The Rise of Artificial Freedom
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In multiple settings, we are seeing a trend toward narrowing the scope of opinions allowed in the public arena. Heading into high school and college commencement season, a rising tide of ideological censorship is drowning out diversity of opinion. And academia leads the way in defining acceptable thought.
This means that as the number of “disinvitations” for conservative speakers piles up, the idea that speech equates to violence is gaining purchase. Silencing different viewpoints is not only growing on campuses, it’s also spreading to the tech world and the corporate arena.
This week Google censored the Claremont Institute, a highly regarded conservative think tank with a 40-year track record of defending American founding principles such as freedom of speech and religion. Claremont recently launched a campaign to raise awareness of illiberal speech codes and their threat to freedom; at the same time, the institute started online advertising for its upcoming anniversary dinner.
Apparently not recognizing the absurdity of censoring an organization for writing about censorship, Google shut down the ads and told Claremont there would be “no appeal.” Claremont’s offense? The discussion of multiculturalism and speech codes on its website.
Eventually, Google relented. But only after Claremont went public did Google back down and acknowledge a “mistake.”
But this “mistake” isn’t an isolated incident. This censorship episode comes right on the heels of a similar one aimed at the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James. In April, Google formed – and then within a week disbanded -- an advisory committee related to its work on artificial intelligence. It said the panel was intended to bring “diverse perspectives” to bear on issues in this rapidly evolving area of innovation and invited James to serve on it.
Mrs. James is by any measure a proven leader, having served at the highest levels of government, academia and the nonprofit sector. She also established the Gloucester Institute to train and mentor young black leaders, and has a career marked by explicitly defending the human dignity of every individual.
But James is also conservative. And so a band of five Google employees began circulating a petition calling for her ouster.
Ironically, the petition cited the need for the AI panel to address “historical patterns of discrimination and exclusion.” If anyone knows discrimination and exclusion, it’s James, who suffered verbal and physical abuse as she helped desegregate a middle school in the South as a teen.
Doubling down on the irony, the petition lamented that AI “doesn’t ‘hear’ more feminine voices, and doesn’t ‘see’ women of color.” Still, because Mrs. James holds some policy views that differ from theirs, she was deemed not to have a “valid perspective worthy of inclusion.”
The Googlers refused to see her, or hear her, in her own voice. That’s discrimination and exclusion in action. The takeaway message is clear: Diversity means agreeing with us. Disagreeing with us is intolerance and even “violence.”
As a civil society, we are careening toward ideological balkanization. This trend of labeling opinions with which we disagree as dangerous and hateful threatens Americans’ foundational freedoms. Charges of dangerous speech are laid as an exercise in bullying and raw power.
This tide of bigotry and intimidation is not limited to America. The noted English philosopher and public intellectual Sir Roger Scruton was recently fired from a government housing commission after being accused of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments. The charges were leveled after a lengthy interview with The New Statesman.
For three weeks, while Scruton was being pilloried, the paper refused to release the tape of the interview. But Douglas Murray of National Review Institute obtained a copy of the tape and forced the paper to release a transcript. Not surprisingly, Scruton’s actual words did not match the reported description. But he has not been reinstated.
Make no mistake, once the totalitarian impulse is tolerated, and cloaked in sanctimony, its targets will be far-ranging. And, well, diverse.
For example, a group of students at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia launched a protest against the noted feminist scholar and tenured professor Camille Paglia. Like Google, they began a petition demanding that Paglia be fired and replaced by a “queer person of color.” Notably, Paglia is a lesbian who has described herself as transgender. Yet the protesters charged her with making “dangerous” comments about people who identify as transgendered.
The only actual comment cited in the petition—“I question whether the transgender choice is genuine in every single case”— is a heavily caveated statement, and yet the campus censors still labeled her views unacceptable.
With this cultural creep toward oppression, we are losing something that has been essential to the core of the American identity. To his credit, the president of the University of the Arts, David Yager, responded to the Paglia controversy by stating: “I firmly believe that limiting the range of voices in society erodes our democracy.”
This is a critical point: If valuing diversity and pluralism is to have any meaning, we cannot label opinions with which we disagree as “discrimination” as a way of silencing someone with a different viewpoint.
Affirming a robust interpretation of the First Amendment and freedom of speech will sometimes require uncomfortable conversations. But living with -- even valuing -- this kind of discomfort is part of the American DNA and is at the heart of respect and civility.
We can do better. We may be advancing rapidly in artificial intelligence, but we are regressing toward artificial freedoms.
Charmaine Yoest is vice president of the Institute of Family, Community and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
Google is a private company. Google may refuse access to its pages to whomever it pleases, on whatever grounds it pleases.
That's not entirely correct. They are still subject to public accommodation laws that ban discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, sexual orientation (including transgender status), physical or mental disability. There is no protected status for any type of content. You can't discriminate against a gay citizen banning their ability to use specific apps but you could choose to ban certain content such as gay pornography or sexually explicit material. The same is true for conservatives. They can't ban you based on your being Republican or a hard line evangelical YEC, but they can decide not to host your content that violates the app or websites CoC such as posting known lies about the age of the earth, making vile racists attacks or using the platform to viciously attack other users based on their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, faith or lack thereof.
So while nothing they are doing right now is illegal or even unethical, they cannot just refuse service to anyone for any reason as many dishonest prejudiced conservatives are finding out when they refuse to serve fellow law abiding tax paying American citizens because they believe what their perspective clients do in the privacy of their own homes is their business. Funny how their conscience lets them serve divorcees, adulterers, fornicators and others who don't live up to any sort of biblical life standards, but they selectively choose to discriminate against gays just like they used to selectively discriminate against black Americans and other brown skinned ethnicity's.
True.
Also true... and this is the point.
Such as the writings and artistic work on a cake.
That’s not speech.
Did you not read this....
A picture of gay or heterosexual porn is speech?
If Facebook, a private entity, can ban context so can bakers, etc.
Yes, I did. Did you? You don't seem to have understood it.
Two things, C4P,:
- if you Reply to a post that's more than two spaces up the conversation, without including the relevant quote, I won't go hunting,
- an affirmation without a link is worthless.
It is only "fair". It seems "fairness" only applies to certain groups.
I understand completely...obviously you don't.
That is the free speech of the client and can only be removed it is can be judged by community stands to be obscene. The couples and name and date are not examples of obscene speech. Most wedding cakes have little to no writing on them because they are not a birthday or retirement cake.
Actually, the provider of that particular service is not obligated to write anything they disagree with. That falls under free speech. However, that is a different matter than providing the actual service itself.
I doubt that the courts would agree that the customer's name and the date are offensive to a rational person.
Yep, abide by the ToS or you can be banned. No one is forcing anyone to use Google. I use Google because IMO it is the best search engine out there. It is that whole, strange free market thing that some conservatives seem to have decided to completely abandon.
I like DuckDuckGo myself. DuckDuckGo gives a more broader and unbias result.
Conservatives who are banned from Facebook are also looking at other options.
Do not apply. Not at all. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Is your comprehension of the Constitution really at this level?
Really? How was President Trump's use of Twitter's the block feature a First Amendment case? Amazing how the same people so upset by that now rush to defend a corporation's right to control speech.
Is your comprehension of the Constitution really at this level?
Liberals are currently arguing that social media platforms are public forums. You should go insult your brethren making this argument in Federal Courts.
You don't seem to understand what's going on.
Liberals are arguing that private companies' social media markets are public forums and should be governed by the First Amendment (at least when it's convenient for them politically). "Hate speech" is not an exception to the First Amendment.
It's because he is President. Surely you're aware of the facts in this instance.
So when I send Breitbart several of my opinion pieces about how fucking stupid YEC's and other conservative Republicans are and how the Christian religion is nothing but a scam screwing people out of their money, they should be forced to publish my thoughts, right? I mean, freedom of speech, right? Just like Google and Facebook, they should be forced to host my opposing views, right?
I have been consistent the entire time, social media companies have the right to block content or ban users based on their terms of service. And they also have the right to determine what the ToS is. They are not in any way shape or form beholden to the U.S. Constitution, end of story.
The First Amendment's free speech guarantees don't apply to private property such as Google. You are not a paying customer, but instead, are a guest on that site, so you have even fewer rights.
The bakers could put a sign in his window or on the packaging but he could not deny equal service to people who his religion doesn't approve on. In-and-Out wrappers/cups have bible verses on it and it has never been removed.
Yes, a private entity should be able to refuse/ban their services/products from people who do not meet their standards.
The US Supreme Court said that a public business cannot deny equal service because of their religious beliefs. Newman v.Piggie Park.
Because he was issuing policy decisions/changes via twitter. The courts determined that ALL citizens should have access to his Twitter feed for that reason.
Personally I couldn't care less, he blocked me on Twitter over a year ago...I guess I offended trumpy's ego. Poor thing. Such a tender little snowflake.
Back to bitching about private entities being private entities?
The Rise of Artificial Freedom
Oh kind of like a woman's control over her own body, that many seem to want to females of late.
If you want to defend freedom, then be noble, defend a woman's.