What I Hope Tech CEOs Will Tell Congress: 'We're Not Neutral'

from the just-lay-out-the-truth dept

The CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter will once again testify before Congress this Thursday, this time on disinformation. Here’s what I hope they will say:

Thank you Mister Chairman and Madam Ranking Member.

While no honest CEO would ever say that he or she enjoys testifying before Congress, I recognize that hearings like this play an important role -- in holding us accountable, illuminating our blind spots, and increasing public understanding of our work.

Some policymakers accuse us of asserting too much editorial control and removing too much content. Others say that we don’t remove enough incendiary content. Our platforms see millions of user-generated posts every day -- on a global scale -- but questions at these hearings often focus on how one of our thousands of employees handled a single individual post.

As a company we could surely do a better job of explaining -- privately and publicly -- our calls in controversial cases. Because it’s sometimes difficult to explain in time-limited hearing answers the reasons behind individual content decisions, we will soon launch a new public website that will explain in detail our decisions on cases in which there is considerable public interest. Today, I’ll focus my remarks on how we view content moderation generally.

Not “neutral”

In past hearings, I and my CEO counterparts have adopted an approach of highlighting our companies’ economic and social impact, answering questions deferentially, and promising to answer detailed follow up questions in writing. While this approach maximizes comity, I’ve come to believe that it can sometimes leave a false impression of how we operate.

So today I’d like to take a new approach: leveling with you.

In particular, in the past I have told you that our service is “neutral.” My intent was to convey that we don’t pick political sides, or allow commercial influence over our editorial content.

But I’ve come to believe that characterizing our service as “neutral” was a mistake. We are not a purely neutral speech platform, and virtually no user-generated-content service is.

Our philosophy

In general, we start with a Western, small-d democratic approach of allowing a broad range of human expression and views. From there, our products reflect our subjective -- but scientifically informed -- judgments about what information and speech our users will find most relevant, most delightful, most topical, or of the highest quality.

We aspire for our services to be utilized by billions of people around the globe, and we don’t ever relish limiting anyone’s speech. And while we generally reflect an American free speech norm, we recognize that norm is not shared by much of the world -- so we must abide by more restrictive speech laws in many countries where we operate.

Even within the United States, however, we choose to forbid certain types of speech which are legal, but which we have chosen to keep off our service: incitements to violence, hate speech, Holocaust denial, and adult pornography, just to name a few.

We make these decisions based not on the law, but on what kind of service we want to be for our users.

While some people claim to want “neutral” online speech platforms, we have seen that services with little or no content moderation whatsoever -- such as Gab and Parler -- become dominated by trolling, obscenities, and conspiracy theories. Most consumers reject this chaotic, noisy mess.

In contrast, we believe that millions of people use our service because they value our approach of airing a variety of views, but avoiding an “anything goes'' cesspool.

We realize that some people won’t like our rules, and go elsewhere. I’m glad that consumers have choices like Gab and Parler, and that the open Internet makes them possible. But we want our service to be something different: a pleasant experience for the widest possible audience.

Complicated info landscape means tough calls

When we first started our service decades ago, content moderation was a much less fractious topic. Today, we face a more complicated speech and information landscape including foreign propaganda, bots, disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, deepfakes, distrust of institutions, and a fractured media landscape. It challenges all of us who are in the information business.

All user-generated content services are grappling with new challenges to our default of allowing most speech. For example, we have recently chosen to take a more aggressive posture toward election- and vaccine-related disinformation because those of us who run our company ultimately don’t feel comfortable with our platform being an instrument to undermine democracy or public health.

As much as we aim to create consistent rules and policies, many of the most difficult content questions we face are ones we’ve never seen before, or involve elected officials -- so the questions often end up on my desk as CEO.

Despite the popularity of our services, I recognize that I’m not a democratically elected policymaker. I’m a leader of a private enterprise. None of us company leaders takes pleasure in making speech decisions that inevitably upset some portion of our user base - or world leaders. We may make the wrong call.

But our desire to make our platform a positive experience for millions of people sometimes demands that we make difficult decisions to limit or block certain types of controversial (but legal) content. The First Amendment prevents the government from making those extra-legal speech decisions for us. So it’s appropriate that I make these tough calls, because each decision reflects and shapes what kind of service we want to be for our users.

Long-term experience over short-term traffic

Some of our critics assert that we are driven solely by “engagement metrics” or “monetizing outrage” like heated political speech.

While we use our editorial judgment to deliver what we hope are joyful experiences to our users, it would be foolish for us to be ruled by weekly engagement metrics. If platforms like ours prioritized quick-hit, sugar-high content that polarizes our users, it might drive short term usage but it would destroy people’s long-term trust and desire to return to our service. People would give up on our service if it’s not making them happy.

We believe that most consumers want user-generated-content services like ours to maintain some degree of editorial control. But we also believe that as you move further down the Internet “stack” -- from applications towards ours toward app stores, then cloud hosting, then DNS providers, and finally ISPs -- most people support a norm of progressively less content moderation at each layer.

In other words, our users may not want to see controversial speech on our service -- but they don’t necessarily support disappearing it from the Internet altogether.

I fully understand that not everyone will agree with our content policies, and that some people feel disrespected by our decisions. I empathize with those that feel overlooked or discriminated against, and I am glad that the open Internet allows people to seek out alternatives to our service. But that doesn’t mean that the US government can or should deny our company’s freedom to moderate our own services.

First Amendment and CDA 230

Some have suggested that social media sites are the “new public square” and that services should be forbidden by the government to block anyone’s speech. But such a rule would violate our company’s own First Amendment rights of editorial judgment within our services. Our legal freedom to prioritize certain content is no different than that of the New York Times or Breitbart.

Some critics attack Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a “giveaway” to tech companies, but their real beef is with the First Amendment.

Others allege that Section 230’s liability protections are conditioned on our service following a false standard of political “neutrality.” But Section 230 doesn’t require this, and in fact it incentivizes platforms like ours to moderate inappropriate content.

Section 230 is primarily a legal routing mechanism for defamation claims -- making the speaker responsible, not the platform. Holding speakers directly accountable for their own defamatory speech ultimately helps encourage their own personal responsibility for a healthier Internet.

For example, if car rental companies always paid for their renters’ red light tickets instead of making the renter pay, all renters would keep running red lights. Direct consequences improve behavior.

If Section 230 were revoked, our defamation liability exposure would likely require us to be much more conservative about who and what types of content we allowed to post on our services. This would likely inhibit a much broader range of potentially “controversial” speech, but more importantly would impose disproportionate legal and compliance burdens on much smaller platforms.

Operating responsibly -- and humbly

We’re aware of the privileged position our service occupies. We aim to use our influence for good, and to act responsibly in the best interests of society and our users. But we screw up sometimes, we have blind spots, and our services, like all tools, get misused by a very small slice of our users. Our service is run by human beings, and we ask for grace as we remedy our mistakes.

We value the public’s feedback on our content policies, especially from those whose life experiences differ from those of our employees. We listen. Some people call this “working the refs,” but if done respectfully I think it can be healthy, constructive, and enlightening.

By the same token, we have a responsibility to our millions of users to make our service the kind of positive experience they want to return to again and again. That means utilizing our own constitutional freedom to make editorial judgments. I respect that some will disagree with our judgments, just as I hope you will respect our goal of creating a service that millions of people enjoy.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.

Adam Kovacevich is a former public policy executive for Google and Lime, former Democratic congressional and campaign aide, and a longtime tech policy strategist based in Washington, DC.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bias, big tech, congressional hearings, content moderation, disinformation, jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, neutral, section 230, sundar pichai
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Wisconsin Speech Bill Tries To Keep Universities Neutral On Public Policy Debates, Which Is Batshit Crazypants

from the that's-not-how-free-speech-works dept

As you are likely already aware, there is something of a debate about debates that occur on college campuses these days. Amidst a climate of ultra-polarized politics, there have been several high profile incidents on college campuses involving a revolt by student bodies -- and, allegedly, outside troublemakers -- over specific speakers invited onto campus and topics opened for debate. In reaction to these revolts that generally end with colleges uninviting speakers, some states have decided to try to legislate against this sort of thing in the name of free speech. It's one of those unhappy circumstances in which everyone on every side appears to be wrong. Student revolts and petitions to uninvite speakers are themselves a form of speech and worthy of protection, even if that sort of thing is antithetical to the university experience and ultimately works counter to the aims of the students doing the revolting. Meanwhile, the uninvited and their supporters are shouting about censorship in a way that suggests their views must be tolerated without reaction, which is a complete misunderstanding of how free speech works. As for the politicians, the haphazard decision to legislate on matters of speech in this matter betrays a lack of understanding of how sacred our free expression laws are in America and the care with which any lawmakers ought to take on the topic.

For an example of that, we need only look to Wisconsin, where a bill is being considered in reaction to all of this that would essentially force universities to take no position on any current topic that can be seen as controversial. School administrators are rightly concerned about the laughably vague language in the bill.

The trouble comes from this section of the bill: “That each institution shall strive to remain neutral, as an institution, on the public policy controversies of the day, and may not take action, as an institution, on the public policy controversies of the day in such a way as to require students or faculty to publicly express a given view of social policy.”

While the bills’ scope is focused on public events involving invited speakers, there are a couple key questions here. University officials want to know how far this requirement “to remain neutral” extends. For example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has spoken out against proposed bans on stem cell research on campus. Would the university run afoul of this law if it did so again?

It's a good and fair question, because once this legislative ball gets rolling, gravity is likely to tug it further down the path than supporters of the bill had originally intended. And it's worth reminding everyone considering supporting this bill that its words can cut both ways. Just because today we're talking about a topic a person on one end of the political spectrum cares about doesn't mean the other end can't use this law to force their views on campus in the same way. Whatever your political leanings, it's worth being concerned when government attempts to stifle the viewpoint of a school and its students.

And, of course, nobody is clear that this is limited even to speakers and public positions on campus, thanks to the overly broad language in the bill. When questioned, Jesse Kremer, who sponsored the bill, suggested that the legislation could also reach its spindly fingers into the classroom...

And although the bill is not focused on classrooms, Kremer suggested that such a student could potentially bring a complaint to a “Council on Free Expression” the bill would create—a body composed of leaders from each state school and two politicians.

...before going completely off the rails.

When one Democrat at a hearing asked Republican Representative and bill sponsor Jesse Kremer whether a geology professor would be allowed to tell a student who believed the Earth to be 6,000 years old that they are wrong, Kremer bristled. “The Earth is 6,000 years old. That’s a fact,” he said.

And here you see the problem. What one person claims to be fact is, in fact, plainly absurd. And a law that protects students or invited speakers from being told that it's absurd, either by the student body or the university, is a laughable law fit for the waste bin. If students and speakers are such innocent snowflakes that they cannot handle having their views ridiculed, then the university is no place for them. This too should cut both ways, of course, except that the students shouting down controversial speakers is itself a form of speech, whereas legislation neutering that same speech is censorious in the worst way.

Do students need to be more open minded on campuses today? Sure, I think that's fair. Should lawmakers with the barest grip on their own reality be legislatively forcing speakers onto campus as a consequence? Obviously not.

Filed Under: fair and balanced, first amendment, free speech, neutral, wisconsin

MIT Defends Its 'Neutral' Stance On Aaron Swartz As 'Reasonable' Even As It Failed To Understand Importance Of The Case

from the sometimes-remaining-neutral-is-a-bad-thing dept

It's taken some time, but the report that MIT's President requested from professor Hal Abelson concerning MIT's roles in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz has now been released. It's quite detailed and well worth reading. The "bottom line" is that it argues that MIT did its best to "stay neutral" throughout the entire process, and that this was a perfectly reasonable legal strategy, though, possibly not the best ethical strategy. MIT's President, Rafael Reif, has issued a letter with the report, stating that "I am confident that MIT's decisions were reasonable, appropriate and made in good faith." Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman quickly hit back, arguing that the claim that MIT was "neutral" is not very convincing:

MIT’s behavior throughout the case was reprehensible, and this report is quite frankly a whitewash.

Here are the facts: This report claims that MIT was “neutral” — but MIT’s lawyers gave prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while refusing access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence. That’s not neutral. The fact is that all MIT had to do was say publicly, “We don’t want this prosecution to go forward” – and Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz would have had no case.

Separately, she contrasts MIT's behavior with JSTOR's -- the organization which really had the only legitimate (and even then a weak legitimacy) claim to any "harm" from Swartz's actions. JSTOR very publicly made it known that it did not support the prosecution and did not wish to see Swartz prosecuted. MIT took a very different approach. From the summary of the paper:

MIT never requested that a criminal prosecution be brought against Aaron Swartz. Early in the prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston (the “USAO”), MIT adopted a position of remaining neutral, with limited involvement. MIT hired outside counsel who had experience in criminal law and in the functioning of the Boston U.S. Attorney’s Office; and MIT requested and received subpoenas for the production of documents. Some documents were turned over to the USAO prior to receiving a subpoena, but, for the reasons discussed in this report, this production did not violate federal laws.

In keeping with its stance of neutrality, MIT never issued a public statement about Swartz’s prosecution or advocated publicly on his behalf, even though doing this was urged by Aaron Swartz’s family and legal team and by two members of the faculty. One of the reasons for MIT’s silence was the good-faith belief, based on private conversations with the lead prosecutor, that the Institute’s opinion would have no effect on the prosecution, and that public statements might make circumstances worse for Aaron Swartz. MIT did inform the prosecution that it was not seeking punishment for Swartz, and it did inform the defense that it was not seeking any civil remedy from him.

The report also claims that, basically, no one in "the MIT community" seemed to care about the story until after Swartz's death, which seems like a bit of a cop out. Also, there's this:

MIT took the position that U.S. v. Swartz was simply a lawsuit to which it was not a party, although it did inform the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the prosecution should not be under the impression that MIT wanted jail time for Aaron Swartz. (MIT did not say it was actually opposed to jail time.)

Basically, this policy of "neutrality" may have been legally reasonable, but could still be seen as highly questionable given MIT's role as an institution of higher learning -- one that famously encourages open exploration and sharing of knowledge and information, as well as some element of hacking. I think David Weinberger makes the right point here:

When Pres. Reif writes that MIT’s actions were “reasonable, appropriate and made in good faith” I think we have to ask “Appropriate to what?” To MIT’s interests as a legal entity? Very likely. To MIT as a university? Not in my book.... MIT’s timid “neutrality” wasted an opportunity to stand against the unreasonable and inappropriate tactics of the prosecutors, and to stand for the spirit of inquiry, openness, innovation, and risk-taking that has made MIT one of the world’s great universities.

I understand that MIT wasn’t going to say that it was fine with Aaron’s breaching its contract with JSTOR. But MIT could have stood against prosecutorial overreach, and for the values— if not the exact actions— Aaron embodied.

That's exactly right. Sometimes taking a neutral stance on an issue of great importance is the equivalent of making the wrong choice. MIT missed the boat here.

Separately, Larry Lessig makes an important point: buried in the report is the fact that prosecutors never bothered to ask MIT if Swartz's access was unauthorized, even as they charged him with unauthorized access, and used that as the key to pressing the case:

As far as the Review Panel could determine, MIT was never asked by either the prosecution or the defense whether Aaron Swartz’s access to the MIT network was authorized or unauthorized—nor did MIT ask this of itself. Given that (1) MIT was the alleged victim of counts 9 and 12, (2) the MIT access policy, its Rules of Use, and its own interpretation of those Rules of Use (including the significance or “materiality” of any violation of those terms) were at the heart of the government’s CFAA allegations in counts in both indictments, and (3) this policy and these rules were written, interpreted, and applied by MIT for MIT’s own mission and goals—not those of the Government— the Review Panel wonders why.

As Lessig points out, this makes the tragedy of the situation even worse. Not only did MIT try to take a "neutral stance," nobody either at MIT nor among the prosecutors ever even bothered to figure out if Swartz's access really was unauthorized.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, cfaa, hal abelson, mit, neutral, rafael reif, unauthorized access