Disinformation

 I had a (surprising) lunch conversation with a colleague who is at least Trump curious. He's from Texas with all the shit that comes with that. He's on the anti-woke bullshit, which...sure...I guess. Yes, some college kids are intolerant of free speech, and that's a problem.

We concluded with his assertion that the government censored anti-vax stuff on social media and that was "worse than anything that happened on January 6th." I think this guy might have a PhD. 

I asserted that censorship didn't happen, but, you know, I should check. The allegations and rough set of facts are that the Biden Administration pressured social media companies to take down especially misleading posts. Not all misleading posts, but some that were off the deep end. They did not require this to happen, but still, the White House has big time clout.

The question, fundamentally, is whether that pressure is a restriction on free speech. What's more, this is perhaps the question of the next decade.

First of all, as to the specifics of this case, it was dismissed for not having standing 6-3, so even the Republicans on the bench wanted no part of it. What's more, there is a clear restriction on speech for corporations, when it comes to making false claims. If Moderna says they have a pill that cures cancer - and it doesn't cure cancer - then they are criminally liable for fraud.

The tricky issue is the degree to which a social media company is liable for falsehoods at their sites, and the current answer is: not very. So, we've had the ridiculous claims online that Democrats are sending hurricanes to Red States. In a case like this, speech counters speech. However, in a public health emergency, does that calculus change? 

My interlocutor admitted that such restrictions are no longer in place, because the health emergency is over, but I don't think he was convinced that the occasional restriction on speech in emergencies was legitimate. This felt very much like the Elon Musk Villain Arch. "I'm super smart, so no one needs to be warned off misinformation." It's the same "logic" people apply to dystopian civilizational collapse. "I'll be fine, I'm super special." In fact, he had "learned" that the government was restricting what was on social media, when they had applied pressure but issued no injunctions or penalties. 

Ultimately, the danger of misinformation is that it feeds what we already want to hear. This fellow wanted to believe that the government and the "left" wanted to restrict free speech, like with the Campus Left. So he was primed to believe that "censorship" had occurred. It was actually something far more nuanced and complicated. 

Plus, far too much of the Right Wing "cancel culture panic" is really that people don't want to hear what they have to say. In most cases, speech counters speech, and I think many schools and universities fall short of that. However, getting dragged on Twitter is not censorship. Losing your job for having a post where you are saluting a swastika isn't persecution, your employer doesn't want to employ Nazi. 

Generally speaking, I'm in favor of speech countering speech, but we have to contend with the ability of AI to generate falsehoods at astonishing speed and volume. Our ability to be a self-governing polity is endangered by the tidal wave of bullshit that inundates us.