Social Media Bans Are a Victory for Free Speech

Alex Jones. Sarah Jeong. James Gunn. Josh Hader.

These are four entirely different people: A conspiracy theorist, a tech journalist, a movie director, and a professional baseball player (sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, right?) who have all recently come under fire for very different reasons which are, ultimately, all the same.

Jones, Jeong, Gunn, and Hader join a long list of politicians, athletes, journalists, and celebrities who have landed themselves in the midst of controversy as a result of questionable and offensive social media histories. Extensive digging through the Twitter and Facebook accounts of these four individuals has exposed patterns of racism and bigotry (in the cases of Jones, Jeong, and Hader) or else revealed objectionable content regarding sexuality, consent, and pedophilia (in the case of Gunn).

The cases are, of course, all quite nuanced and idiosyncratic, but the fact remains that all are connected: Four separate people who have used social media platforms for the purpose of disseminating distasteful content which is widely considered to be societally unacceptable. And yet, the firestorm of controversy surrounding these incidents does not stem from the inherently insensitive nature of the Tweets and posts themselves, but rather, is rooted in the fact that all four cases have been handled remarkably differently.
Josh Hader was publicly reprimanded for his social media conduct and required by Major League Baseball to undergo sensitivity training. James Gunn's contract with Marvel Cinema and Disney was cancelled as a result of his behavior. Sarah Jeong was offered and accepted a job on the editorial board of the New York Times, and no punitive measures were enacted. All three of them were allowed a continued presence on social media.

Alex Jones' page Infowars, on the other hand, was permanently suspended and banned from major social media platforms including Facebook and YouTube. Though he was certainly not the first or only to spout the offensive rhetoric which he espoused, he paid the price in a way which few others have.
The characteristic which separates Jones from the others is that he is an outspoken conservative who has adopted a radically right wing position on the majority of topics. Jeong and Gunn, on the other hand, assume fairly liberal stances on key issues, while Hader's political position remains ambiguous if not neutral.

This discrepancy has sparked a Republican outcry based largely on fearmongering tactics and Orwellian references. "If you don't speak out when others are silenced," it is said, "who will speak out for you when you are silenced?" Allusions to Orwell's '1984' politics and historical public press censorship are designed to frighten us into anger when we see social media platforms shut down conservative accounts and leave equally questionable liberal accounts untouched.

But the fact of the matter is that targeted social media bans are not an abridgment of the right to free expression. They are a victory for this right.

This may at first seem counterintuitive, but it's not. Understanding this requires an examination of the right to free public expression and necessitates an inspection of both who this right serves to protect and against whom it exists to safeguard.

Expression and the freedom of public press are outlined in the Bill of Rights, highlighted in the First Amendment, which reads in part, "Congress shall make no law.... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Freedom of speech is a venerable byproduct of political philosophy, but its embodiment in American Constitutional law serves a single purpose: To protect the American citizen from retribution, retaliation, or legal consequences doled out as a result of speech or expression deemed unacceptable by central governing authorities.

In other words, freedom of speech protects you from the federal government. It does not protect you from Facebook.

The reason for this is that Facebook can delete your posts and disable your account, but it cannot arrest, try, or imprison you. Facebook cannot bring the force of law to bear, nor can they prosecute or execute American citizens for treason or sedition. Consequently, social media platforms are not subject to the First Amendment and subsequent legislation pertaining to expression. In fact, they are afforded the same right to free speech, expression, and corporate circumspection as the rest of us. This is the primary reason that free speech and expression laws exist. They exist to protect you. To protect me. To protect Alex Jones. And to protect Facebook.

It is important to understand that free speech laws are not an entitlement to using the property and designs of others to say whatever you want whenever you want to without facing consequences of any sort in any context. Free speech legislation precludes federal interference in public forums. It does not prevent those forums from taking corrective or preventative action themselves. It has absolutely no application to private corporations or how they ought to operate.

In fact, the existence of federal mandates to prevent social media censorship would stand in direct contrast with the right to free speech. Facebook owners and operators, like all of us, have the right to determine which things are said and expressed on their forum and which sentiments are not allowed. Federal regulation of Facebook's right to enforce their determined user agreement at their discretion is positionally in diametric opposition to free speech.

In addition to the inaccurate and unfounded comparisons of social media bans to governmental infringement upon free speech, it is popular to posit arguments predicated upon virtue signaling, maintaining the ethics of total free speech and the moral obligation of social media platforms to preserve it in its entirety. But if the owners and managers of social media companies determine that Alex Jones' positions are morally untenable, isn't the moral obligation actually in their refusal to promote or endorse those positions? If it is the duty of social media platforms to comport themselves in an ethically consistent manner, should they not refuse to allow the publication of diatribe which they consider malicious and degrading?

To insist that Facebook or YouTube should allow the continuance of accounts like Alex Jones' Infowars is to insist that Facebook and YouTube should enforce an interpretation of morality which is not their own. That is not free speech. That is an abridgment of free speech.

Simply because Facebook and YouTube are forums of public dialogue does not require them to tolerate all possible avenues of that dialogue. Coffee shops and restaurants are also places of public discussion, and yet these places of business are licensed to refuse service to consumers on the grounds that the consumers are conducting themselves in a manner that the businesses do not wish to tolerate or endorse (a la Jack Johnson and his Colorado bakery). Public dialogue and discussion occur in the private sector. This does not mean that members of the private sector forego their rights and must function as public domains, offering immunity to those who utilize their services to utter intolerable things.

Ultimately, if Facebook and YouTube are afforded the right to free speech and expression, then these private enterprises are permitted to systematically target conservatives and remove them from their domains. Should they choose to forbid and prohibit conservative expression altogether, this decision would still remain solidly within the boundaries and confines of free speech. Facebook can be a Democrat. YouTube can be a socialist. They are supplied this right in the same way that Alex Jones can blame the Jewish people for major global catastrophes without facing legal ramifications.

It is possible to conject that it would be improper for Facebook and Twitter to intentionally silence conservatives in a systematic fashion on the basis of political or philosophical ideology alone.  But there are multiple layers of right here:

1) People and corporations are subject to bias and prejudice.  Therefore, their decision to ban individuals is not always right.

2) Regardless, social media platforms possess the right to ban and discriminate against whomever they like on whatever basis, even if this means enforcing and furthering their own agenda by prohibiting opposition to it.

3) It is right that they have this right.

Summarily: Free speech means that Alex Jones may rave against "the establishment", "the deep state", and "the Jews" as much as he wishes.  It also means that Facebook may deny him access to do so on their platform.  Those in favor of laws requiring social media operators' tolerance of or complicity in any and all speech would ask and permit the government to ultimately restrict the right to free speech under the pretext of promoting it. 

 
The fact that Alex Jones has the legal right to publicly propagate his divisive narrative and that Facebook and YouTube possess the legal right to prevent it on their forums in accordance with their arbitrary and likely biased judgments is a wonderful balance of rights and freedoms that should be celebrated, regardless of whether or not you agree with the ban in a specific incident.

Alex Jones' popularity will persist and Facebook will continue to successfully serve as a privately owned forum for dialogue, discussion, and debate.  The coexistence of these two truths demonstrates the success of the extension of the right to free speech for all people.