Axios’s Slam of Meta’s Elimination of Fact-Checking System Exhibits Shocking Political Ignorance—Or Worse?

Meta just walked away from fact-checking, and AXIOS didn’t like it one bit. In More Speech and Fewer Mistakes, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Joel Kaplan, explained:

In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far. As well-intentioned as many of these efforts have been, they have expanded over time to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable. Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in “Facebook jail,” and we are often too slow to respond when they do. 

We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression. Today, we’re making some changes to stay true to that ideal.

The changes? “Ending Third Party Fact Checking Program, Moving to Community Notes.” These “Independent Experts,” Kaplan explained, are “like everyone else.” [They] have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how. 

Great!

But in Behind the Curtain: The new gatekeepers, Axios responded:

The truth is, it is an almost impossible task for companies to police speech without bias or unfairness. That leaves two other options — the government or individuals. Both X and Meta are choosing people, with an imperfect ‘community notes’ mechanism to correct misinformation in real time.

That opens most of social media up as a Wild West of expression, where high-quality, trustworthy information will commingle with garbage and misinformation. That's what free speech absolutists have long fought for.

There isn't a tyrant past or present who wouldn't cheer Axios. What does Axios think the government is? It's people. Individuals. The only difference is that the government people are armed. Axios apparently believes that individuals, acting privately, are incapable of distinguishing between high-quality, trustworthy information and garbage and misinformation, but individuals backed by the power of legalized force—the law—are somehow capable of creating that perfect mechanism by successfully making that distinction! This, from a private media company!

Axios acts like "government or [private] individuals" is a balanced choice. Nothing can be further from the truth. Government has a legal monopoly on the use of force and violence. A government edict is imposed on all media, leaving both media owners and consumers no choice—and with the power to levy fines and jail terms for saying the “wrong” thing. A private individual (or company) has no such legal power of coercion of any kind. A Mark Zuckerberg speech regulation, or lack thereof, only affects his own company, which is subject to competition, leaving the field open to other platforms with different content moderation standards—and consumers free to switch and choose. 

But, in Axios’s view, we end up with some "Wild West of expression," which implies lawlessness. WRONG! Speech cannot be legally used to violate others' rights. That's why we have laws against inciting violence, making terroristic threats, or endangering public safety. We have libel and slander laws to give victims a chance to recover damages inflicted by others’ lies. Our real danger is a Wild West of arbitrary government speech regulation.

The choice "government or individuals" is a choice of despotism or individual freedom—nothing more and nothing less. The very fact that the choice is even posed as legitimate and balanced shows shocking ignorance of basic political philosophy, of America's very Founding ideals, and of history more broadly—or, worse, an understanding of the stakes involved with Axios deliberately opening the door to despotism, with Axios becoming one of the government’s gatekeepers. As Megan McArdle presciently puts it,

If you see someone advocating for more suppression of dangerous speech — be it heresy, hate speech or “misinformation” — you can be sure they expect their side to have exclusive use of the ban-hammer.

I’ll give Axios the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance. But what does that say about the state of knowledge in our culture that a widely read social media outlet like Axios can spread such political misinformation with apparent impunity? 

Private platforms, of course, have a right to moderate content posted on their platforms by their customers. And they may find that some form of content moderation or suggestive bylines are necessary. Still, kudos to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg for championing the powerful idea of intellectual freedom through  global information platforms governed by free speech — and the people — not by the platforms themselves.

The very idea of centralized fact-checking, whether by a private media company,  which is legitimate but can be problematic, or by the government, which is downright dangerous, ignores a crucial fact. What’s lost in all of the hand wringing over social media misinformation is the fact that it’s never been easier for the average person to do his own fact-checking.  Remember that consumers can easily reference professional fact-checkers on their own. All we need to do is get off of our lazy mental asses and do a bit of intellectual labor. 

Related Reading:

The Nature of Government, by Ayn Rand, From Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

The First Amendment Restricts Government, Not Private Citizens

Here’s the truth: Meta ending fact-checking is a win against censorship by Megan McArdle for WAPO.

The fact that merely letting people talk to each other feels like a dangerous concession to the right tells you just how much power progressives had amassed. Ironically, it reminds me of a quote cited often when conservatives complained about progressives throttling their opinions: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

Meta's Content Moderation Turnabout by Roger Pielke Jur. for The Honest Broker

A Lesson From 1930s Germany: Beware State Control of Social Media By Heidi Tworek for The Atlantic

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel, especially Chapter 2, “Publius & Co.”

HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen 

Meta Makes Major Moves to Advance Free Expression on Its Platforms By David Inserra

KOSA Negates the Government’s Law Enforcement Responsibility

A bill known as the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, passed the U.S. Senate by a 91 - 3 margin. It now [8/3/24] goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.

The bill is not what the title implies. It is much more . . . and much worse.

Reason’s Elizabeth Brown observes: 

The Kids Online Safety Act would have cataclysmic effects on free speech and privacy online.

"Bills like KOSA cynically hide censorship behind the mantle of child protection. Tell Sen. Schumer and other lawmakers to reject KOSA," urged the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

In a New York Times article, Senate Passes Child Online Safety Bill, Sending It to an Uncertain House Fate, Maya Miller reports

The centerpiece of the legislation would create a “duty of care” for social networking platforms that mandates they protect minors against mental health disorders and from abuse, sexual exploitation and other harms. Companies could be held liable for failing to filter out content or limit features that could lead to those adverse impacts. [My emphasis]

What content can anyone say does not fit with "could lead to adverse impacts? What would not  be included is such a vague mandate as “duty of care?”

A second measure included in the package would strengthen privacy protections for anyone under 17 and ban targeted advertising to children and teens. It would create an “eraser button” for parents and children, requiring companies to permit users to delete personal information.

Despite the lop-sided vote margin, the bill has notable critics.

The bill faces strong pushback from technology companies, who argue it would place unacceptable burdens on them to moderate content and verify users’ ages, and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union that contend it would restrict free speech. In the Senate, the measure generated narrow but intense opposition despite several rounds of redrafting to address such concerns.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, recently called the bill “the Pandora’s box of unintended consequences,” arguing it would stifle First Amendment-protected speech. Other critics, such as Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said they were worried that limiting children’s access to certain content on social media could further isolate vulnerable youths, including L.G.B.T.Q. young people who often rely on online communities for a sense of belonging and acceptance.

Count me among the opponents.

The Washington Post also reported on the passage of the bill (Senate passes landmark bills to protect kids online, raising pressure on House).

I posted this WAPO Comment:

Note what the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) does NOT do—hold the people who actually create and post the harmful content accountable. Instead of doing their duty to identify and prosecute the guilty, the politicians are going after the social media companies. If a crime is planned around a dinner in a restaurant; or committed using the Verizon phone network; or committed using the public roads, would it be right to charge that restaurant owner, Verizon, or the government for the wrong-doing? Yet that is the position that the social media companies, which are no different IN KIND, are being forced into with this horrifically misleading bill. 

Yes, KOSA is a threat to free speech and privacy, as the opponents argue. But it is also a massive abnegation by the political class in its primary function to identify criminal activity, make the necessary laws, and enforce the laws against the guilty while protecting the innocent.* In effect, the bill shifts that function from government, where it belongs, to private enterprise. Under the smokescreen of “kids safety,” KOSA is a massive inversion of the purpose of law and of justice: It evades the guilty and targets innocent third parties.

We should demand that the politicians do their jobs; go after the guilty, rather than take the easy, politically expedient course of making technology companies the scapegoats. 

* [I am indebted to Jon Hersey for pointing out this little-discussed aspect of this and similar laws targeting social media companies. Hersey wrote “Many of the bureaucrats and commentators behind these laws and initiatives against social-media companies share essentially the same tactic. They blame social-media companies for not doing what governments are supposed to do—protect individual rights—and then rationalize that this supposed failure is grounds for doing what governments are not supposed to do—violate individual rights.”]

Related Reading:

Social Media and the Future of Civil Society by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard

Senate To Vote on Web Censorship Bill Disguised as Kids Safety by Elizabeth Brown for Reason

Linda Stamato’s Broad Attack on Our Intellectual Freedom

Censorship-By-Proxy is Real, and it's Here

The End of the Free Internet Is Near: The idea that the internet should enjoy minimal government oversight precisely because it was a technology that enabled open and free speech for everyone has been turned on its head. -- DECLAN MCCULLAGH for Reason

HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen

Review of Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media by Michael Dahlen for The Objective Standard

A Lesson From 1930s Germany: Beware State Control of Social Media By Heidi Tworek for The Atlantic

Trump Joins Biden in War on the Average Person’s Newfound Power to be Heard

Should Reparations Include White Victims of Anti-Black Racism?

In Racism harms everyone, the New Jersey Star-Ledger Editorial Board’s Tom Moran interviewed with Heather McGhee, the author of a new book on race in America, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.”

One question stuck out:

 

Q. How do you expect that to play out?

A. Reparations shouldn’t be seen through a zero sum lens. It’s not taking money from white people. The government did the enslaving, the excluding, the racist policies. We all pay into government today. This should be seen as seed capital for the America we deserve, where the past does not haunt our children today.'

It’s true that the government spearheaded slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. But actual victims proven by evidence, not mere skin color or genetic lineage, should be the standard. Just as a person wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit (or his family) can sue for damages from the government, so reparations must be tied to direct harm. If our own government did the injustice, it should pay--meaning the taxpayers foot the bill. 

McGhee is wrong on many counts, but she implies a valid argument for how reparations could play out. The debate would have to be over who gets the reparations. For example, should private businesses, regardless of owners' skin color, be able to collect for loss of business due to segregation laws (See Sowell)? Reparations should not become a grab bag of handouts, nor focussed only on blacks. McGhee should agree, since her whole premise is that we all suffer from racism and segregation. She brings up New Deal housing racism that excluded blacks. True enough. But weren't home builders victims, in the form of lost sales to black families? Weren’t  whites who lost access to community pools victims? Weren’t whites who lost housing options in integrated neighborhoods victims. If we're all victims, shouldn’t reparations go to all victims?

Of course, justice demands that reparations go to still-living victims. Why should people generations removed from the injustice be able to cash in on the dead victims’ suffering?

Another complication arises with time. McGhee flippantly asserts, “We all pay into government today.” Yes. But it was yesterday’s government that committed the crimes. I did not pay into the governments that legally enforced slavery, or segregated America ( I was only 15 when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed.) When both the victims of government-enforced racist policies and the people responsible for that government are long dead, who can justly and logically be entitled to reparations, or be stuck with the bill?

And what about the political villains? The Democratic Party is the party of slavery, racism, lynching, and Jim Crow. Being the prime political mover of all of the very government that McGhee acknowledges did the enslaving, the excluding, the racist policies, should the Democratic Party be liable for the damages. But then the same question arises: Why should Democrats who weren’t around during the era of a pro-slavery Democratic Party be liable? Maybe they shouldn’t be. But in another sense they should be, because being a Democrat is a choice. To be a Democrat today, don’t you accept moral responsibility for the entire history of your party, especially since in some respects the party really hasn’t changed its stripes?

Aside from these arguments, McGhee urges us to see reparations as “seed capital for America. That sounds a lot like industrial central planning and another attempt to sneak in socialism through the back door.

You can go on and on dealing with complications and contradictions once you drift away from normal rules of evidence and proof and individual responsibility. Yes, the government did it. But no, that fact does not justify an open-ended, never ending flow of reparations to non-victim descendents.

Related Reading:

On New Jersey’s Proposed Bill to Study Racial Reparations

SUPPLEMENTAL TO ‘New Jersey’s Proposed Bill to Study Racial Reparations’: The ‘Slavery is Good Economics’ Argument

‘Reparations’; Another Leftist Path to Socialism

Why It’s So Important to Understand What Actually ‘Made America Great’ in the First Place

The Dem's Jim Crow 2.0

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

QUORA: ‘Does the government become poor in a capitalist society?’

 QUORA *: ‘Does the government become poor in a capitalist society?’

I posted this answer:

Let’s first identify the basics of capitalist society.

Economically, “capitalism” means laissez-faire—i.e., the separation of economics and state à la separation of church and state. The Government’s job is to police the markets against force, fraud, breach of contract, etc, but otherwise not interfere in people’s voluntary economic decisions and associations. More broadly, a laissez-faire capitalist society is not just economically free, but intellectually and politically free as well. Every individual’s rights to live their lives and pursue their goals and values--inalienable rights to life, liberty, contract, to earn and keep property, speak his mind, equal protection of the laws, etc.--is protected so long as one’s actions don’t violate the same rights of others.**

To secure their rights, the people establish a government as their agent. Basic functions of a capitalist government include the police, the military, the court system, and related public institutions essential to carrying out those basic tasks. The government is constitutionally limited only to powers necessary and proper to carrying out these rights-protecting functions. 

A government therefore cannot be “poor” or “rich.” The question is, is the government adequately funded?  Presumably, the government of a laissez-faire capitalist society would be adequately funded, as it is in the self-interest of the citizens that the government be able to do its job. So, the government in a laissez-faire capitalist society would (or should) never be “poor” in the sense of being inadequately funded.

There’s a mountain of confusion surrounding the function of government under laissez-faire capitalism. For clarity, I recommend The Nature of Government by philosopher Ayn Rand, available on the website of The Foundation for Economic Education.

** [The true nature of capitalism is buried under mountains of misconceptions and misrepresentations, even though capitalism in practice is evident all around us in virtually any decision we make that doesn’t involve government coercion. To balance the intellectual scales, I recommend Andrew Bernstein's books, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire and Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights.]

Related Reading:

On ‘Capitalist Government’ and Corporate Bailouts

QUORA: ‘Can democracy survive capitalism?’

QUORA: ‘Why has modern capitalism risen in the West?’

A New Textbook of Americanism Edited by Jonathan Hoenig

Some Thoughts on the Filibuster

Some Senate Democrats want to eliminate the filibuster. I offer here some of my thoughts on the filibuster, using the New York Times morning report as a prop. On 1/27/21, the Times posted this, which includes my annotates. My annotates are highlighted. The rest is the Times:

Status quo vs. change

If you examine the history of the filibuster — a Senate rule requiring a supermajority vote on many bills, rather than a straight majority — you will quickly notice something: It has benefited the political right much more than the left.

In the 1840s (before the term “filibuster” existed), Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina used the technique to protect slavery. Over the next century, Southern Democrats repeatedly used the filibuster to prevent Black Americans from voting and to defeat anti-lynching bills. From the 1950s through the 1990s, Senate Republicans, working with some conservative Democrats, blocked the passage of laws that would have helped labor unions organize workers. Over the past two decades, the filibuster has enabled Republicans to defeat a long list of progressive bills, on climate change, oil subsidies, campaign finance, Wall Street regulation, corporate offshoring, gun control, immigration, gender pay equality and Medicare expansion. [Note that the whole section involves rights-violating Democratic agendas. The first two paragraphs blocked freedom's advance. The second two paragraphs blocked the advance of largely anti-freedom, rights-violating “progressive” legislation. Put the four paragraphs together, and you can see the consistency of the Democratic Party's anti-liberty essence over time. The Times also fails to mention an elephant in the room, the Progressive project to legally segregate America, which was pushed through despite the existence of the filibuster.  [Notice also that the Times lumps together pro-slavery Democrats with Republican/conservative opposition to the rights-violating Progressive agenda. Slavery, black disenfrancisement, lynching are the political right? This is why the Right/Left paradigm must be abandoned by pro-liberty forces.]

The early days of Joe Biden’s presidency, with the Democrats narrowly controlling the Senate, have intensified a debate over whether the party should eliminate the filibuster. If Senate Democrats did, they could try to pass many bills — say, on climate change, voting rights, Medicare expansion and tax increases on the rich — with 51 votes, rather than 60.

As part of the debate, many observers have pointed out that both parties have used the filibuster, and both could suffer from its demise. Democrats, for example, filibustered some of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, as well as abortion restrictions and an estate-tax cut. A Senate without the current filibuster really would cause problems for Democrats at times.

On balance, however, there is no question about which party benefits more from the filibuster. Republicans do, and it’s not close. [And there is no doubt about which party is the bigger threat to liberty in America.]

The dictionary test

This makes sense, too. Consider the words conservative and progressive. A conservative tends to prefer the status quo, while a progressive often favors change. “The filibuster is a tool to preserve the status quo and makes it harder to make change,” Adam Jentleson, a former Democratic Senate aide and the author of “Kill Switch,” a new book on the filibuster, told me. (I’m reading the book now and recommend it.) [There is nothing inherently good about change. If liberty is to be "conserved"--read, secured] in America, it is the "progressives" [read, regressives] idea of change that must be blocked.]

Jentleson documents that the country’s founders did not intend for most legislation to require a supermajority and that the filibuster emerged only in the 1800s. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison both wrote passionate defenses of simple majority rule. They protected minority rights by creating a government — with a president, two legislative chambers and a judiciary — in which making a law even with simple majorities was onerous.

“What at first sight may seem a remedy,” Hamilton wrote, referring to supermajority rule, “is, in reality, a poison.” If a majority could not govern, he explained, it would lead to “tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.” [I have no strong opinion on the filibuster pro or con, although I lean toward keeping it if for no other reason than that it makes lawmaking more difficult and reigns in majority power. The filibuster can benefit or hurt either side at any given time. What I do know is that the fight over the filibuster is not the primary conflict. The primary fight is between individualism and collectivism, the resolution of which will decide the outcome of the conflict between liberty and tyranny. Fighting to fully restore our Constitution within our lawmaking capacity should be our goal. That would make the fight over the filibuster much less important.] Related Reading: Save the Filibuster Will Biden Acknowledge His Own Party’s ‘Central Role’ in Segregating America?