Big Tech Occupation
Technocrats are imposing foreign law on American jurisdictions.
Via American Mind
Big Tech has infiltrated the American homeland and is imposing speech laws that resemble those of Europe, challenging the authority and longevity of the First Amendment. Although we share common ideals with other Western nations, we pursue and defend those ideals very differently. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to speech.
It is important to understand how fundamentally different our country is from the rest of the world if we want to understand why Big Tech’s speech codes shout not be inflicted on American citizens in American jurisdictions. Put another way, if the would-be monarchs of Silicon Valley get their way, their speech codes will ultimately undermine our American values of free speech and the First Amendment itself.
A Tale of Two Speeches
In America, the First Amendment expresses an absolutist viewpoint on speech: “Congress shall make no law...” (emphasis added). From there, the courts have developed a framework that governs speech. Not all speech is “protected” speech (e.g. fighting words and true threats), and we have standards that determine if, when, where, and how the government can limit speech. All told, American speech law can be quite complex, but philosophically it begins at that intransigent right: “Congress shall make no law.” This principle permeates the American mindset and is defended by our written and entrenched (i.e., difficult to change) Constitution.
Europe, however, begins from a qualified position and immediately seeks to balance speech with other competing interests. Despite aspirational language to the contrary, European law begins with the assumption that speech is a privilege, the contours of which can be defined and redefined by the government. Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights makes this clear.
1.Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers….
This sounds good until you read the second paragraph:
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. (emphasis added)
The blunt fact is that most Europeans have freedom of speech at the discretion of their governments.
Enter Big Tech
The Big Tech internal speech codes are just like Europe’s broad, discretionary standards in that they permit a privileged few to determine what is and is not offensive or “dangerous” speech. For example, Facebook bans “hate speech,” including “white nationalist rhetoric” and “violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation,” as well as other categories of offensive speech. Although this type of speech policing is contrary to the American principle that we have the liberty to offend, these definitions might sound otherwise uncontroversial and even attractive (after all, most decent people don’t want to be exposed to violent or dehumanizing speech).
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But of course, in addition to offending our spirit of free speech generally, the application of these standards has already proven to be both broad and biased, permitting companies to label all manner of political socially-conservative speech as dangerous or violent. There is wisdom and authentic freedom in America’s adherence to robust and “absolutist” protection of speech; there is opportunity for corruption, bias, and suffocating censorship lurking in the European approach.
Big Tech has effectively imported European speech law into the United States. Big Tech has created a massive internal framework that blankets the nation and imposes European-style standards in direct opposition to the robust, absolutist American rule.
Because Tech oligarchs control the primary thoroughfares of public discourse today—our new public squares of the digital age—they have effectively occupied our country and imposed foreign law on American citizens, restricting our fundamental liberty to gather and to exchange thoughts and ideas freely.
Europe’s speech standards leave Europeans at the mercy of their ruling class. In America, the First Amendment (and the attitude it embodies), continues to provide Americans the strongest speech rights of any people on earth. Big Tech cannot be allowed to impose European speech codes in digital public squares within American jurisdictions. . . Full Article By Molly McCann @ American Mind