The idea that the shutting down of Parler and the removal of Trump from Twitter is an attack on free speech is bullshit, and I’ll outline why. In the U.S., violent speech is not protected speech. Incitement to violence or sedition is not protected speech. You cannot threaten violence against your neighbor and expect impunity:
Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising (source: Wikipedia, emphasis mine).
In other words, you do not have the right to incite criminal activity, incite sedition, and threaten lives. These are all things that users of Parler and Trump have unequivocally done. Amazon reported more than 100 pieces of content on Parler advocating violence.
Amazon said it reported more than 100 pieces of content advocating violence to Parler in November and December, including posts such as “after the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next,” and “death to @zuckerberg @realjeffbezos @jackdorsey @pichai.” It said content encouraging violence grew rapidly after the riots on Wednesday. (source: Geekwire)
The criticism against the shutting down of Parler and removal of Trump from Twitter has been fierce, especially on the Right, with one Fox News contributor actually comparing the shutting down of Parler to Kristallnacht in a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what Kristallnacht was. Kristallnacht was the burning and destruction of nearly 300 of Jewish synagogues, 7,000 businesses, and the arrests of 30,000 Jews who were then sent to concentration camps. To compare that to the shutting down of a website spewing hateful propaganda and encouraging violence — some against Jews themselves — is ludicrous and stupid.
Others compared the shutting down of Parler to Orwell’s 1984, which is again a complete misunderstanding of that book. In 1984 a totalitarian government using mass surveillance and brainwashing techniques totally controls a helpless populace. To argue that shutting down Parler is akin to the tactics of the controlling government in 1984 is absurd. While there is a lot to be said about the ubiquitous surveillance that our technology enables, if anything in the U.S. we have a glut of information. Anyone is free to set up a website, post their vile thoughts to 4chan or Twitter or Facebook or their WordPress site — just as long as they do not advocate violence and threaten people (see above.) Not to mention the right-wing news sites like OANN, Breitbart, and Fox News. You cannot be taken seriously if you claim that somehow the Left in the U.S. has a monopoly on information.
There’s also been criticism from Angela Merkel, who considers Trump’s eviction from Twitter “problematic.” I find this highly hypocritical, coming from the chancellor of Germany. Germany has a specific law, known as “Section 130” that bans incitement to hatred. It’s very clear from this analysis by Seth Abramson and others like it (“Stand back, and stand by”, “Very fine people”, etc.) that Trump has been encouraging white supremacist violence for some time, and the administrators of Twitter and Facebook have actually allowed Trump to remain on their platform for too long. It’s hypocritical for Merkel to find Trump’s Twitter ban problematic when her own country has laws banning Trump’s exact rhetoric.
Then there’s Elon Musk. Readers of this blog know I’m a fan of Musk’s plan to electrify the automobile industry and colonize the Moon and Mars. But his politics are absurd. (Let’s not talk about his downplaying of COVID. And Kayne West for president? Really?) Musk recently said on Twitter:
A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech (Source: Twitter)
Again, this is absurdly hypocritical. Musk himself is said to rapidly shut down any talk of unionizing among his employees at Tesla. Would he ever allow a Tesla or SpaceX employee encourage violence or incite sedition because of free speech? Absurd. The West Coast “high tech” (read: Google, Twitter, Facebook, Apple etc.) are not the “de facto arbiter of free speech.” They decided not to materially support people and organizations directly responsible for inciting violence against members of Congress and an attempted insurrection against the United States. As many people have been saying for a long time, social media has been too slow to ban toxic and harassing users from their platforms. If anything, the tech companies have been too permissive. And I think sedition against the United States and violence and murder is as good as a reason as any to ban someone from your platform.
And let’s also remember: Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, etc., are all private companies. They are not bound by the First Amendment. Nevertheless, as I have outlined above, these companies have been overly permissive in allowing these toxic, destructive users and organizations to remain on their platforms for so long.
Readers of this blog also know I’ve written about disinformation before. So let’s talk about Parler itself. As this Twitter thread by disinformation specialist Dave Troy outlines, it’s likely that some of Parler’s start-up money came from Russia, and we all know Russia has (1) a suspiciously cozy relationship with Donald Trump and his cronies and (2) a history and interest in sowing unrest in the U.S.
Github user d0nk had been reverse engineering the Parler API before it was off-lined, and in her analysis of the code there’s a passage that caught my attention:
Whenever John Matze says “influencer marketing” should I really be hearing, “we’ve created a pavlovian conditioning machine that rewards already gullible people for organically spreading disinformation campaigns”? (most likely) (Source: Github)
The point is Parler is shit. People on it (not just a few) were actively encouraging violence. Here’s a gem:
““The objective is Congress,” one wrote [on Parler], adding that after taking control of the Capitol, Trump supporters should make sure that people inside “leave in one of two ways: dead or certifying Trump the rightful winner.” (Source: NY Times)
And according to the NY Times:
“For weeks leading up to the attack, people openly discussed taking violent action against the Capitol and the lawmakers meeting inside to certify the results of the election, according to SITE [a private group that monitors terrorism threats around the world.]” (Source: NY Times)
Trump did not only fail to speak out against white supremacy and calls for violence against Congress, he actively encouraged it, and lied, hundreds of times, about the legitimacy of a democratic election. An election where sixty court cases found zero evidence of widespread fraud, where Trump’s own appointed national security teams said was the most secure in American history.
Sedition is not protected speech. Incitement to violence is not protected speech.
As Sacha Baron Cohen said in a recent speech to the ADL, “Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.” You do not have the right to spread your hateful, vile, racist, seditious beliefs, and the tech companies were correct, and even slow, to shut these malicious actors down.
| Read the first novel of the Worldmender trilogy King of Shards free now when you subscribe to my newsletter. | Read Queen of Static now, the follow-up to the groundbreaking novel King of Shards. |
 |
 |
