There has been a worrying but long expected up tick in the suppression of non-Leftist or counter-Islam views on social media. The agreement between big tech companies and the European Union to remove what is very loosely and vaguely described as ‘hate speech’ has been on the cards for a while. This is not just because some of these firms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are influenced by social justice warrior leftist types, but also because they wish to trade without hindrance in the EU. Doing a deal like this makes more business sense than standing up to the EU in the cause of freedom of speech.
I don’t like certain words and do not and try not to use them myself. I think it’s impolite to call people ‘coons’, ‘trannies’ or ‘kikes’, ‘arse-bandits’ or ‘pakis’ or whatever. But since when was impoliteness ever considered as a criminal offence? Impoliteness is not nice but it should never be something that is indictable. Also one person’s hate speech is another’s ‘banter’ or even in some cases their religious belief. Much of what the Left describe as ‘hate speech’ is merely impoliteness in some cases but more often than not, is the expression of opinions that challenge the Left’s world-view. What is frightening about the censoriousness of the modern Left is that even reasonable opinions or intelligent questioning is being considered as ‘hate speech’. Saying, as I do, things like nobody should be allowed access to gender identity counselling before the age of 21 or that Islam has brought considerable problems to non-Muslim nations, are in my view reasonable opinions, but the Left consider them as hate speech. However what the Left does not consider hate speech, such as fundamentalist Islamic preachers, others see as incitement to violence.
I come across loads of stuff on social media that I consider offensive to me but I don’t have to believe them or even read them. I’m certainly not forced to follow or friend them. I normally block at least one ‘Rothschild’s control the world’ nutter or ‘chemtrails’ lunatic a day. I’m not forced to imbibe their guff, I can skip over it or block it. It’s not like the British television system where I’m forced to pay for a broadcaster that has become something I despise and when I reject about 85% of its output. Nobody is forcing people to use Twitter and Facebook and it’s only media reach and familiarity that makes people think that these are the only two social media platforms out there.
I think that this censorship attempt could rebound really badly on both the social media companies and the governments and the EU who have been demanding that social media stop people talking about the massive cock up that they’ve made in treating Islam like a genuine religion of peace. For the companies the danger is they will lose the trust of the users and trust is all important. If ordinary joes think that their opinions are being censored or that Facebook and Twitter are routinely passing people’s IP and physical addresses to the police, then people will reject the platforms. They will take a hit on viewers which will in turn affect advertising revenue and ultimately the bottom line. At one point MySpace was a huge social media company and LiveJournal was considered essential to anybody doing LGBT activism stuff. But where are these companies today? Well MySpace is still going but not at all high profile and LiveJournal seems to be more popular in Russia and some Eastern European nations than it is over here. Things change, customers are fickle, Facebook could fall just as quickly as it grew if it lost the confidence of the users. More people could even come to realise that if you are not paying for a service then you, and your data and personal information, is the product that the company is selling, which could cause user drop.
For the governments it will mean that people will migrate to distributed P2P social media which is heavily encrypted and less vulnerable to surveillance by the security agencies. This will mean that not only do peoples political views drop off the radar, but potentially valuable intelligence about terrorism and things like child pornography may also take advantage of distributed systems and disappear from the view of police and counter-terror staff. This could be a lose-lose situation for both the social media companies and governments.
I have no problem with people or companies having private property rights. I think that’s a basic right for any free society. People should not have government inspectors telling them what to say, what to think or what sort of kettle they are allowed to use in their kitchen. The owners of social media companies are well within their rights to impose whatever rules they want on their platforms, just as I have rules about what I will and will not allow on Fahrenheit211. I don’t want the government telling me what I can and cannot say, I decide that.
Time will tell whether the latest censorship rules impact on those social media companies which are signing up to this. I only hope that it will spur a movement in the UK for our own equivalent of the US 1st Amendment, something that would do a great deal to repair the damage that ‘hate speech’ laws have done to my nation.
The main thing that worries me about these new censorship rules is their vagueness and the ability to abuse this vagueness. If it was plainly and simply set out such as a list of words that people were discouraged from using, as some broadcasters have with certain swear words, then although the censorship would still be wrong in many people’s eyes, at least people would know where they stood. This is not the case with the current agreement between the big tech companies and the EU. The term hate speech is so nebulous, subjective and open to endless interpretation by whichever group is trying to exploit the term, that it’s going to create a quagmire of uncertainty. There will also be a large number of angry people who will suddenly find out that some whining activist has classed their opinion as ‘hate speech’. I don’t think that this is all going to end well either for the tech companies or those consumers who use them and it is going to be awful for the idea of free discussion of different social and political views. How long before these ‘hate speech ‘ censorship restrictions are imposed on those who are either pro or anti abortion or those who question the gender identity hypothesies of the Transgender movement? Not long I would guess.
I find myself in the invidious position of having to stand with those whom I vehemently disagree with because I know that censorship like that being imposed by the EU will not stop with hate speech but will come for other opinions later on. To paraphrase Pastor Niemoller: If I don’t stand up for the rights of those whose opinions I don’t like, then there will be nobody left to stand up for me.
I stand with hate speech, because the alternative is much, much worse.
Links
Brietbart story on EU social media censorship
Are you looking for something ‘Twitter-like’ but with better security? Then why not join me over at Twister the P2P microblogging platform. Read my experiences of getting Twister set up at the link below.
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2016/05/27/techno-time-fahrenheit211-now-on-the-twister-platform/
