American Authoritarian Kleptocracy Rising

The last few days have evinced more evidence that the president is moving aggressively toward a more irrational, anti-democratic and authoritarian form of government. The latest hate and incoherence relates to the president's continuing use of dark free speech (DFS)[1] to further polarize and divide Americans along political and racial lines. This looks to be part of the president's 2020 re-election strategy.

The Washington Post writes that Twitter considered one of the president's Tweets to be glorifying violence. In it, the president called for police brutality in response to riots in Minneapolis that had erupted after police there killed a black man in custody. The company limited public access to the toxic Tweet. The president flew into a rage, claiming it was censorship. He threatened that the company would be regulated as punishment. WaPo comments: "Trump and his allies again decried the move as censorship, promising to regulate the company a day after he signed an executive order that could open the door for the U.S. government to punish social-media sites for their handling of political speech online."

That move is blatantly irrational from the president's point of view. The punishment the president wants to impose is elimination of a law that protects companies like Facebook and Twitter from liability for people who post false or defamatory content on their sites. Although experts do not believe that the president has to legal power to unilaterally do that, if the law is eliminated or made to just go away, affected companies would need to be far more aggressive about blocking the kind of dark free speech content that the president routinely posts online.

In essence, the president is so enraged that he blindly wants to get rid of the law that protects companies from liability from his own lies and defamation. If that came to pass, Twitter would likely be forced to delete the president's account and ban him forever.

The New York Times writes:

"The executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Thursday seeks to strip liability protection in certain cases for companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook for the content on their sites, meaning they could face legal jeopardy if they allowed false and defamatory posts. Without a liability shield, they presumably would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s. 

That, of course, is not the outcome Mr. Trump wants. What he wants is the freedom to post anything he likes without the companies applying any judgment to his messages, as Twitter did this week when it began appending “get the facts” warnings to some of his false posts on voter fraud. Furious at what he called “censorship” — even though his messages were not in fact deleted — Mr. Trump is wielding the proposed executive order like a club to compel the company to back down. 

But the logic of Mr. Trump’s order is intriguing because it attacks the very legal provision that has allowed him such latitude to publish with impunity a whole host of inflammatory, harassing and factually distorted messages that a media provider might feel compelled to take down if it were forced into the role of a publisher that faced the risk of legal liability rather than a distributor that does not. 

Mr. Trump has long posted false and disparaging messages to his 80 million followers on Twitter, disregarding complaints about their accuracy or fairness. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly issued tweets that essentially falsely accused Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host, of murdering a staff member in 2001 when he was a congressman. Mr. Scarborough was 800 miles away at the time and the police found no signs of foul play. The aide’s widower asked Twitter to delete the messages, but it refused."

To the president's Tweet, Twitter added “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence” in a gray box that hid the tweet from public view unless a user clicks to see it. Twitter also prevented users from liking the president’s tweet or sharing it without adding a comment. A company spokesman commented: “We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.” Twitter is between a rock and a hard place.

Should the law just go away?

This situation raises a fascinating question. Should congress repeal the law that protects private online companies from liability for lies and defamation that users post online? In my opinion, unrestrained DFS constitutes the single most powerful tool that the president and political extremists of all stripes have at their disposal for getting what they want. The president relies heavily on DFS to build public support for his goal of establishing a generally weak central government that operates as some sort of police state that operates as a kleptocratic tyranny heavily tinged with vengeful Christian theocratic overtones.

What is the cost-benefit of allowing unfettered DFS in political speech? What is the cost-benefit of normalizing and acceptance of political lies, deceit, character assassination (defamation), crackpot conspiracy theories, anti-democratic norms, e.g., voter suppression, corruption and gross incompetence? What does each of us get that is good that outweighs the social bad that DFS causes?

Maybe I am an outlier, but I don't see any good in essentially all DFS. I do see a lot of personal, social, economic and democratic harm. What am I missing? Why should Twitter, Facebook and Google be protected from liability?


Footnote:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)