers have gravely termed a “cold civil war,” we are officially a nation divided and sub-divided into separate realities; and relatedly, our so-called “age of information” is witnessing an unprecedented volume of brain-drain at the highest levels of government and public service.  While the owners of the major platforms double down on their idealistic talking points, the real world increasingly resembles the worst corners of cyberspace, complete with mob-like assaults on expertise, professionalism, and patriotism for the sake of what can only be described as the cult of Trump.  

In the space of two years, the Republican Party has abandoned its own core principles, sloughing off actual conservatives, and even going so far as to faithlessly attack the characters of career service professionals who have risked their lives for American interests.  And all because they are afraid of being the targets of a presidential tweet.  “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth,” Lincoln wrote to Congress in 1862.  So, is it really conceivable that a century and a half since the Civil War, the party that used to call itself “the party of Lincoln” will allow the Republic to falter because an illiterate mean-girl wearing a tinfoil crown has a Twitter account?  Talk about going out with a whimper.

It is presently unavoidable to blame the GOP for this particular moment of history-altering fecklessness but also worth remembering that thanks in no small part to social media, my friends on the left helped loosen the bolts on many of the same girders this administration is now dismantling.  It may be shocking to watch Members of Congress disrespect public servants like Lt. Col. Vindman, Dr. Hill, or Ambassador Tayor, but it was not very long ago (2014) that, for example, Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, wrote for the decidedly-conservative Federalist, “I fear we are witnessing the ‘death of expertise’: a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers – in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all.”

To a great extent, Nichols seemed to be addressing a progressive-leaning constituency of netizens who, just like many latent Trump supporters, dismissed authority, expertise, and experience as “elitist.”  And they still do.  So let’s not pretend the GOP is alone in amplifying and weaponizing internet conspiracy theories like the “deep state.”  Mainstream media, the intelligence community, the military—even the U.S. Copyright Office!—have all been generically maligned as “the government” by disparate constituencies—as if the government did not already comprise thousands of people just like Vindman, Hill, and Taylor. 

By contrast, all that ebullient swooning a few years ago over data-dumpers like Assange, spraying their cans of sunlight, was naïvely perceived as leaking truth to power.  But what that illusion of access really achieved was an erosion of faith in the same professionals now having their patriotism questioned for political gain.  Likewise, bloviators like Reps. Jordan and Nunes may be the most prominent figures calling the mainstream media “puppets” and “enemies,” but let’s be real: the word mainstream as a pejorative has been used across the political spectrum to justify dismissing any career journalist who reports something that some constituency doesn’t want to hear. 

Suffice to say, the battlefield was well-softened for armies of disinformation trolls to start what former State Department official Richard Stengel calls a full-scale information war we are not winning:  

“Governments, nonstate actors and terrorists are creating their own narratives that have nothing to do with reality,” Stengel writes. “These false narratives undermine our democracy and the ability of free people to make intelligent choices. The disinformationists are aided by the big-platform companies who benefit as much from the sharing of the false as from the true. The bad guys use all the same behavioral and information tools supplied by Facebook, Google and Twitter. Just as Nike buys your information to sell you sneakers, the Russians bought your information to persuade you that America is a mess.”

Having dutifully fulfilled the trolls’ prophecy—because America is certainly a mess now—it is a pretty harsh referendum on the information age to watch the GOP respond to clear evidence that the President of the United States abused his office, asserting a combination of internet conspiracy theory and the eccentric proposal that Trump is too incompetent to break the law (see Sen. Graham comments).  That’s one hell of a rationale to pitch to the American people about their president, but it is astoundingly effective thanks to the “democratization of information.” 

So, no, the second Enlightenment did not happen. Science is now a choose-your-own-adventure game you can play on your mobile device, and the “illusion of agency”* provided by social media is being moderated by some over-caffeinated, professional rat-fucker in St. Petersburg.  All that being the case, perhaps the tech-industry activists who still insist that copyright is a gremlin sabotaging the promise of the internet, might find some better targets for their censure than the authors and artists of the world.

*All credit to Neil Turkewitz for this expression.

Unicorn illustration by julos.