SPEECH POLICE

Policing the internet is necessary,
but which entity shall we entrust with doing that work?

Governments fear a decentralized
internet, but individuals should be alarmed about the centralization that has
been firming up, “dominated by the corporate imperatives of advertising and
data mining.” So writes Kaye (Law/Univ. of California, Irvine), the U.N.
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, in this
lucid exploration of the internet, which has become the domain of media and
commercial monopolies instead of the earlier one in which numerous individual
bloggers and publications were influential. Owned by Google, YouTube, for
instance, has no incentive to clean up posts that fuel discord and hatred. Nor
does Facebook: “There is no denying that they make a lot of money from a model
that serves up video after video, or post after post, that takes one further
and further away from verifiable information and toward the clickbait world of
disinformation that intends to meaningfully deceive an audience.” Instead,
it is in the corporate interest to hide behind claims of free speech that until
recently sheltered the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones. Entities such
as the European Union and the U.N. are now pressing companies to police such
speech under penalty of heavy fines, with legitimate information at risk of
being cast away along with hate speech. Kaye proposes the application of human
rights law to address some of these concerns, and he advocates better
transparency and accountability as well as civilian oversight and democratic
governance, since “whoever is in charge will have massive power over the future
of civic space and freedom of expression worldwide.” Usefully, the author draws
on examples from around the world, especially places where access to
information is a literal matter of life and death, such as Syria and Myanmar. While
corporate dominance is an undeniable threat to free speech for its own sake, he
also observes, provocatively, that “fighting disinformation begins with governments telling
the truth.”

An essential contribution to the
discussion of free speech and its online enemies.