Cancel Culture Reflections: Trump’s De-Platforming
On Jan 8, two days following the violent storming of the US Capitol, Twitter made headlines by announcing that it was permanently banning Donald Trump from its services “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Facebook had also banned Trump “indefinitely” a day prior. On January 13, the House voted to impeach Trump for the second time.
While reactions varied, many accused “Big Tech” of infringing upon our values of the freedom of speech. “Cancel culture,” warned Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, “will come for us all.”
However, Twitter banning Trump from the platform is different from a typical case of canceling in a couple of ways:
One, it is relatively clear that Trump’s actions and words were harmful to society. Unlike the discussion around say, whether a university should seek to limit students’ Halloween costume choices, there is little room for debate that encouraging a (violent) insurrection seeking to overturn US election results is...well, bad.
Two, the “canceling” in this instance came not from some mass of people as it usually happens, but by Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter (and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Evan Spiegel of Snap, and Patrick Collison of Stripe, etc., etc., of course.) While Dorsey and others may have been reacting to a larger public outcry, there were clear and centralized decision makers who took action to de-platform Trump.
So unlike in other cases of canceling, the interesting debate here is less around the merits of canceling Trump, but more around whether it was right for a few CEO’s to make this decision. In other words, who should have the power and/or responsibility to “cancel” bad behaviors?
Option 1: The “people”
“Canceling” is usually an organic process where some large number of unassociated and/or unorganized people each express their disapproval of some behavior, creating a large enough voice to lead to some type of consequence for the accused. The case of Amy Cooper, where a video of a white woman falsely accusing a Black birdwatcher of threatening her caused such an uproar among large swaths of unrelated people that it led her to lose her job (among others) is a classic example of “organic” canceling.
In some ways, this model may be the most aligned with the ethos of democracy and free markets. There is no centralized authority figure that is determining who or what types of actions merit canceling: it is up to the “people” to determine what they prefer. In this model, everyone is free to express their opinions; and if your opinion proves unpopular and other people express their displeasure, that is also their right. In the marketplace of ideas, producers of ideas that are in lower demand will simply be less successful.
There are a few risks with this model.
One, tyranny of majority. As with any form of democracy, there is a risk of tyranny of the majority” (or even the minority if they somehow have a larger voice per the risks below). We, as a society, are wary of simply relying on popular opinion to determine right and wrong, and rightly so. Case in point: desegregation of schools in America would likely not have happened (at least when it happened) through majority opinion.
Two, the silent majority. There is also the risk that a very loud and passionate minority creates the illusion that their opinion represents the majority. A case example is the USC professor Greg Patton who used the Chinese word nèi ge as an example of a filler word in his communication class. Patton was placed on a “short term pause” after a group of students wrote a letter claiming that Patton displayed “negligence and disregard” in using such a “hurtful and unacceptable” phrase, despite the fact that further responses from a wider public later suggested that most people did not see his actions as problematic.
Three, disenfranchisement of voices. Lastly, there is a risk that the majority view is not appropriately represented due to some form of disenfranchisement. Some conservatives argue that the way Big Tech moderates content (even in its limited form) silences conservative perspectives, creating a biased market that unfairly amplifies liberal voices.
Option 2: CEOs of companies (or some select group of “deserving” people)
The most recent instances of tech companies banning Trump are essentially a case where a CEO (or the management) of major companies determined whether or not he should be “canceled.” Technically and legally, it is Twitter’s prerogative to ban users (the First Amendment does not apply to a private entity according to a 2019 Supreme Court decision). But from a social perspective, is it desirable to allow a select few, private entities or individuals to hold the power to effectively silence certain individuals or opinions?
On the one hand, this option provides a counterforce to the risk of tyranny of the majority. Our institutional design already allows for countermajoritarian authority: after all, nine Supreme Court Justices (or rather, just five) have the power to overturn laws enacted by democratically elected legislative branches. One could argue that CEOs of major platforms, much like Supreme Court Justices, have demonstrated exceptional ability. Dorsey and Zuckerberg have, after all, built some of the most valuable (at least in market cap) and powerful companies in the world and in history.
In fact, one can even argue that CEOs are more publicly accountable than Supreme Court Justices. While Justices are nominated and confirmed by elected officials, they are appointed for life and are subject to no additional oversight; on the other hand, CEOs are subject to the markets, hold a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, and can be fired by the Board. If a CEO’s actions prove unpopular, they can be penalized by markets and subsequently removed.
Of course, there are risks:
One, lack of transparency. The main downside with this option is perhaps the opaqueness of the decision-making process. For example, the oral arguments, materials, decisions and dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court are public. Alexey Navalny, a prominent Russian dissident (who was recently poisoned) criticized Twitter’s ban of Trump. If Twitter wants to do it “right,” he tweeted, they should “create some sort of a committee that can make such decisions” and the public should be able to know how decisions are made, by who, and how such decisions can be appealed.
Two, disproportionate representation for the wealthy. Another risk is that by awarding certain CEOs this extraordinary power, we are to a certain extent further giving power to wealth. Not only are CEOs being rewarded for their ability to generate wealth, they are only accountable to those who have the ability (wealth) to purchase their products and/or shares.
Option 3: The government
According to Angela Merkel, while freedom of speech is a fundamental right, that does not mean there are no limits. According to her spokesperson, “this fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators—not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms.”
“This fundamental right [of freedom of speech] can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators—not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms.”
Holocaust denial is a crime in many European countries including Germany and France, suggesting that a greater government limitation on free speech is not necessarily antithetical to a liberal and democratic society. In fact, the American government also places limits on speech already. Child porn is not considered acceptable free speech, for example. Ironically, neither is the “advocacy of the use of force or of law violation...directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” according to Brandenburg v. Ohio. (Note: There is disagreement among legal scholars as to whether Trump’s speech would meet the bar for “inciting...imminent lawless action.”)
The risk? This is the option that the writers of the First Amendment may have most feared: the government determining what types of speech is acceptable. One could argue that there is a slippery slope: how can you guarantee that the public can continue to hold the government accountable if the government gets to determine what types of speech should be allowed?
Closing reflections
If we accept the premise that while freedom of speech is an important value, some form of shaming and silencing of certain opinions will not go away (per our previous discussion), the key question becomes: What is the best way to ensure that the “canceling” of certain opinions is done in a way that is best aligned with our social values?
The deep irony of the current situation is that Option 1, which in theory should be most aligned with conservative values (of small government and free markets), seems to have resulted in a form of “cancel culture” deeply unpopular with conservatives. Is it that we are seeing some market failures in the supposed “free marketplace of ideas”? And if so, does that require some form of government intervention to correct such market failures at the risk of countering the values of small government? Or is the marketplace working and it turns out that whether we like it or not, certain ideas are less in demand and are rightly being silenced?