On the 26th August 1789, the new French National Assembly declared the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with Article XI stating, ‘the free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man.’
By Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65758
Just over four years later… Maximilien Robespierre and his Jacobin followers were executing anyone that opposed their vision of the Revolution. The French were learning the hard way that democratic ideals are fragile.
The United States Constitution received its first amendment during this same period, guaranteeing freedom of speech for the citizens of the Republic. It was part of a Bill of Rights, one of the rewards of a long, hard-fought American War of Independence.
While neither of these documents really bestowed universal free speech on their populations, they did start a love affair with the idea that continues to this day. We hold on tightly to the principle because we believe that it was won at great cost – but maintaining this vital civil liberty has also had a price tag.
Free speech absolutism – the idea that anyone can say anything – has had some serious consequences; hate speech, bullying and repression. All of these are a blight on our society. While the majority now holds that some things should remain unsaid, what we cannot agree on as a society is what those things are – where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech?
Meanwhile, in the last 16 years Facebook has connected more than two billion people. It has given them the opportunity to say (pretty much) whatever they want to anyone that will pay attention. This is an extraordinary achievement undreamt of just a generation ago. It has immense potential for good, but like any other tool it can also be used for ill. An axe can chop wood to light a fire. Or it can empty a man’s brains into the dirt.
The difference between the axe and Facebook is that we are all still learning how to use Facebook. Right now, it feels like the bad uses outweigh the good, and we watch the platform’s struggle to decide – millions of times every day – where the line should be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable speech.
There are risks on both sides; overzealous censoring of politicians and news or allowing dangerous content out that could do real harm in the real world, with plenty of willing critics for every misstep.
Facebook has become – de facto – the planet’s biggest censor. This should not be the job of a private business. It should be settled by the political process – at the ballot box. And yet, after centuries of debate there is no sign of a political consensus on this issue. Instead, politicians are stoking the fire, creating controversy with their social media output.
Until recently, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook had either ducked any responsibility, or sided with the primacy of free speech. This position has clearly now become untenable, and there are signs that real change could finally be underway. The question is whether it will make any difference. For me, the one thing that might change the game in the long-term is the creation of the Oversight Board.
Facebook’s stated objective – of which many are sceptical – is that this group of twenty people will have the final say on content, along with financial and operational independence from Facebook. The Board includes a former head of state, human rights lawyers, journalists, and a Nobel Peace laureate. It will be their job to decide the high-profile cases; the type that have hit the headlines in recent months. Mark Zuckerberg believed it was more important that people should see President Trump’s adverts, than it was to vet those words for accuracy. The Oversight Board may feel differently.
If the Oversight Board has the power that Zuckerberg says it will, this could be a significant transformation, but it is only a small part of the task. The practical application of the new standards of free speech developed by the Board will not happen by waving a magic wand. A digital image is made up from millions of individual pixels. Up close, the pixels have little meaning. In the same way, Facebook’s new definition of acceptable free speech will consist of millions of individual decisions. To see its complete form, we will need to pull back, to gain the perspective of time.
While artificial intelligence can help, the tougher choices will be made by real people; tens of thousands of them, each with their own biases and an individual understanding of the criteria. All those decisions must uphold the standards established, over time, by the Oversight Board in dozens of different languages, with dozens of different cultural norms.
This is going to be a big, difficult task. Critics are impatient, with many demanding to know why the Oversight Board was not in place for the upcoming Presidential election. Yes, Facebook could have acted more quickly, but I think we should also acknowledge the complexity of the undertaking. Facebook will not be remade in an afternoon with one sweeping gesture.
History teaches us that progress is messy and slow, but that impatience can lead back to tyranny. Maximilien Robespierre was frustrated by the pace of the French Revolution, and in his haste, he plunged France into the Reign of Terror.
‘Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans,’ declared Robespierre in 1794; but free speech is not something we proffer solely to those who agree with us. We all understand that it should be universal, we also understand that there should be limits, but someone or something must determine where those limits lie.
The proper process would be a political one, but as I’ve said, in too many countries the politicians are AWOL on this topic. This might change if, as citizens we had more to say about it. We have failed to drag the issue high enough on the agenda for the politicians to pay attention and now, in place of democratic oversight of free speech we have the Oversight Board. It may be that it will work. Unfortunately, I think we are all going to suffer for a while longer before we know.