After months of President Trump riling up his base (mainly via Social Media)—a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. During the attack, the Vice President was evacuated, while Senators and Representatives had to take cover in the House chamber.
As a consequence, Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech platforms decided to take matters into their own hands and ban Trump, as well as users who were supporting the attack.
At the crux of this dumpster-fire is the issue of freedom of speech.
How free is free speech?
Should corporations be arbiters of free speech?
Who should guarantee freedom of speech?
After months of President Trump riling up his base (mainly via Social Media)—a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. During the attack, the Vice President was evacuated, while Senators and Representatives had to take cover in the House chamber.
As a consequence, Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech platforms decided to take matters into their own hands and ban Trump, as well as users who were supporting the attack.
At the crux of this dumpster-fire is the issue of freedom of speech.
How free is free speech?
Should corporations be arbiters of free speech?
Who should guarantee freedom of speech?
Henry: Hey everyone. It's Henry Mike and Chris of the decentralist and man, do we have a rather timely hot topic today? Let's just say, we're going to talk about the biggest news event since, oh, the war of 1812. That was the last time the American capital was attacked and taken over. Of course, we're talking about Trump's, egging on of the crowds. Mike, there's just so much to talk about, but of course, it has so much it's so entwined with social media. Can you get us started off?
Mike: Well, I mean, Henry it's, I think you'd have to have been living under a rock for the last, couple of days to not, to not know that for the first time since, and I believe you are right Henry the Canadians, at that point they were Brits. Stormed us capital building. It wasn't even completed at the time in 1812 and it was the last time that the bill building. So, 200 and what, eight years since it nine years, 209 years ago, this the US capital building was stormed by an opposing or an outside force. So, on the one hand that is, I think a testament to the power of democracy and the power of and the peacefulness of democracy. I mean, because let's face it. I mean, you could open the newspaper almost every week. Some countries got some kind of thing going on. I mean, heck it just happened in Hong Kong, like three months ago or something like this, where people storm the parliament buildings, like all the time, it's like, they might as well just leave the doors open, and yet it has not happened in the United States. Right. Until now,
Henry: Wait, there were some crazies in Lansing though that wanted to abduct the leaders there.
Mike: But that's not that's, I mean, hell, that was bad enough. But this is the seat of their democracy. I mean, this is it's not the president that is the seat of the democracy in the United States. It's the capital, it's the house of representatives, right. It's the Senate. These are the folks that govern the country and they were literally squiring them away in underground tunnels and things to save them from their own people. You know kind of have to sit back and I mean, it's been now I've been kind of putting out messages over the last little bit about end of 2020 Christmas, everything let's look forward to 2021 and then six days we didn't even make it six days.
Henry: Well, okay. Fair enough, Mike, and Chris, we could talk for hours on the political, situation here, but remember we're about social media, we're about the internet and that is so deeply involved.
Mike: That's right. Yeah. So, I mean, the question is there's a couple of things here. So, social media has kind of got a bunch of its, as we know, it's pervasive in society. A lot of people look at it as almost that a channel for free speech, but it's not because you look at it and you've got people that are using social media to organize, right. So, there was they're basically texting each other, they were using social media to celebrate the event. These guys in these guys and girls that were riding were literally, camera live while they were running through it and then they even have what Chris said earlier on there's a video out on Twitter where Donald Trump Jr. Films himself, and a whole bunch of people partying. Watching TVs in the white house while the country burns, it's like Nero
Chris: Including his dad.
Mike: So, the issue is a lot of people out there now saying, cause Donald Trump let's face it. He has used social media masterfully doesn't matter which side you come out on in this kind of debate. He has been the first kind of, I would say social, leader, lots of other people have used social media, not to this extent and so you have to sit back and say, is it social media that was responsible? Is it Donald Trump that was responsible?
Chris: Mike, I think social media platforms are responsible for inciting violence.
Mike: Show how does the platform incite violence?
Chris: Well, the technology, let me be real. The technology itself isn't responsible. But if you put something on a message board, one of those Corking message boards that you see in a campus saying come out and let's all come out and Lynch somebody and we'll make a party out of it. Here's the address? Here's the phone number, right? Whoever is responsible for that message board leaves that notice up. They're responsible for inciting violence.
Mike: That's a very interesting point.
Chris: So, Twitter and all these social platforms, they were forced to bend Trump in general Flynn and a whole bunch of QAN on accounts. Because if they leave him up and Trump says, hey, we're going to March down Pennsylvania avenue and lynch all these congressmen and congresswomen then they're the ones who are on the hook legally aren't they?
Mike: But I mean, are they, because according to the section two 30 law that still governs social media they're exempt from that type of thing.
Henry: Yeah. Technically yes. Right.
Mike: Because they're just transporting the message.
Henry: But then again, Mike, then again, he was speaking live, we're talking old school. Those are old-school laws. If he's speaking live and he's telling people to go down to the Capitol to protest, well, we know what protest means in the minds of these far white crazies.
Mike: Well, yeah, but that's an inference. Right. I think the bigger issue here is okay. That, a lot of people, I think we're going to talk this thing through a lot over the next kind of coming months. But I think the biggest issue here is not the platforms being used to organize people or the platforms being used to incite violence. I think actually there are two issues. The first one is how many of these people that were at this rally were at the rally because they were radicalized by an algorithm on social media. They've, I think we've been following this thing for years and I think it was Chris correct me if I'm wrong. It was like about six months ago where we were going through and we were looking at different there was, I think it was, I can't remember if it was the verge or somebody rapport that something like 60 to 80% of the people that are radicalized into something like a terrorist group, right an Al-Qaeda or that type of thing or the proud boys or one like a domestic terrorist group were 100% radicalized because they were on social media. It wasn't, they volunteered to join a proud boys rally. They basically were just surfing. They clicked the wrong link, the algorithm, all of a sudden steered them down a swim lane that made sure that all they ever saw was proud, boys stuff, and radical domestic terrorism stuff and they started to believe it because it was on it’s on the newsfeeds.
Henry: If that's the case the algorithm and the platform is 50% responsible because the other 50% has to be someone free will get out of their desk and go down and do something.
Mike: Oh, without a doubt.
Chris: So, Mike, we did speak about section two 30, and I think we all need to acknowledge that section two 30 has its limits For example, you can't advertise drugs, the selling of drugs, like heroin or whatever on social media. You can't show illegal pornography on social media and threaten to take down the government and cite violence. I would imagine now I'm no lawyer. Right. I would imagine that section two 30 also is limited in that respect as well and for this reason, as much as parlor Twitter's far-right. Rival likes to call it self-censorship-free. There's a reason that Apple is banning it from the app store.
Mike: That's interesting and why do you think they're going to do it?
Henry: Oh, that is neat.
Chris: Well, be once again, because of inciting violence. It's as Diane Francis said earlier today, right. Liberty is you could, you can swing your arms, but Liberty stops where your fist to meet someone's face.
Mike: So, okay. So now we're starting to get into one of the other problems and this is kind of the thing, because if when you talk about section 230, the social media folks like Zuckerberg and stuff like that.
Henry: And let's make sure everybody who listening understands that again, section 230.
Mike: Section 230 is a law in the United States that basically, absolves the social media platforms of the responsibility of being a publisher and this was past years ago, years ago. So, the idea is that because social media and Zuckerberg and all these guys the thing that they parrot whenever they're in front of Congress, which they might as well, like I said, take up a freaking permanent suite at the motel six is they say we are defending and providing a platform for free speech.
So they say, anybody can join and it's free anybody and it's free. It's free speech. You can join, you can say what you want, but just to Chris's last point, that's not true. You even have the right to free speech, just the regular right. To speech. Doesn't give me the right to go out and verbally abuse somebody in some racist manner or something. As I walk down the street and it also, but it also doesn't give me the right to say whatever I want in this echo chamber that is Facebook. But even Facebook to their own discredit, shall we say, it's funny. I can't remember who it was, but somebody pointed it out when they were the last time Zuckerberg was in front of Congress.
One of the things that he said, and the thing that we've all got to keep in mind is they have 35,000 moderators. So, every time if I go in right now and I type a message on Facebook, some inflammatory thing, and I press send, even if there's a delay of like a second while some algorithm or some human reads my post and then decides whether it get posted or not, that is by default A, not free speech and B their publishers. Because they are determining what gets out there.
Henry: That was about 230.
Mike: That's about 230. So, this is the point, right? Like in this thing, as a result of the right, in the immediate, while the guys were still ripping the windows down, posing a Nancy Pelosi's office and stuff like this, Twitter bans Donald Trump's account for a grand total of 12 hours.
Henry: While he's sleeping.
Mike: Right. Big whoop and then Facebook, put a 24-hour ban on which they have subsequently extended kind of indefinitely but at least until the inauguration.
Henry: Good for them for a change.
Mike: Well, I mean, you kind of ask is Zuckerberg growing a spine but I think the bigger issue here is should anybody, like in effect this idea of free speech, if it is in fact true, and it is, well, I think it's, isn't it the first amendment, the right to free speech.
Henry: One of the very first.
Mike: Whatever. I mean, it is literally a pride or sorry, a public kind of corporation controlled by some 30 something. Silicon Valley sociopath. That is the arbiter of free speech.
Chris: I think there are two things to kind of consideration here. First off, no company exists to guarantee anybody free speech. We all have the freedom to, assembly as well, but if somebody decides to freely assemble in, let's say, I don't know what retail store is still open nowadays Walmart if protestors decide to freely assemble into a Walmart, right. It's still within Walmart's to say, get out of here you're trespassing and then to call the police and kick him out. So, once again, Facebook, Twitter, all these social networks, don't exist to give us free speech, but on the other hand, here's an on their thought. On the other hand, all these companies are for better or for worse they're monopolies. They have a monopoly on social networking and that's what we really have to consider here. Okay. Sure. Facebook doesn't guarantee us free speech, but then again, how can any of us talk to one another without these companies providing their services?
Henry: Correct. Well, we have to come up with a new platform that's safer and gives us self-sovereign identities.
Mike: I love that when you put a commercial right. In the middle, know the show, Henry.
Henry: But no, but seriously.
Chris: But there is no public square when it comes to social media right now. Is there?
Mike: No, you're right.
Chris: In London, England. There's this little place called speakers. I believe it's called speakers.
Mike: Speaker square.
Chris: Speaker’s corner right. It's a public place where anybody can get up and say whatever they would.
Mike: I've seen it. People actually stand on soap boxes.
Henry: Fair enough. Old school. It's been a treasured place for free of speech for hundreds of years. Carl Marks, that's where he first got famous was speaker's corner. There is no speaker's corner for social media.
Mike: Well, not a speaker's corner that isn't arbitrated and controlled and gated by the platform. I mean it to truly be a speaker's corner and a free speech, it's basically an area where anybody can go stand up and say whatever they want and without you're being arrested for it. Yes. Right. Without the fear of some kind of judicial reprisal. Well, but you think about now, what we're talking about is if you are in effect, like look at us. Okay. We had, we went out and we were speaking freely to an audience that were volunteering, right. To listen to us on Twitter and we weren't saying anything outrageous. We weren't saying anything that would get hell we were saying sure. A lot less than, than got Donald Trump, band.
Henry: Oh, we were just talking about what we're talking about now and they ban us and for no reason, and we're still banned, what did we do?
Mike: We're still banned. Right. Well, we're the little guy we're inconsequential and so, but the point here is that when you look at things like the constitution and violating a person's constitutional rights where you get a solution for that is in the judicial system. So, the theory's supposed to be that when you talk about police forces and whether it's the capital police or the DC police or the national guard, whoever it is, they are there to defend the constitution. They are supposed to be there to defend these kinds of rights to free speech and things like this. It's not Facebook's responsibility and it should not be Facebook's responsibility. So, you think about it if Donald Trump gets banned forever on Facebook and gets banned forever on all of these other social media platforms, is that kind of unfairly restricting his right to free speech.
I mean, it doesn't technically restrict his right to free speech, but it restricts his access to a platform and now you see the circle these guys are in. How can you have 230 stand up and say, you're a vessel for free speech? So, you should have 230 protections because that's what 230 does for them. They argued that they need this open platform for everything and that they should, everybody should be allowed to have this Chris, to your point, virtual internet town, free speech, like kind of speaker’s corner, and then they turned around and slapped a bunch of boards around it and put one of those rotating things you have to go through with a ticket to get access. Because they own it.
Chris: Well, if you open the pipes, here's the problem. If you own the pipes ultimately you decide what gets to come through the pipes.
Mike: Well, but and to your point, Henry earlier in the commercial is that's, the problem is it's no longer about the pipes. The internet is not Facebook, the internet is not Google, the internet is not Snapchat the internet is basically a bunch of WIFI nodes and just data that are transiting. The fact that it's, that we are now in this position where I cannot, or at least it's very difficult to, I mean, luckily I can, because I have the early version of anyone on my phone, but I cannot, or the average human cannot go and download an application and connect to somebody directly and exchange information with them directly with it being routed through some kind of centrally controlled server or service.
Henry: Exactly and it used to be where you could do that in the early days.
Mike: Totally in the early days, it literally took to Chris' point. It literally was a pipe. You plugged your modem into the wall, you dialled a phone number. It got that squeal, like a fax machine that gave you a connection, and then you were, then your computer was now connected to other people and other people's computers, and then you had to go and search them out and do their thing.
Henry: So that's the case, Mike, should private companies have this kind of power to control a message, especially a political one. Well, you just told us that. Of course, they shouldn't and then they have 230, protection, and then they decide, well, I'm going to ban this guy. Well, that means they're editorializing.
Mike: Of course, it is.
Chris: Well, Henry, why don't we just cut out the middlemen?
Henry: Agreed.
Chris: Why if I'm running a company, why do I have to be the mediator between two parties? It makes no sense.
Henry: Well, but remember how it did make sense. Originally, nobody had the memory and the computing power. So, everything had to be centralized on a cloud server and therefore theirs. They own it, It was free to you. They decide to throttle it and control it. But now we don't have to do things that way.
Chris: Telephone companies don't act that way. Do they?
Henry: Exactly.
Chris: Imagine if Ma Bell was the mediator between every conversation that happened.
Henry: That's a great analogy.
Mike: Decided whether the phone number you dialled would actually the call ever went through. Could you imagine back in those days?
Chris: Imagine if Ma Bell bans every politician out there.
Henry: Or just half of them.
Chris: Exactly.
Henry: Or just the good ones.
Mike: Exactly.
Henry: Well, and depending on who's running Mabel at the time is who's good or bad.
Mike: So, this is, I mean, this is but I think this is really important, I mean, no company should have this power. The only person that should have the power, especially in this world with ubiquitous bandwidth and connections to the internet, the only person that should have the power to control who you and I, as in individuals connect to and who we choose to share with and what we choose to share, the only person that you could, that should control the transmission of the message from me to you, Henry is me and you. That's it shouldn't have to go. It doesn't have to go through Google anymore. It doesn't have to go through Facebook anymore. I mean, I'm carrying a bloody computer in my pocket. My iPhone has got more computing power than every single computer on this planet attached together up until 1983.
Chris: I mean, it's scary to think, Mike, that the Apollo 11 had less computing power than your phone.
Henry: Oh no. Are you kidding? It had less computing power than a 1978 calculator.
Mike: Totally. That's what I was just going to say my I.T 99 that I used to take to school and when I was getting horribly bad marks in math, I mean, that's the case and yet guys, they went to the freaking moon. Let's not forget this. They went to the freaking moon
Henry: Safely and back.
Mike: On the back of a freaking Texas instruments calculator and now we've all got these massive server-based things in our pocket. There is absolutely no excuse, no reason at all, for any of us to have to rely on any of these guys anymore. That's a good point and what I mean, and what should be happening is that it should not be up to a platform that controls the pipes and not just controls whether they're on or off. But controls like today, Henry, when you turn the H, it's going to be cold and when you turn the seed, there's going to be no water at all and when you flick your light switch, the water's going to come out of the ceiling. This is not the way the world works, but it is that way in social media.
So, we've got this challenge right now where we've got everybody calling for Donald Trump's head and that's whether that's social media or not. But the whole point of it is, is that the platforms themselves have been used to amplify a message to people that were, let's say, vulnerable to those messages, and those me messages have caught us into this pickle that we're in right now and the only people that can get us out of it at this point right now are the same guys that got us into it.
Henry: Or someone with a new and fresh idea. So, the question is, for both of you, we've had a crazy 2020, we've had a are the first week of 2021. What do you think is next for social media considering everything that's happened right? In 2021, Chris, what do you think, and Mike, what do you think? What, how is what's happening going to influence and change social media?
Mike: Chris, to go ahead?
Chris: Well, I think that politicians and the press have woken up and they've discovered that the Zuckerberg of the world they're the new Robert Barons and so we're going to see lots of antitrust lawsuits. It's going to take years and years to resolve but the end result will be that these companies will be broken up and more importantly, we're going to see decentralization and I'm of the opinion that the first companies to offer decentralized social media tech, they're the ones that are going to benefit the most. And that's why I continue to work with Manyone.
Mike: Yeah. I mean, I agree with you, Chris. I think that we've, they've been talking for a while about the tech lash, right. A backlash against tech companies and I think what you're going to see is this Capitol hill thing, right. I mean, there's been a lot of crazy stuff that's happened over the last four years and a lot of people on both sides have been just outraged, but and very divided. But this is this thing it's was the straw that broke the camel's back and I think that what you're going to see in 2021 is both sides of the political spectrum in the United States and probably in other places, but the Americans have the opportunity to lead on this. Okay. Both sides are going to go after them.
Both sides are going to unite in a resounding manner saying this cannot be allowed to happen again, regardless of the focus of the anger or who's the one that's carrying the blow horn and wearing the stupid goat horns on his head or whatever it is. It regardless of which side of the spectrum it is, they're going to say, we cannot let this continue to happen and so to Chris's point, I think the challenge is going to be, the regulators are inherently way behind, this is not something that you can just wholesale kind of wipeout overnight. They can't just pull all their business licenses and ban all these guys. It'd be like going back in the stone age. Right. Because there's no alternatives, Henry, if all of a sudden, they cut all these centralized providers off let's say, they said, outlaw centralization.
Henry: Well, right. Then the industry's gone.
Mike: So, that's why, what I, I agree with Chris, what's going to start to happen is people who are on the cutting edge, people who are just fed up with this people who are afraid or angry are going to be looking for alternatives and what those alternatives are. There's all only one and it is decentralization because what each of us needs to have, right. Is our own private controlled by us channel of communication that cannot be shut off. Let's remember if everybody goes after Facebook and they go after Twitter and the end result of going after Facebook at Twitter is they just go forget it. We're shutting the doors. Then now you're going to take 3 billion people on this planet. And you're going to basically wipe out their address book. So, what the smart people are going to start to do is they're going to start to say, I need a different solution where that address book is always mine.
It's in my possession. My connections are directly between me and my service provider, me and my doctor, me and my friends and if the only way that connection is going to be disrupted, right, is if me or my friends break a link and no longer are connected, or the entire internet itself, the whole backbone goes down and that is never going to happen. No country is going to voluntarily shut its internet down because the countries themselves need it to work. But they could shut down it. They could selectively shut down platforms like TikTok has been.
Henry: They already have.
Mike: Totally. So, the future is going back to the past. We call back to the future. Hey, Michael J. Fox. Where people are going to go back and look for kind of a solution that is a modern solution in that it's a mobile application that runs on a mobile phone that they care with them.
Because that's what it is. The world is mobile now and that application allows them to establish a discreet, independent, private network connection to anybody else or any other provider or their government or whoever that they are in ultimate control of. That's what that's I think what you're going to see is really going to start to take off in 2021 and it's already taking off for us. Henry, I think I was telling you we've had something crazy, like 25 people in the last two days hit us for test versions of many ones. So, it started to happen already.
Henry: Well, exactly. Oh, you forgot to mention one little thing, Mike, and that is, this type of platform is free of surveillance.
Mike: Absolutely. Well, the only person that's surveilling me on this platform is me. So, what I mean? Like, and I don't think anybody out here, anybody in the world would have a problem. If the only person that was conducting surveillance on the by looking through their ring doorbell or the cameras inside the house or things, or their smart TV was themselves. Right. I got no problem. If I'm egotistical enough that I want to watch myself watching TV through my smart TV. Fine. Right. You know what I mean? Or if I want to go stand outside and ring my doorbell and watch myself ring my doorbell, that's not a problem.
Henry: When there's no surveillance, there's no ads.
Mike: Totally, well, again, like I see, seriously, can you imagine if you basically walked up to somebody's door and they had one of those ring doorbells or you had one of those nest thermostats in your house and you went to change the tempera in your house and it made you watch three ads, right. You're standing outside the house and the doorbell's going and here's Chrysler's new Jeep, blah, blah, blah, blah and you're like, what? And it doesn't ring. You have to wait for like, like the YouTube badge. You have to hold your finger on the button for like 30 seconds while three ads go through and then the doorbell rings. Like, I mean, this is ridiculous. It's going to change and but my thing is I think it's going to come from both ends, but the real powerful change is going to come when individual users and companies themselves have said, I've had enough I don't want to be on this platform.
How do you feel if you're a retailer and you're placing ads on Facebook feeds and they're popping up in proud boy websites? There's the capital burning and right underneath is the roofing guy. You know what I mean? Like, how do you feel if that's you or Nike or amnesty international, God forbid. So, that all has to change. People are going to be done finished. I've had it. I'm out of here, but they can't just leave cold Turkey. They need to have another, they still need to be able to connect because that's the way the world works now and that's where the decentralization comes in individual nodes, a brand-new internet web 3.0, they've been talking about it for years. 2021 is when it starts to become a reality.
Henry: Couldn't have said a, been myself. Mike, Chris, thank you so much. It looks like there's going to be a very, very interesting year ahead of us and I'm thrilled that we're going to be part of it.
Mike: 2021. The year is a mini one. Thanks, Henry. Thanks, Chris.
Chris: Thank you.