I don't think Facebook literally thinks they're a web site -- I think they know something extraordinary is going on. Probably much better than I do. But I do know that what they set out to do, and what they found themselves doing, are very different, and the head shift has been difficult. This is why, when people come to them with questions and requests and complaints that seem a little more appropriate to ask a judge or monarch or a legislature, they make expedient and historically and politically short-sighted decisions. They don't recognize them as questions of political philosophy, opportunities to think about the right way to architect a global community. They don't even draw on the considerable existing wisdom we have about how governments should work. They fumblingly reinvent ideas from ancient Babylon so they can get back to doing what they think they do and what they want to do.
It's hard to blame them. The head shift is difficult. They didn't ask for this responsibility, and finding themselves at the wheel of something enormous they aren't qualified to pilot, shrink from the task. Any sane person would. I only write about it here in the hopes that we all can start taking these problems seriously. How should a global information community work?
It's not literally true that Facebook is a branch of government, either. It's just the closest analogy I have, and it's closer to the truth than where we started. Really, they are something new. Something nobody knows how to manage correctly yet. I am not the only one to understand that the stakes are high, which is why people keep passing the buck. Facebook wants the government to tell them what's expected and allowed, and the government refuses -- or acts in small-minded expedient ways, too. They don't know either.
This disinformation and censorship question is one of a hundred with deep philosophical and legal elements. What Facebook thinks about the value of free speech, how they decide disputes should be adjudicated, what they do in small cases of deception and fraud and political manipulation, actually matters a lot more to us practically than what our own laws say. This is a shame, because our legal thinkers actually have a lot more experience with being wise and just when it comes to such matters. Facebook has the power to set policy in a way no one ever has before, and they do not seem to be thinking in terms of implications for humanity. They seem to be thinking in terms of how to get people off their back because this sort of thing isn't what they do. Or perhaps more charitably, because the people coming to them with problems are so terrifyingly powerful and the problems are so terrifyingly high stakes. There have been complaints about minor changes in advertising policy throwing elections in far-flung countries. Would you want that responsibility?
This is why I say we need a Thomas Jefferson. What I really mean is, we need a political philosopher who sees the moment and its dangers and opportunities clearly, and can try to help us do things fairly and right. I don't know where you'd find one, though.
You're right that it isn't as easy as that -- people's expectations play into it. Governments', yes, and people's too. While I say Twitter should be creating a legislature and courts and a constitution, we'd all think they were insanely arrogant to do so. Even though now that I say it, you can probably see that it probably is getting to the point where that's needed. But they aren't ready for it and we aren't either -- inertia and expectations. A Thomas Paine could fix that. I don't know where you'd find one of those, either.
We are at a time of great change in history. The information revolution is in full swing. The internet had been a tool for research, then a toy for nerds, then a novel technology full of opportunity. Now it is changing the way society organizes itself. Some people think these digital communities will supplant nations, or exist alongside as something equally important. I don't know. I suspect the change is as profound as the one that ended the middle ages, when we transitioned from the church as a primary social organization to nations. But living in the middle of history, who's to say?
It took us a while to figure out how to run nations, too. We really shouldn't expect too much for a generation or two at least.
My main hope in writing this is to encourage people to take the problem seriously, and think of it as belonging to the space of political philosophy -- which it does. If you work for one of these organizations, learn something about the history and philosophy of government -- why we have laws, why we have courts, why we have elections, why we have bills of rights. You are running a community bigger and more diverse than any nation, with totally novel powers and limitations, totally novel ways to be unfair and evil that you need to avoid, and you do not have the resources to do it right, nor can anyone even tell you what doing it right even looks like. It has to be invented. Get help -- from history, from scholars, from anywhere you find it. If you find Thomas Jefferson living under a rock, hire him immediately.
The rest of us are living under the feet of a giant struggling while trying to carry far too many boulders. We yelp when he steps on us -- and we should -- but we should also be trying to figure out if we can build something that will help carry that load. The boulders are there regardless and the guy is hardly up to the task. Running massive communities fairly is hard and complicated. We need widsom and principled understanding. Attacking the overwhelmed monarch is not how you get peace and justice -- you get that by finding him advisors and engineers that can help him build it.
The situation as it stands is untenable. We need a better way. But until we have one, the situation is what it is and we should help the poor guy stuck managing it.
Political neutrality is a charitable assumption, made because even in this (best) case, the problem is obviously so horrific and difficult that we will need everyone's help and cooperation (especially including Facebook's) to navigate it humanely. You cannot live in a society this large and complex without some give and take, and affection and good faith are the glue that hold us together through those moments of giving and taking. We need it to be true that Facebook intends to do right by everyone, even those they politically disagree with.
Fortunately for us, Facebook believes in its own political neutrality and very much wants us to believe it too. It is a conceit and a fiction -- I think we all know that -- nothing in the world is ever actually politically neutral, and the behavior of these entities is, at times, over the line of how close to perfection you might expect someone making a reasonable and principled effort to get. (An understatement, I know. I still choose to interpret what is happening as a sign of distress, not malice, on Facebook's part.) But we should nonetheless take their conceit at face value, hold them to that standard, expect them to try hard to get close to that ideal, and even assume they were trying and made a human error when they fall short and help and expect them do better. It is a tremendous gift that they are trying and think it is worth it to try. Even if that effort is not principled and sincere -- even if they're just trying to make others think they're politically neutral -- it's a massive gift. Run with that. Take it for all it's worth. Believe them and help them succeed and tell them that you're willing to believe they mean well if they act, not even perfectly, but reasonably. The alternative -- a world in which they cannot win and might as well not try, in which we have an openly and unapologetically politically non-neutral entity with this much power -- is far worse.
Facebook may have a lot of power, but it is not so much that going to war with half their countrymen is a good idea -- this is true both for them and for society. Perhaps they would be within their rights to do it, but the effect would be very bad for everyone. The predictable result of that scenario -- the establishment of a competing social media option with a competing flavor of censorship -- eliminates the possibility of healthy, democratic discourse. Our traditional media is in this state right now, which is why both sides are so useless. They cannot talk to each other. They can only talk to themselves. They cannot think high-mindedly about what is best for society. They can only talk about how wrong their enemies are. In an echo chamber and a war, everyone goes crazy, no matter how right they were at the beginning or overall. We need to be able to listen to each other, and choosing to fight instead would just hurt everyone. Loud bias on two sides does not moderate towards reason -- it accelerates towards two flavors of insanity.
We need each other. If we fight, all we will do is break the system, and -- as we see in traditional media -- this isn't worth it. As we navigate society-wide issues, it is easy to see that it would be really nice to have an information infrastructure that worked, but alas, in a short-sighted effort to win an election here or an issue there, we broke it. This is unfortunate because a functioning and rational information infrastructure would be a really helpful tool to have when you need to address a bigger problem like a pandemic. Even looking just domestically, the truth is that neither side needs to win half so badly as they need to be able to trust each other, and need the wisdom that they can come up with together. But of course, this information problem is not primarily domestic. It is revolutionary and it is global. We absolutely cannot afford to fight bitterly over stupid, provincial issues while trying to think about the sort of massive political and philosophical problem that is private companies in California pretending they are not running information infrastructure in Burma. Putting that infrastructure in the center of a US-based political war is a horrific idea to contemplate.
We can't go down that road here. Can't. And even if it looks like Facebook is going down it, responding by fighting is going down it with them. We have no choice but to figure out how to get along. We need high minded wisdom, we need the ability to listen to a huge, global community and make sacrifices for each other. We need excellent vision, and we need good ideals, and we need pragmatic political understanding. Affection and trust and good faith and cooperation are too important to sacrifice. We cannot fly apart, we cannot become enemies, we cannot take offense over small things. The only way to get to where we need to be is to insist on expecting everyone to be doing their best to get along and to accept nothing less. Facebook may be politically biased, but I refuse to accept that. To the degree that it is the case, they can do better, and I believe they want to, and I will help.
The cynical attitude may be true, but the deeper truth is that we cannot afford it.
It's hard to blame them. The head shift is difficult. They didn't ask for this responsibility, and finding themselves at the wheel of something enormous they aren't qualified to pilot, shrink from the task. Any sane person would. I only write about it here in the hopes that we all can start taking these problems seriously. How should a global information community work?
It's not literally true that Facebook is a branch of government, either. It's just the closest analogy I have, and it's closer to the truth than where we started. Really, they are something new. Something nobody knows how to manage correctly yet. I am not the only one to understand that the stakes are high, which is why people keep passing the buck. Facebook wants the government to tell them what's expected and allowed, and the government refuses -- or acts in small-minded expedient ways, too. They don't know either.
This disinformation and censorship question is one of a hundred with deep philosophical and legal elements. What Facebook thinks about the value of free speech, how they decide disputes should be adjudicated, what they do in small cases of deception and fraud and political manipulation, actually matters a lot more to us practically than what our own laws say. This is a shame, because our legal thinkers actually have a lot more experience with being wise and just when it comes to such matters. Facebook has the power to set policy in a way no one ever has before, and they do not seem to be thinking in terms of implications for humanity. They seem to be thinking in terms of how to get people off their back because this sort of thing isn't what they do. Or perhaps more charitably, because the people coming to them with problems are so terrifyingly powerful and the problems are so terrifyingly high stakes. There have been complaints about minor changes in advertising policy throwing elections in far-flung countries. Would you want that responsibility?
This is why I say we need a Thomas Jefferson. What I really mean is, we need a political philosopher who sees the moment and its dangers and opportunities clearly, and can try to help us do things fairly and right. I don't know where you'd find one, though.
You're right that it isn't as easy as that -- people's expectations play into it. Governments', yes, and people's too. While I say Twitter should be creating a legislature and courts and a constitution, we'd all think they were insanely arrogant to do so. Even though now that I say it, you can probably see that it probably is getting to the point where that's needed. But they aren't ready for it and we aren't either -- inertia and expectations. A Thomas Paine could fix that. I don't know where you'd find one of those, either.
We are at a time of great change in history. The information revolution is in full swing. The internet had been a tool for research, then a toy for nerds, then a novel technology full of opportunity. Now it is changing the way society organizes itself. Some people think these digital communities will supplant nations, or exist alongside as something equally important. I don't know. I suspect the change is as profound as the one that ended the middle ages, when we transitioned from the church as a primary social organization to nations. But living in the middle of history, who's to say?
It took us a while to figure out how to run nations, too. We really shouldn't expect too much for a generation or two at least.
My main hope in writing this is to encourage people to take the problem seriously, and think of it as belonging to the space of political philosophy -- which it does. If you work for one of these organizations, learn something about the history and philosophy of government -- why we have laws, why we have courts, why we have elections, why we have bills of rights. You are running a community bigger and more diverse than any nation, with totally novel powers and limitations, totally novel ways to be unfair and evil that you need to avoid, and you do not have the resources to do it right, nor can anyone even tell you what doing it right even looks like. It has to be invented. Get help -- from history, from scholars, from anywhere you find it. If you find Thomas Jefferson living under a rock, hire him immediately.
The rest of us are living under the feet of a giant struggling while trying to carry far too many boulders. We yelp when he steps on us -- and we should -- but we should also be trying to figure out if we can build something that will help carry that load. The boulders are there regardless and the guy is hardly up to the task. Running massive communities fairly is hard and complicated. We need widsom and principled understanding. Attacking the overwhelmed monarch is not how you get peace and justice -- you get that by finding him advisors and engineers that can help him build it.
The situation as it stands is untenable. We need a better way. But until we have one, the situation is what it is and we should help the poor guy stuck managing it.