Should the state (either the national government or a state government) be legally permitted to ban this group from the internet? What would Mill say? Would he be correct?
Monday, February 27, 2023
An Internet of Hate
A white supremacy group has a website and uses social media to spread their hateful views about race, to recruit new members and raise money for their causes. While social media organizations like Twitter and Facebook have banned the group because of their content, social media without a content policy allow them to use their services. Even though it is difficult to make a direct causal connection, incidents of racial violence have spiked since this group has been active.
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Mill would respond to the issue of a hateful white supremacy group spreading their message on the internet by emphasizing his idea of freedom as long as it does not harm others. One of the first points Mill established in his philosophical essay, On Liberty, is his insistence that the government should not be allowed to intervene with any person's freedoms unless they are causing direct harm to others. While it was noted that as a result of the white supremacy groups activity, racial violence has increased, this is not direct violence. Because of the lack of direct violence, Mill would say that this is not a situation in which the government has the right to step in. With Mills' perspective, the government would have the right and obligation to stop the individuals who are directly acting in the resulting racial violence incidents, however, the group spreading their message online is not close enough to the actual harm for Mill. Mill would believe this to be the correct course of action because it aligns with his philosophy. This being said, the online speech is clearly leading to harm in the long run and therefore the government should be allowed to ban this group for they are enforcing the violence in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI think that the government should be allowed to get involved based solely on the fact that it is effecting and harming others. And I believe that Mills would say yes the government should be legally allowed to respond. Because while this was just freedom of speech originally, it gradually turned into violence against others. The company does not have content restrictions, but morally they should and because they do not I think it is safe to say the government can and should intervene. I believe that Mills would be correct in his opinion based on the morality of it alone. It is no longer just freedom of opinion, but actions that are causing others harm.
ReplyDeleteMill would argue that the government should not be able to ban this group from the internet. He would probably say that there is an assumption of infallibility in banning these ideas from being spread, as the government would have to assert that white supremacy must be wrong. Even though we would all agree in this class that white supremacy is clearly wrong, I don’t think we can prove it. I don’t think a completely accurate study could be done to show that white people are absolutely equal to all other people due to the complex social circumstances that make data in the realm of social science so difficult to interpret. Obviously, I think we are all equal, but I cannot deny that there is a chance that white supremacy might be true. Mill would likely also make the point that it is important to consider the circumstances under which white supremacist ideas are being spread. He would probably support their censorship if they were spread during a rally to an angry mob standing outside a black family’s home, as these ideas would act almost as a direct insinuation of violence. However, in a public forum such as Twitter, I believe that there is not a sufficiently direct threat to warrant banning the group, and Mill would likely agree in my opinion. If we suppose that white supremacy is certainly false, Mill would still argue that understanding falsehood helps to illuminate the truth, and therefore white supremacist ideas should not be banned. On this point, I might disagree with Mill. The understanding of falsehood helps illuminate the truth for those like us, who do not believe in white supremacy. However, it helps us usually in the context of discussion, where we discuss the ideas and why they are wrong. Banning the white supremacists from Twitter or any other internet platform would not remove our ability to hold these discussions, so we would still be able to use these ideas to better understand the truth. This ban would not completely ban the ideas of white supremacy from any discussion whatsoever, just from those certain internet forums. Since we are supposing here that white supremacy is certainly false, the expression of those ideas as a supposition of the truth is only dangerous and not necessary to aid us in our search for truth. In short, I think that the government would have the right to ban the white supremacists from the internet if it were possible to prove absolutely that white supremacy is false. However, I do not believe this to be possible, so I am not in favor of the government having this power.
ReplyDeleteThis question really hinges on ideas of free speech and free expression. From Mill’s perspective, there are basically two good reasons that we might want to prevent the government from banning such speech. The first argument is the idea that humans are fallible, meaning that for any given idea that we suppress, we can never really be sure that the idea is not in fact correct while we think it to be wrong. The second main reason we might want to prevent the government from censoring such speech, from Mill’s perspective, is that allowing discourse on topics people disagree about strengthens the truth insofar as Mill believes that the only real way to find the truth is through some amount of public discourse. On the first of these points, it seems reprehensible to me to say that the ideology of white supremacy could possibly be “correct” in any way that’s meaningful. It seems obvious to me that white supremacy is a foolish, bigoted philosophy. Of course, Mill might respond to me by saying that there are a not-insignificant number of white supremacists who would disagree with the notion that white supremacy is obviously wrong. Furthermore, putting white supremacy aside for a moment, Mill does make cogent points about how we should aim to allow for freedom of speech and expression. One example of how restrictions on freedom of speech and expression can be really bad would be during the Cold War and the Red Scare, when communist and socialist views were suppressed because they were seen as sympathetic to the US’s main geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union. It appears obvious to me that we shouldn’t censor political speech about communism. The issue for me is that my intuition is that we shouldn’t censor communist ideology but that we should censor white supremacist ideology, even though there isn’t necessarily a clear bright line between those two things in terms of freedom of speech, insofar as they are both controversial opinions which have been called to be banned at various points (assuming neither is calling for violence and the cause of suffering). Then of course there’s the second point about discourse that we have yet to address. While I agree with Mill that the way that we figure out what is correct is through discourse, there seems to be an ethical weighing issue here insofar as Mill doesn’t recognize the fact that this speech can cause real harm which could really outweigh the benefit of more people having a more solid understanding of their own philosophy and what is true. To put it bluntly, in the case of hate speech, how many people’s understandings is equivalent to the extra potential hate crime that might be caused by hate groups on the internet? This whole issue is rather fraught with problems, but here’s where I think I come down on it. I don’t think the government should be allowed to censor what we might call political speech under any circumstance. I think it’s simply too problematic to allow a government, which is inherently a political entity, to determine which political views are acceptable. In addition, the point that free discourse on any topics of societal importance must be allowed is salient. That being said, there are still ways white supremacy can be curbed without hurting freedom of speech. For example, I would argue that there is a very big difference between political speech and actual threats. It is different matter to say terrible things than it is to compel people to do terrible things. The difference is that stopping people from threatening and compelling suffering upon others isn’t really political oppression, but more so just normal governmental duties. In addition, as the prompt states, there should be nothing stopping private companies from keeping these groups off their platforms. The public discourse shouldn’t have any restrictions on condemning any reprehensible speech. All that being said, I’m still not totally settled on this issue, and believe it requires further investigation.
ReplyDeleteMill argues that freedom of speech is essential and important for the progress/development of society. According to Mill, censorship is harmful because it prevents the exploration of new truths and ideas. Mill believed that even offensive or controversial ideas should be allowed to be expressed, as they may contain valuable insights or lead to social progress in some way. However, Mill also recognized that there may be situations in which the expression of an idea causes harm or incites violence/riots. In such cases, Mill argued that the state may intervene to prevent harm to other people. In the given scenario, it could be argued that such expression is causing or inciting harm, as it may lead to acts of violence against minorities. In this scenario, a government intervention to restrict the group's access to the internet may be justified under the harm principle. However, any intervention should be carefully reviwed to avoid infrigingin on the first amendment. For example, the government should focus on restricting the groups ability to incite violence or spread hate speech, rather than banning them from the internet..
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