Is Mandated Sideloading The Answer To App Store Deplatforming?

from the breaking-the-walled-gardens dept

Smartphone app store policies have come into focus recently, following a series of recent conflicts between app makers and app store operators (principally Apple and Google). These include the removal of conservative-oriented social media platforms Parler and Gab, and the ensuing debate about balancing free speech and harmful content. There have also been numerous conflicts over monetization, including disputes over transaction fees for digital goods and services (e.g. Epic Games), and privacy changes that affect third party advertisers (e.g. Facebook).

With scrutiny of the tech industry at an all time high, the otherwise niche issue of app store policies has become an increasingly salient part of the broader debate over digital market competition, raising the specter of new government regulation. But what is the optimal level of openness in a competitive app ecosystem, and how does public policy help achieve it? These are harder questions to answer than they seem—involving deep technical, economic, and legal issues.

A Tale of Two Smartphone Operating Systems

According to Statcounter, the global mobile operating system market is dominated by Google’s Android operating system (72% market share), followed by Apple’s iOS (27% market share). Despite having a substantially smaller user base, the Apple App Store earns substantially more direct revenue than the Google Play Store. But this is misleading at first glance.

First, there are important demographic differences. iPhone owners are more concentrated in developed nations, and even in those countries tend to be more affluent and spend more on apps. Their business models are also different. Unlike Apple, which has limited advertising offerings, Google earns substantial revenues through mobile advertising, and even pays Apple billions each year for the privilege to be its default search engine to expand the revenues it can capture. They are also designed in fundamentally different ways. Whereas iOS is a proprietary closed system, Android is (mostly) open source. Notably, there are versions of Android without Google Play or other Google services, particularly in mainland China where it doesn’t operate. Apple, on the other hand, operates the App Store on all iOS devices; and unlike Google, does business in the lucrative mainland China market.

As a result of these different architectures, a conspicuous difference between Android and iOS is that the former allows the installation of apps outside of its Play Store. This can be either through a pre-installed third party app store that ships with the device (e.g. Samsung’s Galaxy Store or the Amazon Appstore), or direct installation of apps or even other app stores, called “sideloading.” Circumventing the Play Store also means that developers can take payments without cutting Google in, typically 30%. Meanwhile, Apple requires users to go through its App Store to download apps, where it takes a similar cut.

Policymakers Respond

Grasping onto this difference, and facing pressure from lobbyists, policymakers in multiple states have proposed new legislation that would force Apple to redesign their operating system to allow circumventing both the App Store and In-App Purchase system (see similar bills in GA, ND, HI, AZ). Notably, a similar provision also exists in the European Commission’s proposed Digital Markets Act.

In theory, this sounds like a good idea. In the wake of recent controversies, many in Silicon Valley have been looking towards decentralization as the answer. Indeed, systems with more openness and interoperability tend to foster innovation and competition, and give users more freedom. The ability to install apps directly could also be an essential workaround when companies remove controversial apps, particularly where they are pressured to do so by activists or governments.

However, there are some good reasons to be wary of rushing to pass such a mandate, both as a substantial fix for digital market competition, and as a precedent for local governments dictating or overseeing software designs—something they’re not known to be particularly competent in.

Trade Offs of a Sideloading Mandate: Cybersecurity and Privacy

Suddenly forcing iOS to allow unvetted apps could introduce a flood of serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities, facilitating everything from spyware to ransomware to identify theft. Such an unanticipated requirement could pose a serious challenge to developers, potentially necessitating years of new work and investment.

A 2019 threat intelligence report from Nokia observed that Android devices were fifty times more likely to be infected than iOS, with the “vast majority” of malware distributed through trojanized sideloaded applications. Because of this risk, Android takes measures to discourage sideloading through user interface mechanisms. Google’s Advanced Protection Program also blocks sideloaded apps for this reason.

Because Android is a more open system than iOS, its privacy and security features are constructed differently. While both operating systems have some form of automated threat detection, app containerization, and other features to limit an app’s access to sensitive systems, these are architected based on different assumptions.

For Apple, a closed-system approach is at the heart of its strategy for iOS. If Apple engineers could no longer count on vetting during the app review process, they may be forced to build new redundancies from scratch, or even redesign major parts of the operating system. Because iOS isn’t open source like Android, it’s hard to tell how much of an architectural challenge this will be.

Apple’s preference for closed systems can be traced to Steve Jobs’ philosophy of end-to-end control of hardware and software, and lack of patience for consumer tinkering, going all the way back to the first Macintosh computer. In 2007, around the launch of the first iPhone, Steve Jobs described applying this thinking to iOS (then “iPhone OS”) in an interview with the New York Times:

You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore….These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them...That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy....but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.

Apple may not give you every option you might want, but it may be a worthwhile tradeoff if your priority is security and privacy, or a seamlessly integrated ecosystem. In recent years Apple’s marketing department has leaned into this as a competitive advantage, and it’s what their customers have come to identify with its brand.

There are also ways out of Apple’s walled garden. The simplest workaround is to access applications directly from a mobile web browser. For instance, if you really want to use Gab, you can create a home screen icon from Safari and access it like an app. Similarly, you can make purchases there without Apple taking a cut. There are, of course, limitations to what you can do in a mobile browser (notably third party browsers are required to use Apple’s WebKit rendering engine and, as with other parts of iOS, Apple reserves some private API functions for itself).

In the US, determined users can legally jailbreak iOS devices to sideload apps without requiring too much technical skill (here’s a handy guide). This works on most Apple devices, after which users can install a range of unauthorized apps and even app stores. But caveat emptor. Unauthorized app stores don’t do much of anything to combat malware. There are other downsides of jailbreaking, including making it much harder to update software, having certain apps break, and potentially voiding your warranty. Notably, Apple has also argued for making jailbreaking illegal.

For those that don’t want to jailbreak their device, there’s also the option to sideload apps from your computer to iOS directly through a known exploit, or through developer environments like Xcode and Testflight. With this approach you can still access third party app stores, such as AltStore or AppValley, albeit with more limitations than jailbreaking. Importantly, installing unauthorized apps through these methods can still expose you to malware.

In short, it’s not *that* hard to circumvent Apple’s restrictions on unauthorized apps if you really want to. Particularly if you’re doing something simple like trying to access an alternative to Twitter that isn’t in the App Store. But if you decide to go all the way and jailbreak your phone, you might be wise to use your banking app on a different device.

Good Reasons to Limit Local Government Control of Digital Markets

There are good reasons to be wary of governments dictating and implementing software design requirements—particularly at the state and local level. As I’ve discussed at length elsewhere, both Congress and federal agencies face serious capacity gaps for in-house policy expertise—particularly for science and technology issues. Yet, relative to states, they have a wealth of competence.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 4-10 states have legislative bodies that can be considered full-time, well-paid, and sufficiently staffed. Many states have part-time legislatures where lawmakers work other jobs and are supported by a skeleton crew of staff. Whereas Congress is assisted by thousands of support staff at legislative agencies—including the Government Accountability, Congressional Research Service, and Congressional Budget Office—legislative support agencies in the states vary widely in staffing, resources, and services offered, and generally pale in comparison. For instance, while CRS has over 600 staff with expertise in different policy areas, Arizona’s service agency has only five staff, and is also in charge of fixing the computers. State regulatory agencies likewise vary in quality, staffing, and technical competence.

Given the cross-jurisdictional nature of digital commerce, it’s less than ideal to have a patchwork of state regulations, or to allow a single jurisdiction to dictate policies for everyone (as we’ve seen with California’s costly and error-filled privacy laws). As such, if we’re truly set on creating and implementing a mandate for app store interoperability, it would be best to leave this to Congress and federal regulators.

Conclusion

Questions of interoperability policy are tricky, involving a range of tradeoffs and technical challenges. As policymakers approach these issues, regulatory humility is warranted. While iOS is almost certainly below the optimal level of openness, it’s also worth remembering that Android phones are readily available and consumers are free to choose them.

Furthermore, it’s unclear that a sideloading mandate would dramatically change the competition landscape. Even on Android, few users in the US take advantage of sideloading. Nor has the availability of this option pushed down their ~30% Play Store transaction fees. Even in the market for PC software, where users can download anything from the Internet, popular stores like Steam and GoG still charge app developers around 30%. Although some are lower, like Epic Games (12%) and Microsoft (15%), large stores clearly add value (such as through vetting and aggregation) and are not just exploiting a captive market.

Enacting a sideloading mandate to allow Parler or Gab, as some Republican policymakers may want, also isn’t a compelling argument. These sites don’t require complex API access, and it’s easy enough to access them through a mobile browser. But that’s not to say the underlying concern about speech restrictions on closed platforms isn’t legitimate in some circumstances.

Our system of government’s respect for free speech and the rule of law makes it so US policymakers have a limited ability to coerce companies like Apple and Google to take down apps. But this isn’t true everywhere. And this debate isn’t just about US consumers. For instance, Google’s transparency report indicates they complied with removal requests in Russia and Thailand for apps engaged in “government criticism.” Similarly, Apple’s transparency report shows governments, including China, have pressured or required the company to remove numerous apps. And mobile browsers aren’t safe. In some parts of the world, product design choices have implications for human rights, and for helping empower people to resist oppressive governments. 

Going back to the US, it’s not clear the sideloading mandate some states have proposed makes sense, either in theory, or how it would likely turn out in practice. Dramatic interventions in the market—such as dictating and overseeing software designs—should meet a substantial burden of proof to demonstrate their necessity and consistency with American principles governance. It’s not clear that the proponents of these proposals have overcome this burden.

But there’s also a normative question: Should Apple voluntarily embrace interoperability for iOS and allow third party app stores, alternative payment systems, and sideloading?

First, we have to consider the potential downsides. They could lose out on revenue from big apps like Fornite that can leverage alternative distribution channels, they would likely have to invest in architectural changes to their operating system, and it could weaken their reputation for security and reliability (e.g. devices your grandparents can use without accidentally downloading a virus). 

But smartphones have made a lot of progress since Steve Jobs expressed concerns about reliability and user experience in making the first iPhone in 2007. While sideloading still poses serious security risks, Android has demonstrated that it can be implemented as an option for advanced users, without compromising reliability for everyone else. Despite Android being more open, the Play Store still brings in a lot of revenue for Google, even without factoring advertising. If Apple were to move iOS towards being more open, it could also have benefits for diffusing criticism of the company, particularly as it expands its business in China and other repressive countries.

Today our phones are handling increasingly sensitive information—including our banking, identification, and health records. This makes them a valuable target for bad actors, and so it’s easy to see why many people would choose security over openness. But this can be a false dichotomy. If products are built with the right assumptions, we can have a high degree of both. This doesn’t mean risks go away; merely that users are allowed to make an informed decision to cross the guard rails and take them on.

Those interested in constructive ways to support a more open app ecosystem should also look to Cory Doctorow’s writings on “adversarial interoperability” at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This concept outlines a series of mechanisms that support permissionless competition through reforming overbearing laws like software patents, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which governs jailbreaking), and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. These changes have the advantage of improving the entire ecosystem, rather than targeting one company, deregulating protectionist policies. Steve Jobs, who first teamed up with Steve Wozniak in the 1970s to sell illegal phone phreaking gear, might even approve.

Filed Under: apps, competition, content moderation, deplatforming, mandates, sideloading
Companies: apple, google

A Few More Thoughts On The Total Deplatforming Of Parler & Infrastructure Content Moderation

from the it's-tricky dept

I've delayed writing deeper thoughts on the total deplatforming of Parler, in part because there was so much else happening (including some more timely posts about Parler's lawsuit regarding it), but more importantly because for years I've been calling for people to think more deeply about content moderation at the infrastructure layer, rather than at the edge. Because those issues are much more complicated than the usual content moderation debates.

And once again I'm going to make the mistake of offering a nuanced argument on the internet. I urge you to read through this entire post, resist any kneejerk responses, and consider the larger issues. In fact, when I started to write this post, I thought it was going to argue that the moves against Parler, while legal, were actually a mistake and something to be concerned about. But as I explored the arguments, I simply couldn't justify any of them. Upon inspection, they all fell apart. And so I think I'll return to my initial stance that the companies are free to make decisions here. There should be concern, however, when regulators and policymakers start talking about content moderation at the infrastructure layer.

The "too long, didn't read" version of this argument (and again, please try to understand the nuance) is that even though Parler is currently down, it's not due to a single company having total control over the market. There are alternatives. And while it appears that Parler is having difficulty finding any such alternative to work with it, that's the nature of a free market. If you are so toxic that companies don't want to do business with you, that's on you. Not them.

It is possible to feel somewhat conflicted over this. I initially felt uncomfortable with Amazon removing Parler from AWS hosting, effectively shutting down the service, and with Apple removing its app from the app store, effectively barring it from iPhones. In both cases, those seemed like very big guns that weren't narrowly targeted. I was less concerned about Google's similar removal, because that didn't block Parler from Android phones, since you don't have to go through Google to get on an Android phone. But (and this is important) I think all three moves are clearly legal and reasonable steps for the companies to take. As I explored each issue, I kept coming back to a simple point: the problems Parler is currently facing are due to its own actions and the unwillingness of companies to associate with an operation so toxic. That's the free market.

If Parler's situation was caused by government pressure or because there were no other options for the company, then I would be a lot more concerned. But that does not appear to be the case.

The internet infrastructure stack is represented in different ways, and there's no one definitive model. But an easy way to think of it is that there are "edge" providers -- the websites you interact with directly -- and then there's everything beneath them: the Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) that help route traffic, the hosting companies/data centers/cloud providers that host the actual content, the broadband/network/access providers, and the domain registers and registrars that help handle the naming and routing setup. And there are lots of other players in there as well, some (like advertising and certain communications providers) with elements on the edge and elements deeper in the stack.

But a key thing to understand is the level of granularity with which different players can moderate, and the overall impact their moderation can have. It's one thing for Twitter to remove a tweet. It's another thing for Comcast to say "you can't access the internet at all." The consequences of moderation get much more severe the deeper you go into the stack. In this case, AWS's only real option for Parler was to remove the entire service, because it couldn't just target the problematic content (of which there was quite a lot). As for the app stores, it's a tricky question. Are app stores infrastructure, or edge? Perhaps they are a little of both, but they had the same limited options: remove the app entirely, or leave it up with all its content intact.

For many years, we've talked about the risks of saying that players deeper in the infrastructure stack should be responsible for content moderation. I was concerned, back in 2014, when there was talk of putting liability on domain registrars if domains they had registered were used for websites that broke the law. There have been a few efforts to hold such players responsible as if they were the actual lawbreakers, and that obviously creates all sorts of problems, especially at the 1st Amendment level. As you move deeper into the stack, the moderation options look less like scalpels and more like sledgehammers that remove entire websites from existence.

Almost exactly a decade ago, in a situation that has some parallels to what's happened now, I highlighted concerns about Amazon deciding to deplatform Wikileaks in response to angry demands from then Senator Joe Lieberman. I found that to be highly problematic, and likely unconstitutional -- though Wikileaks, without a US presence, had little standing to challenge it at the time. My concern was less with Amazon's decision, and more with Lieberman's pressure.

But it's important to go back to first principles in thinking through these issues. It's quite clear that companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google have every legal right to remove services they don't want to associate with, and there are a ton of reasons why people and companies might not want to associate with Parler. But many people are concerned about the takedowns based on the idea that Parler might be "totally" deplatformed, and that one company saying "we don't want you here" could leave them with no other options. That's not so much a content moderation question, as a competition one.

If it's a competition question, then I don't see why Amazon's decision is really a problem either. AWS only has 32% marketshare. There are many other options out there -- including the Trump-friendly cloud services of Oracle, which promotes how easy it is to switch from AWS on its own website. Oracle's cloud already hosts Zoom (and now TikTok's US services). There's no reason they can't also host Parler.*

But, at least according to Parler, it has been having trouble finding an alternative that will host it. And on that front it's difficult to feel sympathy. Any business has to build relationships with other businesses to survive, and if no other businesses want to work with you, you might go out of business. Landlords might not want to rent to troublesome tenants. Fashion houses might choose not to buy from factories with exploitative labor practices. Businesses police each other's business practices all the time, and if you're so toxic that no one wants to touch you... at some point, maybe that's on you, Parler.

The situation with Apple and Google is slightly different, and again, there are lots of nuances to consider. With Apple, obviously, it is controlling access to its own hardware, the iPhone. And there's a reasonable argument to be made that Apple offers the complete package, and part of that deal is that you can only add apps through its app store. Apple has long argued that it does this to keep the phone secure, though it could raise some anti-competitive concerns as well. But Apple has banned plenty of apps in the past (including Parler competitor Gab). And that's part of the nature of iPhone ownership. And, really, there is a way to route around Apple's app store: you can still create web apps that will work on iOS without going through the store. This does limit functionality and the ability to reach deeper into the iPhone for certain features, but those are the tradeoffs.

With Google, it seems like there should be even less concern. Not only could Parler work as a web app, Google does allow you to sideload apps without using the Google Play store. So the limitation was simply that Google didn't want the app in its own store. Indeed, before Amazon took all of Parler down, the company was promoting its own APK to sideload on Android phones.

In the end, it's tough to argue that this is as worrisome as my initial gut reaction said. I am still concerned about content moderation when it reaches the infrastructure layer. I am quite concerned that people aren't thinking through the kind of governance questions raised by these sledgehammer-not-scalpel decisions. But when exploring each of the issues as it relates to Parler specifically, it's hard to find anything to be that directly concerned about. There are, mostly, alternatives available for Parler. And in the one area that there apparently aren't (cloud hosting) it seems to be less because AWS has market power, and more because lots of companies just don't want to associate with Parler.

And that is basically the free market telling Parler to get its act together.

* It's noteworthy that AWS customers can easily migrate to Oracle Cloud only because Oracle copied AWS's API without permission which, according to its own lawyers is copyright infringement. Never expect Oracle to not be hypocritical.

Filed Under: app stores, aws, cloud computing, content moderation, deplatforming, infrastructure, network stack, play store
Companies: amazon, apple, google, parler

Everything Pundits Are Getting Wrong About This Current Moment In Content Moderation

from the pay-attention dept

Since Twitter and Facebook banned Donald Trump and began “purging” QAnon conspiracists, a segment of the chattering class has been making all sorts of wild proclamations about this “precedent-setting” event. As such, I thought I’d set the record straight.

1. “Deplatforming Trump sets a precedent”

That says:

Deplatforming Donald Trump, a sitting US president, sets a dangerous precedent.

It has less to do with his views and more to do with intolerance for a differing point. Ironically, those who claim to champion free speech are celebrating.

Big tech firms are now the new oligarchs.

First of all, the only “precedent” set here is that this is indeed the first time a sitting US president has been deplatformed by a tech company. I suppose that if your entire worldview is what happens in the United States, you might be surprised. But when you look outside that narrow lens, you would see that Facebook has booted off Lebanese politicians, Burmese generals, and even other right-wing US politicians…nevermind the millions of others who have been booted by these platforms, often without cause, often while engaging in protected speech under any definition.

2020 alone saw the (wrongful, even in light of platform policies) deplatforming of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people using terms related to Iran (including a Los Angeles-based crafter’s “Persian dolls” by Etsy) in an overzealous effort by companies to comply with sanctions, the booting of Palestinian speakers from Zoom on incorrectly-analyzed legal grounds, the deplatforming by Twitter of dozens of leftist Jews and Palestinians for clapping back at harassers, and so much more.

2. “This is the biggest online purge in history!”

That says:

I’ve lost over 15,000 followers today – insane how many accounts are getting terminated in the largest online purge in history

Twitter has been purging accounts of QAnon conspiracists and other right-wing accounts over the past week or more. Many of these accounts engage in dangerous rhetoric, including encouragement of violent insurrection against a democratically elected government. It is indeed interesting, particularly when one compares it to the company’s inaction against similar rhetoric in India and elsewhere. But what it isn’t is the “largest online purge in history”—not by a long shot. I would suggest that that occurred two years ago, when Twitter kicked off more than a million alleged ISIS accounts with zero transparency and the “freeze peach” galaxy brains didn’t blink.

3. “AWS kicking Parler off its servers is a step too far/is unprecedented/marks new territory in the digital rights debate”

That says:

Companies like Amazon should either get out of the hosting business, or remain agnostic about what their customers use their services for. As a very long term user, all the way back to the beginning of S3, their move today is disturbing and unacceptable.

To be completely fair, I am of the belief that infrastructure companies play a different role than platforms designed to host user speech/user-generated content, and that decisions like this should not be taken lightly. But let’s not pretend it hasn’t happened before (to be fair, Dave Winer is not doing that, and he is quite aware of the company’s history on these matters). In 2010, AWS famously booted WikiLeaks after no more than concern from the State Department—that is, WikiLeaks hadn’t been charged with anything—kicking off a series of deplatformings of the group. But WikiLeaks is not the only example here: Sanctions—or at least some legal interpretations of them—have meant that ordinary folks from countries like Iran can’t use AWS freely either. Last January saw a massive purge of Iranian users from various platforms, likely instigated by the Department of Treasury (though thus far, we have no proof of that). Some might suggest that this is a legal requirement of Amazon, but as GitHub demonstrated this week, there are indeed workarounds for companies that care enough about internet freedom.

4. “This is communism!”

Uh no, this is capitalism. Platforms have this much power because unbridled American capitalism is what y’all wanted. It is also not “Orwellian,” I can assure you.

5. “The Google Play store/Apple store booting Parler sets new precedent.”

Uh actually, no it doesn’t. Does anyone remember that Apple forced Tumblr’s hand hardly two years ago by threatening to kick it out of the App store if it didn’t do something about the child sexual abuse imagery it was unknowingly hosting, resulting in a near-total ban on nudity and sexual content on the site? Anyone?

6. “Twitter won’t let you hashtag #1984”

That says:

Twitter won’t let you hashtag #1984, a dystopian novel about an evil Big Tech government that spies on everyone, censors and manipulates speech, punishes wrong-thought, and tortures dissidents for sport.

There’s Orwellian, and then there’s banning references to Orwell Orwellian.

Twitter has never allowed number-based hashtags, next?

Got more examples? Shoot them to me on Twitter.

Republished with permission from Jillian C. York's website.

Filed Under: content moderation, deplatforming, donald trump, precedent, pundits

Be Careful What You Wish For In Asking Silicon Valley To Police Speech Online

from the why-would-you? dept

We live in a weird moment right now where any piece -- no matter how misleading or unhinged -- seems to be able to find a publication place so long as it blames basically everything on the big internet companies and demands that they do more (or sometimes less) to stop bad stuff from happening online. There are still a few brave souls out there pointing out how problematic all of this might be, and thankfully the EFF's executive director, Cindy Cohn, has taken to the pages of Wired to explain why asking the internet to stifle speech online could backfire in a really big way. She notes that it's a reasonable emotional reaction to mass murdering assholes posting screeds on 8chan to seek to shut the site down entirely, but that comes with serious costs as well.

The hope—for some it may be a belief—is that eliminating online speech forums will help prevent future violence. This is understandable. Everyone wants to live in a country where they are safe in their local stores, at festivals, and in other public places. The vile ideas driving shooters whose actions have caused unspeakable pain and loss are in plain view on 8chan, and the thought that we could just make them go away has strong appeal.

But this is also a critical moment to look closely at what is being proposed and pay attention to the potential consequences for us all. We all rely on our internet communities for connection, information, and organizing against violence. The same mechanisms used to eliminate online forums hosting objectionable speech are all too often used to silence marginalized voices of people who have important things to say, including those drawing attention to hate and misogyny. Rules prohibiting violence have already taken down Syrian YouTube channels documenting human rights violations, while Facebook discussions by black Americans about racism they have experienced have been removed as hate speech.

She then discusses the two key tools that people have proposed for dealing with such speech online: deplatforming and increasing liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Both would have significant costs.

After the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood in Texas, we saw calls to ban forums where Muslims gathered to speak. We’ve seen hate speech prohibitions in companies’ terms of service used to silence conversations among women of color about their experiences being harassed. We’ve seen regulations on violent content result in the erasure of vital documentation of human rights abuses in Egypt and Kashmir, and domestic law enforcement brutality here in the United States. We’ve seen efforts to convince upstream providers to block information about problems with electronic voting machines and actions to protect the environment.

Both strategies also assume that we want to double down on the idea that representatives from private companies—generally underpaid and traumatized content moderation contractors, but also the creators of unmoderated forums like 8chan—should be the primary deciders about what gets to be on the internet. They also assume that there is global agreement about what should be allowed and what should be banned.

Indeed, the very fact that increasing liability under 230 might contradict efforts to deplatform individuals is something that is never discussed by those who support these moves. I know it's no fun to be pointing out that the "easy" solutions people say will solve everything aren't easy and won't solve much at all, but kudos to Cindy for doing so.

Filed Under: cindy cohn, content moderation, deplatforming, free speech, regulations, section 230

Gavin McInnes Files Laughably Silly Defamation Lawsuit Against Southern Poverty Law Center

from the apparently-the-marketplace-of-ideas-is-run-by-sjws dept

Let's just get this out of the way up top and say that I'm fully expecting this article to be overrun by the same type of folks who showed up after I criticized supposed "free speech warrior" Jordan Peterson when he filed a bullshit defamation case against a university after some of that university's employees suggested Peterson was similar to Hitler and compared him to a white supremacist. As we pointed out then, even if this was misleading, having someone have a negative opinion of you, and even suggesting you hold views you might not hold, is far from defamatory. And, suing someone for their opinion of you is very much the opposite of supporting free speech, and is an especially stupid look for people going around pretending to be free speech warriors.

And, now we have yet another similar case, this time involving Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for defamation concerning SPLC's practice of naming certain individuals and groups as "extremist" on its "Hatewatch" or "Extremist Files" lists. And, let's be clear: if you already love SPLC and hate McInnes, you're already going to think this is a dumb lawsuit. But this post is directed towards other folks as well: those who think SLPC has a bit of an itchy trigger finger in declaring someone part of a hate group (or declaring groups as hate organizations) and who actually believe (per McInnes' own claims) that he's not a racist, not a Nazi, and he's just a "humorist" promoting "western values."

If you believe that, then you have to throw out the "western value" of free speech under the 1st Amendment, because that's exactly what McInnes is attacking here, with the help of lawyer Ron Coleman. This is particularly disappointing, given that we've covered Coleman's legal work in the past, including his big trademark win for The Slants at the Supreme Court, noting that the US Patent and Trademark's office refusal to hand out trademarks based on its determination that a trademark could be "offensive" violated the First Amendment as a content-based regulation. Coleman has also been on the right side of crazy anti-free speech lawsuits in the past, including fighting back against Brett Kimerlin's famously vexatious lawsuits against critics. Of course, the fact that Coleman was part of the team who sued Google on behalf of Gab.ai for being kicked out of the Android Play Store was, perhaps, a warning that Coleman's view of free speech is a bit different than most 1st Amendment champions.

Let's be clear on this: the lawsuit is bullshit. And it seems likely to be thrown out. Unfortunately, it was filed in Alabama which has no anti-SLAPP statute, which is a reminder that (1) every state should have an anti-SLAPP statute and (2) we need a federal anti-SLAPP statute. However, the lawsuit itself is a joke. It is premised on the claim that even though SPLC's designation of a person or organization onto any of its lists is clearly a statement of opinion rather than fact, because SPLC is widely respected by some, that magically makes it defamatory. This is... what's the word again? Oh, right: nonsense.

What is relevant is that despite the considerable and substantive and justified assaults on its reputation, the SPLC Hate Designations are still so widely credited and so vigorously promoted by SPLC that they are commonly accepted, treated and understood as “official” and “factual” determinations in significant and influential ways, as intended by SPLC.

Mr. McInnes brings this action against SPLC for defaming him by use of the SPLC Hate Designations, and publishing other false, damaging and defamatory statements about him, as alleged in detail below; for its concerted, obsessive and malicious actions taken to “deplatform” Mr. McInnes; for its tortious interference with his economic opportunities; and for intentionally interfering with his contractual relationships by causing, inter alia, the termination of Mr. McInnes’s employment, an almost complete deplatforming and defunding and subjecting him to employment discrimination based on his lawful non-employment recreational activities.

You can certainly be concerned about the idea of "deplatforming" without trying to twist and misrepresent the First Amendment. But here, the lawsuit seems to suggest that an opinion turns to defamation if there are consequences from the opinion, due to the reputation of whoever is stating their opinion. Under such a theory, the NY Times should never write a negative review of a restaurant or movie ever again. A negative review of a movie might cause it to be "deplatformed" and removed from theaters faster (and perhaps not released on online platforms). To claim that this makes it defamatory is nonsense.

As if to demonstrate just how silly this lawsuit is, at one point Coleman is reduced to claim that a reference to McInnes "winkingly" making a statement is somehow false because McInnes, in fact, did not wink.

Though the Times article states that “Mr. McInnes has in recent years set himself apart from the current crop of professionally outraged right-wing pundits, not only for being able to spout aggressive rhetoric, but also for being willing to get physical at times,” it does not actually give an example of Gavin McInnes “getting physical,” instead stating, “like the president, he tends to publicly disavow all violence while winkingly insisting that he – and the Proud Boys – will never back down during a scrape.”

Mr. McInnes did not, in fact, wink while making that statement to the Times reporter.

When you're reduced to debating over the meaning of "winkingly" (note to Ron: it does not mean literally winking), you've already lost.

And, again, let's be clear: I actually think that the SPLC is way too quick in putting people and organizations on its list, and I also agree with the claim that too many people accept those lists as some sort of gospel "designation." But that doesn't change the fact that putting someone on such a list is an opinion, one that can neither be proven as "true" or "false" as a statement of fact would be. Indeed, this is part of the reason why we've long been concerned about hate speech laws, because determining what counts as "hate speech" is inherently a subjective opinion. And it's an opinion when SPLC does it, and even a negative opinion that has tremendous influence is still very clearly protected under the First Amendment.

The lawsuit struggles to focus on the impact of SPLC's opinions because that's basically all it has:

To that end, SPLC acknowledges that its goal is to destroy organizations and persons it targets as “hate groups” or as members of “hate groups” as a matter of “political struggle,” even if those targets do not qualify based on the broadly-understood definitions above.

Right, but that's the very nature of speech. The intent of free speech is to allow people and groups to try to persuade others of something. And, if that persuasion includes convincing others not to do business with you, that's fair game. It's that whole "marketplace of ideas" concept that defenders of McInnes regularly cite. Yet, here, McInnes and Coleman seem to be saying "fuck that" to the marketplace of ideas, and arguing that SPLC's just too damn good in the marketplace of ideas, and therefore needs to be censored.

What a bunch of hypocrites.

And, yes, the complaint literally admits that the listing is not a statement of fact, but of opinion. It includes an entire section entitled "Hate is in the Eye of the Beholder," which might as well be the heading on the motion to dismiss this nonsense as well. The complaint flat out admits that "hate" is a subjective opinion which by definition means that it's not defamatory.

If you can't read that section, it says:

“Hate” is in the Eye of the Beholder

While SPLC’s rhetoric routinely associates “hate groups” with actual “hate crimes,” SPLC has acknowledged that what it defines as “hate group” activity includes constitutionally protected “marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing,” and that the SPLC’s designation of a “hate group” “does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.”

Indeed, in a 2018 Washington Post article, SPLC President Richard Cohen admitted to journalist David Montgomery that it does not matter to SPLC whether the use of SPLC Hate Designations is accurate in terms of identifying conduct motivated by actual “hate,” because its use is part of SPLC’s “effort to hold them accountable for their rhetoric and the ideas they are pushing.”

This seems to imply a belief that no third party can call out activities by someone so long as those activities are "constitutionally protected." Which is nonsense. Filing a bullshit lawsuit is constitutionally protected, but I can still call it a stupid bullshit lawsuit without that being defamatory. Yet, this lawsuit appears to imply otherwise -- especially if a lot of people agreed with me that it was a stupid bullshit lawsuit (which you should, because it is).

Then there's a whole section mocking the SPLC for its fundraising activities, and how it uses its focus on declaring hate groups as part of that fundraising effort. And, sure, I actually fully agree that the SPLC deserves criticism and shouldn't be viewed as a definitive source of very much. But... none of that violates the law. Indeed, SPLC's speech is clearly protected speech under the 1st Amendment, even when I disagree with it. Honestly, so much of the complaint is just an angry screed about how McInnes (and Coleman?) doesn't like how the SPLC makes its lists and fundraises, and is especially annoyed that others take the SPLC list seriously.

So, hey guys, whatever happened to the "marketplace of ideas"? Don't like it? Go speak up about it, but don't fucking sue someone over their free speech.

Even the specific claims of defamation are pretty ridiculous. Take the first claim:

An article dated June 8, 2018 on the SPLC website by “Hatewatch Staff” entitled “Last Month in Europe: May 2018” bears the heading, “The following is a list of activities and events linked to American white supremacist, neo-Nazi, anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant and anti- Muslim groups and personalities in Europe.” The SPLC post described a May 6, 2018 event in London called Day for Freedom at which Mr. McInnes spoke, describing him as “Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys*, which SPLC lists as a hate group.”

The asterisk in the sentence is, according to the article heading, an indication that the referenced organization is “listed” as a “hate group,” although the sentence also explicitly says, “which SPLC lists as a hate group.”

The June 8, 2018 article by SPLC Hatewatch Staff on the SPLC website is false and defamatory toward Mr. McInnes because it falsely ascribes to him characteristics of SPLC’s false description of the Proud Boys, when in fact the Proud Boys are not a hate group.

I'm almost embarrassed for Coleman, who surely knows better than this. The only statements of fact that they are complaining about are (a) that McInness is the founder of the Proud Boys (which everyone agrees is true), and (b) that SPLC lists the Proud Boys as a hate group. But that's also true. SPLC does list the Proud Boys as a hate group in its opinion, and the complaint itself already admits that this is a statement of opinion. So, how is that defamatory? Answer: it is not.

Later on in the complaint, it states that an article with this sentence is defamatory:

“The Trump-inspired ‘Proud Boys,’ called the ‘Alt-Light’ by some and always seeming to be looking for a rumble, may or may not show up in sizeable numbers, although the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes, says he fullheartedly supports the rally.”

What's "defamatory" there? I kid you not:

...is false and defamatory toward Mr. McInnes because it falsely ascribes to him characteristics of SPLC’s false description of the Proud Boys, which is not “always looking for a rumble.”

I mean, that's not even accurately quoting the original article, which notes that they are "always seeming to be looking for a rumble" which makes it obviously a statement of opinion, not to mention rhetorical hyperbole.

There's a lot more like this and each one looks dumber than the previous one -- though I wonder if Coleman will now argue that that is defamatory.

Anyway, if you're concerned about the nature of "deplatforming" and you hate the SPLC and you think Gavin McInnes is the new Lenny Bruce, you should still not be happy about this lawsuit. The theories in this lawsuit are nonsense, taking statements they admit are opinion and pretending that the impact of those opinions magically makes them defamatory -- which is not how any of this works. It also seems to take non-defamatory, truthful statements of fact (such as that the Proud Boys have been called a hate group by the SPLC -- which is an accurate statement of fact whether or not you agree with the SPLC's opinion) and trying to twist that into being defamatory.

Coleman has done good work in the past, but this is an embarrassment. Of course, perhaps it's not as embarrassing as recognizing that under his own wacky legal theory, it would appear that Coleman himself regularly "defames" others:

Filed Under: defamation, deplatforming, gavin mcinnes, influence, opinion, reputation, ron coleman
Companies: splc

Platforms, Speech And Truth: Policy, Policing And Impossible Choices

from the deplatforming-and-denialism dept

Warning 1: I'm about to talk about an issue that has a lot of nuance in it and no clear "good" answers -- and it's also one that many people have already made up their minds on one way or the other, and both sides will probably not really like at least part of what I have to say. That's cool. You get to live your own life. But, at the very least, I hope people can acknowledge that sometimes issues are more complex than they appear and having a nuanced discussion can be helpful, and I hope people can appreciate that.

Warning 2: This is a long post, so I'm going to provide a TLDR at the top (right under this, in fact), but as noted above, a part of the reason it's long is because it's a complex issue and there's a lot of nuance. So I strongly advise that if your initial response to my TLDR version is "fuck you, you're so wrong because..." maybe try reading the whole post first, and then when you go down to the comments to write out "fuck you, you're so wrong..." you can explain yourself clearly and thoroughly and address the actual points in the post. Thanks!

TLDR: Internet sites have every right in the world to kick people off their platforms, and there's no legal or ethical problem with that. No one's free speech is being censored. That said, we should be at least a bit concerned about the idea that giant internet platforms get to be some sort of arbiter of what speech is okay and what speech is not, and how that can impact society more generally. But there are possible solutions to this, even if none are perfect and some may be difficult to implement, and we should explore those more thoroughly, rather than getting into screaming fights over who should or shouldn't be allowed to use various internet platforms.

So, this post was originally going to be about the choices that Facebook and other internet platforms make concerning who is allowed on their platforms, specifically in response to an interview that Mark Zuckerberg gave back in July, in which he noted that he didn't think Facebook should remove Holocaust deniers from its platform, saying:

I’m Jewish, and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened.

I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong, but I think... it’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent. I just think, as abhorrent as some of those examples are, I think the reality is also that I get things wrong when I speak publicly. I’m sure you do. I’m sure a lot of leaders and public figures we respect do too, and I just don’t think that it is the right thing to say, “We’re going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.”

This created a huge furor of people talking about trolling, Holocaust denialism, Overton windows and a bunch of other things. But it's a complex, nuanced topic, and I was trying to write a complex nuanced post. And just as I was getting somewhere with it... this week, a bunch of platforms, including Apple, YouTube and Facebook, removed at least some of Alex Jones accounts or content. This created another furor in the other direction, with people talking about deplatforming, censorship, free speech, monopoly power, and policing truth. And then when Twitter chose not to follow the lead of those other platforms, we were right back to a big furor about keeping hateful wackjob conspiracy theory assholes on your platform, and whether or not you should want to do that.

Chances are no matter what I say is going to piss off pretty much everyone, but let's do the stupid thing and try to address a complex and extremely nuanced topic on the internet, with unflagging optimism that maybe (just maybe) people on the internet will (for a moment at least) hold back their kneejerk reactions of "good" or "bad" and try to think through the issues.

Let's start with a few basic principles: no matter what crazy legal analysis you may have heard before, internet sites have every right to remove users for nearly any reason (there may be a few limited exceptions, but none of them apply here). Whether you like it or not (and you should actually like it), corporations do get rights, and that includes their First Amendment rights to have their sites appear how they want, along with deciding who not to associate with. On top of that, again, despite what you may have heard online about Section 230 of the CDA, platforms not only have the right to moderate what's on their platform without legal liability, they are actually encouraged to do so by that law.

Indeed, if anyone knows this, it's Alex Jones, since Infowars' own terms of service makes it clear that Infowars can boot anyone it wants:

If you can't read that, there's a long list of rules and then it says:

If you violate these rules, your posts and/or user name will be deleted. Remember: you are a guest here. It is not censorship if you violate the rules and your post is deleted. All civilizations have rules and if you violate them you can expect to be ostracized from the tribe.

One of the rare cases where I can say that, hey, that Alex Jones guy is absolutely right about that (and we'll leave aside the hypocrisy about him now flipping out about other sites applying those same rules on him).

A separate point that also is important, and gets regularly ignored, is that "banning" someone from these platforms often has the opposite impact of what was intended. Depending on the situation, it might not quite be a "Streisand Effect" situation, but it does create a martyr situation, which supporters will automatically use to double down on their belief that they're in the right position, and people are trying to "suppress the truth" or whatever. Also, sometimes it's useful to have "bad" speech out in the open, where people can track it, understand it... and maybe even counter it. Indeed, often hiding that bad speech not only lets it fester, but dulls our ability to counter it, respond to it and understand who is spreading such info (and how widely).

So, really, the question comes down to whether or not these platforms should be removing these kinds of accounts. But, before we should even answer that question, there's a separate question, which is: What options are there for platforms to deal with content that they disfavor? Unfortunately, many people assume that it's a binary choice. You either keep the content up, or you take it down. But that hardly gets at the long list of possible alternatives. You can encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior (say, with prompts if the system senses you're doing something bad, or with reminders, or by a community calling you out for bad behavior or lots of other options). Depending on the platform, you can minimize the accessibility or findability of certain content. You can minimize the reach of certain content. You can append additional information or put a "warning flag" on content. You can "shadow ban" content. You can promote "good" content to go with any content you deem to be bad. Or you can do nothing. Or you can set things up so that your users are able to help promote or minimize good or bad content. Or you can create tools that allow your users to set their own preferences and thresholds. Or you can allow third parties to build tools that do the same thing. The list goes on and on and on.

And, yet, so much of this debate seems to ignore much of this (other than shadowbanning, which some people pretend is somehow evil and unfair). And, indeed, what concerns me is that while various platforms have tried some combinations of all of these things, very few seem to have really committed to these ideas -- and just get bounced back and forth between extreme pressure on two sides: "ban all the assholes" v. "how dare you fucking censor my favorite idiot."

So with the question of Alex Jones or holocaust deniers, internet platforms (again) have every right to kick them off their platforms. They don't want to be associated with assholes? Good for them. But, at the same time, it's more than a bit uncomfortable to think that anyone should want these giant internet platforms deciding who can use their platforms -- especially when having access to those platforms often feels close to necessary to take part in modern day life*. It's especially concerning when it reaches the level that basically online mobs can "demand" that someone be removed. And this is especially worrisome when many of the decisions are being made based on the claim of "hate speech," a term that not only has an amorphous and ever-changing definition, but one that has a long history of being abused against at risk groups or those the government simply dislikes (i.e., for those who advocate for rules against "hate speech" think about what happens when the person you trust the least gets to write the definition).

* Quick aside to you if you're that guy rushing down to the comments to say something like "No one needs to use Facebook. I don't use Facebook." Shut up. Most people do use Facebook. And for many people it is important to their lives. In some cases, there are necessary services that require Facebook. And you should support that rather than getting all preachy about your own life choices, good or bad.

On top of that, I think that most people literally cannot comprehend both the scale and complexity of the decision making here when platforms are tasked with making these decisions. Figuring out which pieces of content are "okay" and which are "bad" can work when you're looking at a couple dozen piece of content. But how about a million pieces of content every single day? Or more? Back in May, when we ran a live audience "game" in which we asked everyone at a Content Moderation Summit to judge just eight examples of content to moderate, what was striking was that out of this group of professionals in this space, there was no agreement on how to handle any piece of content. Everyone had arguments for why each piece of content should stay up, be taken down, or have flag appended to it. So, not only do you have millions of pieces of content to judge, you have a very subjective standard, and a bunch of individuals who have to make those judgment calls -- often with little training and very little time to review or to get context.

Antonio Garcia Martinez, who worked at Facebook for a while, and has been a fairly outspoken critic of his former employer (writing an entire book about it), has reasonably warned that we should be quite careful what we wish for when asking Facebook to cut off speech, noting that the rest of the world has struggled in every attempt to define the limits of hate speech, and it's an involved and troubling process -- and yet, many people are fine with handing that over to a group of people at a company they all seem to hate. Which... seems odd. Even more on point is an article in Fortune by CDT's Emma Llanso (who designed and co-ran much of that "game" we ran back at the content moderation summit), warning about the lack of transparency when platforms determine this kind of thing, rather than, say, the courts. As we've argued for years, the lack of transparency and the lack of due process is also a significant concern (though, when Mark Zuckerberg suggested an outside due process system, people completely freaked out, thinking he was arguing for a special Facebook court system).

In the end, I think banning people should be the "very last option" on the table. And you could say that since these platforms left Jones on for so long while they had their internal debates about him, that's what happened. But I don't think that's accurate. Because there were alternative solutions that they could have tried. As Issie Lapowsky at Wired pointed out in noting that this is an unwinnable battle, the "do nothing, do nothing, do nothing... ban!" approach is unsatisfying to everyone:

When Facebook and YouTube decided to take more responsibility for what does and doesn't belong on their platforms, they were never going to satisfy all sides. But their tortured deliberations over what to do with Jones left them with only two unenviable options: Leave him alone and tacitly defend his indefensible actions, or ban him from the world's most powerful platforms and turn him into the odious martyr he now is.

Instead, we should be looking at stronger alternative ideas. Yair Rosenberg's suggestion in the Atlantic is for counterprogramming, which certainly is an appealing idea:

Truly tackling the problem of hateful misinformation online requires rejecting the false choice between leaving it alone or censoring it outright. The real solution is one that has not been entertained by either Zuckerberg or his critics: counter-programming hateful or misleading speech with better speech.

How would this work in practice?

Take the Facebook page of the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust,” a long-standing Holocaust-denial front. For years, the page has operated without any objection from Facebook, just as Zuckerberg acknowledged in his interview. Now, imagine if instead of taking it down, Facebook appended a prominent disclaimer atop the page: “This page promotes the denial of the Holocaust, the systematic 20th-century attempt to exterminate the Jewish people which left 6 million of them dead, alongside millions of political dissidents, LGBT people, and others the Nazis considered undesirable. To learn more about this history and not be misled by propaganda, visit these links to our partners at the United State Holocaust Museum and Israel’s Yad Vashem.”

Obviously, this intervention would not deter a hardened Holocaust denier, but it would prevent the vast majority of normal readers who might stumble across the page and its innocuous name from being taken in. A page meant to promote anti-Semitism and misinformation would be turned into an educational tool against both.

Meanwhile, Tim Lee, over at Ars Technica, suggested another possible approach, recognizing that Facebook (in particular) serves multiple functions. It hosts content, but it also promotes certain content via its algorithm. The hosting could be more neutral, while the algorithm is already not neutral (it's designed to promote the "best" content, which is inherently a subjective decision). So, let bad content stay on the platform, but decrease its "signal" power:

It's helpful here to think of Facebook as being two separate products: a hosting product and a recommendation product (the Newsfeed). Facebook's basic approach is to apply different strategies for these different products.

For hosting content, Facebook takes an inclusive approach, only taking down content that violates a set of clearly defined policies on issues like harassment and privacy.

With the Newsfeed, by contrast, Facebook takes a more hands-on approach, downranking content it regards as low quality.

This makes sense because the Newsfeed is fundamentally an editorial product. Facebook has an algorithm that decides which content people see first, using a wide variety of criteria. There's no reason why journalistic quality, as judged by Facebook, shouldn't be one of those criteria.

Under Facebook's approach, publications with a long record of producing high-quality content can get bumped up toward the top of the news feed. Publications with a history of producing fake news can get bumped to the back of the line, where most Newsfeed users will never see it.

Others, such as long-time free speech defender David French, have suggested that platforms should ditch concepts like "hate speech" that are not in US law and simply stick to the legal definitions" of what's allowed:

The good news is that tech companies don’t have to rely on vague, malleable and hotly contested definitions of hate speech to deal with conspiracy theorists like Mr. Jones. The far better option would be to prohibit libel or slander on their platforms.

To be sure, this would tie their hands more: Unlike “hate speech,” libel and slander have legal meanings. There is a long history of using libel and slander laws to protect especially private figures from false claims. It’s properly more difficult to use those laws to punish allegations directed at public figures, but even then there are limits on intentionally false factual claims.

It’s a high bar. But it’s a bar that respects the marketplace of ideas, avoids the politically charged battle over ever-shifting norms in language and culture and provides protection for aggrieved parties. Nor do tech companies have to wait for sometimes yearslong legal processes to work themselves out. They can use their greater degree of freedom to conduct their own investigations. Those investigations would rightly be based on concrete legal standards, not wholly subjective measures of offensiveness.

That's certainly one way to go about it, but I actually think that would create all sorts of other problems as well. In short, determining what is and what is not defamation can often be a long, drawn out process involving lots and lots of lawyers advocating for each side. The idea that platforms could successfully "investigate" that on their own seems like a stretch. It would be fine for platforms to have a policy saying that if a court has adjudicated something to be defamatory, then they'll take it down (and, indeed, most platforms do have exactly that policy), but having them make their own determinations of what counts as defamation seems like a risky task, and that would end up in a similar end state as where we are today with a lot of people angry at the "judgments from on high" with little transparency or right of appeal.

As for me, I still go back to the solution I've been discussing for years: we need to move to a world of protocols instead of platforms, in which transparency rules and (importantly) control is passed down away from the centralized service to the end users. Facebook should open itself up so that end users can decide what content they can see for themselves, rather than making all the decisions in Menlo Park. Ideally, Facebook (and others) should open up so that third party tools can provide their own experiences -- and then each person could choose the service or filtering setup that they want. People who want to suck in the firehose, including all the garbage, could do so. Others could choose other filters or other experiences. Move the power down to the ends of the network, which is what the internet was supposed to be good at in the first place. If the giant platforms won't do that, then people should build more open competitors that will (hell, those should be built anyway).

But, if they were to do that, it lets them get rid of this impossible to solve question of who gets to use their platforms, and moves the control and responsibility out to the end points. I expect that many users would quickly discover that the full firehose is unusable, and would seek alternatives that fit with how they wanted to use the platform. And, yes, that might mean some awful people create filter bubbles of nonsense and hatred, but average people could avoid those cesspools while at the same time those tasked with monitoring those kinds of idiots and their behavior could still do so.

I should note that this is a different solution than the one that Twitter's Jack Dorsey appeared to ham-fistedly suggest this week on his own platform, in which he suggested that journalists need to do the work of debunking idiots on Twitter. He's not wrong, but what an awful way to put it. Lots of people read it to mean "we set up the problem that makes this giant mess, and we'll leave it to journalists to come along and sort things out for free."

Instead, what I'm suggesting is that platforms have to get serious about moving real power out to the ends of their network so that anyone can set up systems for themselves -- or look to other third parties (or, even the original platforms themselves for a "default" or for a set of filter choices) for help. In the old days on Usenet there were killfiles. Email got swamped with spam, but there were a variety of anti-spam filters that you could plug-in to filter most of it out. There are ways to manage these complex situations that don't involve Jack Dorsey choosing who stays on the island and who gets removed this week.

Of course, this would require a fundamental shift in how these platforms operate -- and especially in how much control they have. But, given how they keep getting slammed on all sides for the decisions they both do and don't make, perhaps we're finally at a point where they'll consider this alternative. And, hey, if anyone at these big platforms wants some help thinking through these issues, feel free to contact us. These are the kinds of projects we enjoy working on, as crazy and impossible as they may feel.

Filed Under: alex jones, content moderation, deplatforming, free speech, holocaust deniers, mark zuckerberg, platforms, policing content, protocols
Companies: facebook, twitter, youtube