Off the Wall
Mike [Rowe]
Can you please share your thoughts about why Facebook suppressed the story about Joe Biden’s emails? It’s hard to know what to believe anymore.
Fran Marsh
[DEAR MS. MARSH, THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS SITE, PENDING FURTHER REVIEW. PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER, WHEN WE’VE HAD TIME TO CONFIRM ITS ACCURACY. THANKS! FACEBOOK.
]
Just kidding, Fran. Facebook doesn’t check my posts for factual accuracy. At least, I don’t think they do. But what if they did? Would it comfort you to know that everything I write had been fact-checked? Would Facebook’s “seal of approval,” make this page a more credible source of information?
For those who haven’t heard, Facebook and Twitter recently suppressed a front page story in the New York Post that claims Hunter Biden’s personal computer is in the hands of the FBI, along with tens of thousands of emails, some of which appear to claim that Joe Biden was profiting from business deals with foreign governments while serving as Vice President. If the claims are true, the damage to Joe Biden’s campaign could be devastating. However, if the claims are false, the impact could still be very damaging. As Mark Twain said, “a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has time to put its pants on,” and two weeks before an election, a lie is a dangerous thing. For that reason, Facebook and Twitter apparently decided to suppress the Post article until the claims therein could be confirmed. Consequently, some people are congratulating both companies for taking a stand against the spread of “fake news,” while others are condemning the decision as the very definition of hypocrisy, given the many unconfirmed articles from the mainstream press that both platforms have allowed to be shared – articles with unnamed sources and unsubstantiated claims that turned out to be factually inaccurate, and very bad for Donald Trump.
This latest drama, as I understand it, is unfolding because Facebook and Twitter are trying to decide what’s true and what isn’t, and that’s making a lot of people really anxious. Why? Because social media platforms are not supposed to be in the business of vetting the accuracy of content – that’s the job of a publisher. How would you feel if you called your best friend to discuss the contents of the Post article, only to have your call disconnected by AT&T because they didn’t believe the information in the article was accurate, and therefore not suitable for discussion? That would be upsetting, because AT&T is not supposed to be deciding what you can discuss. Why? Because AT&T is a platform, not a publisher. So too is Facebook. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook can’t be publishers, because they don’t generate their own content. They can’t possibly fact-check everything the mainstream media shares on their platform, or all of the billions of posts their users share every single day. Trust me on this.
So far this year, dozens of digital thieves have used my name and likeness to solicit people on Facebook for money. The scammers are relentless, and Facebook can’t stop them. Don’t get me wrong – they try. They’re trying to right now. But whenever they shut one down, another one pops up, like Whack-a-Mole. Likewise, my name and image have been used in countless fraudulent advertisements, many of which have also appeared on Facebook and other social media sites. (To add insult to injury, these advertisements are usually directed to men who are balding, overweight, or unable to achieve and maintain an erection. The indignity!) Point is, if Facebook can’t keep these two-bit fraudsters off of this page, how are they supposed to determine the accuracy of a controversial article published in the mainstream press? And why would they even want to?
Consider the liability that comes with being a publisher. If the Post prints a story that says Mike Rowe is a pedophile who runs a corrupt foundation that discriminates against minorities and skims money, I can sue them for libel. That’s my remedy. Likewise, Hunter Biden can sue the Post if it turns out they published a libelous article about him and his father. But neither of us can sue Facebook for allowing that article to be shared, any more than we can sue AT&T for allowing people to discuss the same article over the telephone. But if Facebook and Twitter start behaving like the Times and the Post, and position themselves as “guardians of the truth,” they expose themselves to the risk of being sued for anything they allow to be shared that turns out to be untrue. Why would they want to do that?
Yesterday, I had a chat with my neighbor, Claire, a lovely woman who loves Facebook, and thinks Returning the Favor is the best show ever. Like many of my neighbors, Claire applauded Facebook’s decision to suppress the Post article. Yesterday, while walking our respective mutts, she said to me, “How could any fair-minded person possibly object to waiting for a story like this be verified before it shows up in millions of news feeds?”
As I retrieved one of Freddy’s perfectly formed turds, I considered her question. “Before I answer, Claire, let me ask you something. Imagine the recovered laptop belonged to Donald Trump, Jr. Imagine The New York Times published an article that claimed the FBI was in possession of emails that implicated the President. Would you really want Facebook and Twitter to suppress a New York Times story, simply because they hadn’t verified it as 100% true?”
To her credit, Claire answered me honestly. “No,” she said. “I’d want that story to be out there for everyone to see.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Donald Trump has to go,” she said. “And sometimes, the ends justify the means.”
For a lot of well-intended voters, it really comes down to that. Many people genuinely believe that getting Donald Trump out of The White House is more important than anything else. Just like many others genuinely believe that Joe Biden must be stopped at any cost. Those are not bad people – but they are not unbiased. They are single-minded, and if "the end truly justifies the means," such people will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal. And that can be very, very dangerous. Especially when such people are in positions of power and influence.
At the base of all this, is the fundamental, undeniable truth that our freedom to speak freely often requires us to hear things we don’t like. We seem to have forgotten this. Once upon a time, the ACLU defended the KKK’s right to march, not because they agreed with them, but because the KKK has a right to be heard, and the ACLU wanted people to see them for what they were, pointy hats and all. “Sunshine,” they said, “is the best disinfectant.”
I think social media needs more sunshine. We don’t need to be “protected” from fake news, we need to be more skeptical of everything we read in social media, including this post. We don’t need another “safe space” to protect us from hateful speech, we need to see whose being hateful, and confront their bigotry with something more persuasive. It would be nice if hateful speech and fake news didn’t exist, but they do, and our best defense against them is not to suppress them, or hope they go away – lies and hate will always be with us. Our best defense against them is the freedom to confront them in the public square. Ideally, in a place filled with sunshine, that quotes Voltaire at the top of every page:
“I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.”
Over the last ten years, that’s what Facebook has been for me – an open platform where I can share and discuss the news of the day with six million of my closest friends, and answer their questions as honestly as I can. I don’t know what the next ten years holds for journalism or social media, but I sincerely hope the people in charge of what we’re allowed to talk about can see beyond this election. I believe we must insist that they do, or else, risk losing the essential freedoms our ancestors fought so hard to secure. And that would leave us all, well and truly fu…[REMAINDER OF POST DELETED FOR COARSENESS.]
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