Dear America,
Facebook's oversight board has now determined that barring Donald Trump from its pages was appropriate on January 6, 2021 but it must review the exclusion of Trump's patent lies within the next six months, after which Facebook must either relent in its ban or create a rationally based rule for doing so if it intends to prolong the ban. The board in question was created, appointed and funded by Facebook voluntarily to address the criticisms of its autonomy in the operation of what had become an unrestricted public forum that was home to some of the most absurd, scurrilous, devious, patently false material to ever pollute the internet, such as Trump's self-serving and maniacal rants about the 2020 election being rigged or otherwise tainted. But all of this is a function of a basic casuistry proliferated by conservatives, Republicans in particular: that the ability to post on Facebook is part of our first amendment right of free speech. It isn't.
The right to speak freely is the right to be free from governmental restriction in doing so. It is not the right to come into our homes and speak to us on our computers or over our radios and televisions. It is not the right to come and stand on my lawn and preach a credo to me either. It is not the right to make me listen in any fashion, nor is it the right to require me or any other private citizen or entity to disseminate anyone's speech. That isn't just my opinion; it is the opinion of the Supreme Court, articulated over and over in various contexts: commercial speech, hate speech, slander and libel, incitement to violence, hate speech, fighting words and more. You can look it up, and I encourage you to do so, America. In fact, the real problem here is that we Americans, and people all over the world for that matter, don't "look it up." It perplexes me that with good information so freely available on the world-wide web, so many people never question the bad information that seems to be proliferating geometrically. One of the characteristics of homo sapiens distinguishing us from the other species is supposedly our ability to act rationally. We are supposed to be evolving even further, but instead, the internet seems to have precipitated a decline in human rationality. It's worrisome.
I know that I am repeating myself, but I feel I must in this circumstance. The problem is our educational institutions around the world. We need another syllabus to be required of every school all over the world and of every student. We need required courses in ascertainment of the truth individually as opposed to via the noises that come out of the herd, and especially those on the fringes of it. We need to stop teaching every student what to think, but rather teach them how to think. We need to teach everyone, but especially everyone who will be eligible to cast a vote somewhere, that every purported fact should have a bibliography that can be accessed on the same resource from which it was procured. And if it doesn't have such a credential, we have the internet to supply one. All we have to do is use it prudently and think about what we see on it critically. If we can create such an intellectual regimen, we may not need to bar Trump from Facebook or any other forum as long as everyone takes the need to verify claims of fact as a requirement that they must conform their thought processes to. The rule should be, for every "fact" that you want to consider believing, you must confirm it with a reliable source at least twice...a reliable source, not some wacko propaganda forum. To institute such a regimen, we will have to teach everyone how to do the research and where to go as well as where not to go and why. I really don't think that should be too hard or time consuming, so why aren't we doing it?
I don't have an answer for that question. It's been a prominent issue for a long time, and now that fabrications, canards and bizarre ideas have become ubiquitous on the internet, and now that the vast majority of children have access to them, we need to inoculate them all against things like presidential innuendo, libel and slander and demagoguery in the form of his outright lies, and those of his political acolytes as well. What Trump did to our collective consciousness over the course of four years should not have been possible, and it would never have happened if we had just started educating our progeny about the sources and use of valid information from the beginning of our creation of a way for them to get it...and to get everything that isn't it as well.
So, America, let's start the next big social movement with our school boards. In fact, I would say that even if you disagree with me philosophically, getting your children educated as to how to inform themselves in this fashion works for you in your effort to proliferate your beliefs in the next generation. Even if you believe that the Qanon conspiracy is real, which you may well be the only person in your town who does, teaching your children how to confirm your beliefs through review of reliable sources should serve your purpose if what you think is valid. So don't be afraid, America. Cleave to some of the most famous words Ronald Reagan ever uttered, which fell from Reagan's lips in Rejkiawik, Iceland after a summit conference with Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986: "Trust, but verify!"
Your friend,
Mike
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