WendyMcElroy.com
The Corporate War on Free SpeechBrad here. Over the years I have several times commented that corporations can be as big a threat to liberty as governments. Often these remarks fell on deaf ears; there seems to be a Randian streak within libertarianism that views business as Good Guys and government as Bad Guys, period. Now, though, the real-life corporations seem hell-bent on proving my point.
The latest: Google has banned Gab from the Google Play app store. Gab is like Twitter; it arose after Twitter started banning individuals for their views. Gab promised to be a real free speech platform, and not ban anyone.
Google did this, not because Gab was itself issuing "hate speech," but because a few Gab users were using it to send hateful (to Google) texts. That's like banning Microsoft Word because people use it to write vile letters to the editor. (I see that on the Gab web page, they now offer a direct download of the Android app. Good for them, but most people won't know how to use it.)
In a similar vein, CloudFlare has removed the Daily Stormer from its service. (Among other functions, they protect websites from DDoS attacks.)
I had considered subscribing to CloudFlare to protect our web sites, but forget that -- I don't want to lose our web presence because some arrogant CEO woke up in a pissy mood one day. And there you see on naked display the attitude of all the Silicon Valley CEOs: I can kick people around because I'm the CEO of a major Internet firm.
This occurred after domain registrar GoDaddy delisted the Daily Stormer, effectively removing their entire Internet presence. (Web pages and email.) Google did likewise, as have Zoho, Sendgrid, Squarespace, Apple, PayPal, and others.
Let me be clear: I think the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements are vile, evil, hateful, despicable, and contemptible. And private businesses -- even wedding-cake bakers -- have the right to choose who they do business with. But the Daily Stormer and its disgusting ilk have the same free speech rights as the rest of us, and it's disturbing to see massive unaccountable corporations engage in a concerted campaign of censorship.
Because we -- and you -- will be next.
Added, 20 Aug: Kudos to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for their position on this matter:
Stephen L. Carter, "Too Much Power Lies in Tech Companies' Hands":
The latest: Google has banned Gab from the Google Play app store. Gab is like Twitter; it arose after Twitter started banning individuals for their views. Gab promised to be a real free speech platform, and not ban anyone.
Google did this, not because Gab was itself issuing "hate speech," but because a few Gab users were using it to send hateful (to Google) texts. That's like banning Microsoft Word because people use it to write vile letters to the editor. (I see that on the Gab web page, they now offer a direct download of the Android app. Good for them, but most people won't know how to use it.)
In a similar vein, CloudFlare has removed the Daily Stormer from its service. (Among other functions, they protect websites from DDoS attacks.)
Reversing the company's previous stance on not censoring content, founder and CEO Matthew Prince wrote in an internal email that he "woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. It was a decision I could make because I'm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company."
"My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are a**holes and I'd had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision."
"My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are a**holes and I'd had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision."
I had considered subscribing to CloudFlare to protect our web sites, but forget that -- I don't want to lose our web presence because some arrogant CEO woke up in a pissy mood one day. And there you see on naked display the attitude of all the Silicon Valley CEOs: I can kick people around because I'm the CEO of a major Internet firm.
This occurred after domain registrar GoDaddy delisted the Daily Stormer, effectively removing their entire Internet presence. (Web pages and email.) Google did likewise, as have Zoho, Sendgrid, Squarespace, Apple, PayPal, and others.
Let me be clear: I think the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements are vile, evil, hateful, despicable, and contemptible. And private businesses -- even wedding-cake bakers -- have the right to choose who they do business with. But the Daily Stormer and its disgusting ilk have the same free speech rights as the rest of us, and it's disturbing to see massive unaccountable corporations engage in a concerted campaign of censorship.
Because we -- and you -- will be next.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
-- Martin Niemöller
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
-- Martin Niemöller
Added, 20 Aug: Kudos to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for their position on this matter:
Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t.
Stephen L. Carter, "Too Much Power Lies in Tech Companies' Hands":
Libertarians tend to worry about concentrations of power in the hands of the state. There is no consensus about the danger of concentrations of power in private hands. But when the private hands in question control access to the principal media of communication in the world, one has to hesitate when they decide that not everyone should be granted entree. For the power they are exercising is almost state-like.
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