A proposed bill that I highlighted in my 3/2/21 post, Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech, is advancing in Congress. In Algorithms that suggest songs you may like also direct people to hate groups. It needs to stop, says N.J. congressman, Jonathan D. Salant reports for NJ.com:
If you check out Jon Bon Jovi‘s Twitter feed, you’ll get a recommendation saying you may also like other musicians. Queen, Joan Jett and U2 immediately pop up.
Same goes for all kinds of things on social media, from books to movies. The algorithms designed to keep you interested are aways [sic] saying: If you like that, then you’ll really like this.
If you click on a politician, the site recommends others with the same political views. And then sympathetic groups that share the same ideology. But sometimes that can lead you to hate groups and others spreading disinformation.
Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski doesn't like this feature.
“The algorithm has no political bias,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-7th Dist. “It knows what you want. If you like Star Trek, it will send you to Battlestar Galactica. If you like cute kitten videos, it will send you cute puppy videos. But if you’re susceptible to conspiracy theories, it sends you to QAnon.”
“Once you go down the rabbit hole, there’s nothing that pulls you out of it.”
Since so many Americans get their news and entertainment from social media sites, Malinowski said they must do a better job of policing what’s on their platforms and stop encouraging customers to seek out misinformation or recommend groups with extremist ideologies.
“Nothing that pulls you out of that rabbit hole?” How about simply clicking out of it? Malinowski doesn’t think you are capable of thinking for yourself. So, in the tradition of tyrants everywhere, he’s going to do your thinking for you. He wants to shield you from content you may be interested in. So he introduced, and is now debating, the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act. Really!
Malinowski . . . and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., have introduced legislation that would hold social media companies such as YouTube and Facebook liable if their algorithms feed extremist content to individuals who then launch violent attacks.
There is not a “violent attack” that cannot be traced, somehow, some way, to “extremist content” or “ideology,” however that is defined. Making YouTube and Facebook liable for the violent crimes of users by simply digging up some alleged “extremist” link that appeared at some point on the attacker’s feed is nothing more than a tool of extortion and control politicians and their allies can use to control the flow of information to American citizens.
Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist., said the problem is the formula used by the social media companies to keep their readers clicking.
“The dirty truth is that social media companies are relying on algorithms to purposefully promote conspiratorial, divisive, or extremist content so they can rake in the ad dollars,” Pallone said. “The more outrageous and extremist the content, the more engagement and views these companies get from their users. More views equal more money.”
What is “hate?” What is “disinformation,” or “misinformation?” What is “extremist” content ... “extremist” ideology? What counts as "outrageous" “conspiratorial?” What counts as “divisive”: Indeed, what doesn’t count as “divisive” in politics? Any disagreement can be construed as divisive. With that term, Pallone gets to the real point. Social media is the greatest tool of free speech for the average person to come along since the printing press. This means that politicians are more susceptible to being held accountable by average citizens than ever before. That increased accountability is what Malinowski really believes “needs to stop.” He complains about a recent campaign ad that accuses him of "lobbying to protect sexual predators" as a reason for his bill. Hyperbolic? Sure. But then why force private media companies to ban it, rather than himself answer it? His own party routinely smears opponents of its climate policies as “climate deniers.” How about banning that? Oh, right, that's his position, so it must be true and accurate. Hyperbole is ubiquitous in politics. Ban all political hyperbole? Who will be responsible for separating hyperbole from reasonable rhetoric? What will be left of political campaigns? The only rabbit hole we should fear, and avoid at all costs, is political censorship and idea filtering, and thought control.
Please don’t remind me that these “public servants'' just want to stop violent attacks. That’s a giant straw man. What they really want is the power to impose their own definitions of hate, disinformation, extremist, conspiratorial, divisive—and whatever other vague term they can conjure up on social media companies through open-ended threats of lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Why? To do what every would-be tyrant longs to do--silence dissent and protect politicians from public accountability.
Of all of the totalitarian assaults on our freedoms coming from the Democratic Congress, the attacks on free speech is by far the most dangerous. See also HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy. Under the guise of preventing violence, Malinowski and his ilk want to stop the free flow of speech and ideas, the means of debate and persuasion, and the only alternative to violence.
It's legislation like Malinowski’s, not YouTube and Facebook sending you links to what “you really like,” that needs to stop. There is no idea that can’t be said to fit one of the categories mentioned above to rationalize Malinowski’s euphemistically-titled Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act. There is no idea that will be safe to express, and no idea that social media companies can’t be pressured to censor. This bill is really a fascist back-door censorship bill. The Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act is really an attempt to protect politicians from scrutiny and criticism.
Protect our intellectual freedom. By all means, punish the violence perpetrators. That’s your job, Tom. That’s not YouTube or Facebook or any other private company’s job, and it is unjust to hold them accountable for others’ criminal acts. Their job is to satisfy their customers and make money. As a citizen of a supposedly free country, mine is to pull myself out of any “rabbit hole” I encounter. Your job, as a government official, is to protect us from criminals by apprehending and prosecuting criminals, rather than passing the buck to private citizens. Rather than pin the blame for violence perpetrated by customers on social media companies and on people who express ideas, prosecute the criminals who violate people’s individual rights through violence. Keep your censorious laws off of social media, do your damn job of prosecuting criminals, and leave information and ideas free to flow and we the people free to sort out and judge the content links that come our way.
Related Reading:
Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.
Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen
No, AOC, It's Not the Government's Job to 'Rein in Our Media': The First Amendment doesn't come with an exception for "disinformation," by Robby Soave for Reason
Americans Abandoning Free Speech Better Brace for the Consequences by J.D. Tuccille for Reason: Government will happily suppress misinformation in favor of misinformation of its own.
“Extremism,” or The Art of Smearing by Ayn Rand
We Need ‘Extremism’ to Move the Political Ball in Our Direction--Capitalism
Social Media and the Future of Civil Society by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard
Why I Will Never Use the Term “Extremist” by Dr. Michael Hurd
1 comment:
This was a lovvely blog post
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