Is that "enough" though? If one group discusses something and comes to some form of consensus, where's the idea coming from that that consensus must be adopted by everyone else as well?
Well, for two reasons.
A) the marketplace of ideas is explicitly designed around the concept that some ideas win, at least at a broad cultural level. Free speech advocates aren't trying to build a world where every idea is treated with equal respect everywhere, they're trying to build a process by which, in general, we move closer to truth[0]. That doesn't mean that the ideas can't resurface in the regular marketplace, but it does mean that for ideas to be taken seriously by the broad, regular population, they have to actually convince people.
The anti-trans arguments I see online are mostly just really unconvincing to anyone who's done marginal research on trans communities. I'm not an expert on trans communities, I don't have a lot of diverse friends -- I shouldn't know more about trans arguments than the average TERF does; and yet I regularly find that I do.
To look at it from a broader market perspective, is it a failure of the marketplace that none of the restaurants on my street sell ice cream with ketchup and green beans? Or is it a success of the marketplace? The marketplace demands that you be able to actually sell what you have, you have no moral claim to force the marketplace to provide you with customers.
More importantly,
B) the consensus doesn't need to be adopted by everyone and hasn't been adopted by everyone, but private communities aren't required to engage with ideas that aren't furthering their own conversations/goals. And for better or worse, because some of those private communities are very attractive to the broader public, those communities exercising their Constitutionally protected Freedom of Association means that there are fewer spaces that contrarians can join.
But again, that's kind of how the system is designed to work. It's contradictory to say that in a free market, people shouldn't be able to choose where they shop. It's contradictory to say that in a free society people shouldn't be able to choose who they associate with.
The irony is that it's the far left candidates like Warren[1] who have had by far the most sensible, market-friendly response to the problem of people being deplatformed. If Facebook/Apple is too big, break it up and enforce antitrust. Don't try to nationalize it, or dictate how people can speak, or get rid of fundamental protections like Section 230. Just get rid of the monopolies and let communities compete for members.
Outside of solutions like that, I am very skeptical of any argument that claims to be in support of free speech that doesn't think protesting, boycotting, and public criticism are also speech. A lot of cancel culture falls into those bounds: I see people who are angry about boycotts, public criticism, markets responding to consumer demand, private communities like Twitter choosing who they host. Most of that stuff is free speech.
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[0]: And there are other goals as well, of course, but that's the main conceit of the "marketplace of ideas" argument.
[1]: Doctorow also has some interesting ideas here about revising the CFAA and breaking down some barriers for building competitors, but that's a separate conversation.
Right, but "this idea won in this local market, therefore it must not be challenged in that global market and doing so is a hate crime" has giant issues.
> B) the consensus doesn't need to be adopted by everyone and hasn't been adopted by everyone, but private communities aren't required to engage with ideas that aren't furthering their own conversations/goals.
But that's not what's happening. If something gets defined as hate speech, it's not a private matter, it's a criminal matter. Once we accept that as a valid process, we're just asking "who has the power to define" and give them a carte blanche for criminal punishment. I find that deeply troubling, and given that definitions, majorities and power has changed, I believe so should everyone, as the weapons they build today might be turned on them tomorrow. A somewhat recent example for that was the introduction of FB's anti-hate-speech rules that suddenly outlawed "men are trash", much to the outrage of those who asked for the rules.
Especially when it's on individual personal feelings and the only question we ask is "how man Twitter followers do you have" ("you have more, the market place of ideas has decided"), we're setting ourselves up for instability where it's best not to talk to anyone you don't 100% trust. I have relatives who lived under the Stasi, and that's pretty much what they described - if you don't know somebody very well, you limit yourself to talking about the weather and parroting the party line.
> A lot of cancel culture falls into those bounds: I see people who are angry about boycotts, public criticism, markets responding to consumer demand, private communities like Twitter choosing who they host.
I think there's a lot to say about what is a private community (and at what size it stops being one) and what they are allowed to do. Discrimination is generally considered bad, but the law enforces protection only for protected groups as it's assumed that everybody else will have no trouble to find a competing business. This cannot be said for the local monopolists on the web.
Personally, I'd prefer to not get into all out war where you get cancelled and ostracized and need to move to some place where "your people" live (by whatever criteria you define that) because the local majority rules absolutely and destroys everything that is unlike them.
That said: if anybody prefers the segregation, I'd love it if they were honest about it and said "I don't want to see that opinion, you must leave". The moralizing and pseudo-science rationalization of it makes everything hazy and dishonest, like an invisible mine-field that we must not acknowledge even exists, much less talk about and say where the mines are buried.
Wait, what? Hate speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Nobody's being criminally prosecuted for being anti-trans.
> A somewhat recent example for that was the introduction of FB's anti-hate-speech rules that suddenly outlawed "men are trash", much to the outrage of those who asked for the rules.
Which is not a criminal matter, it's a private community deciding who they want to allow into their own space. Facebook is doing exactly what you want below:
> I'd love it if they were honest about it and said "I don't want to see that opinion, you must leave"
The reason they're saying that is because the anti-trans arguments are generally pretty poorly thought out and unhelpful, but it doesn't really matter why they're saying it. They have the right to say it.
Legally, 1st Amendment protections today are extremely strong, arguably stronger than they have ever been. Culturally, people want control over their own communities and they want the freedom to choose who they associate with. I think that's completely consistent with free speech.
Again, if you think that Facebook is too big and it's a defacto public square, then the solution is to break Facebook up and remove regulations around content scraping and adversarial interoperability that get in the way of competition.
You can't protect free speech by telling people who they are and aren't allowed to criticize and associate with. It's cutting off your own nose to spite your face. I'm not old, but I'm old enough to remember when free speech advocates were against the Fairness Doctrine. What happened to those people?
Check your privilege! You'll be very much criminally prosecuted for hate speech in most (I believe all, but don't know the specifics of each) European countries. The definition of hate speech is similar (and it's a global debate, so they converge), only we do not have a concept of free speech that is similar.
> Facebook is doing exactly what you want below
Absolutely. I gave it as an example that looking to weaponize rules can backfire, as the weapon can be turned against you as well. The more aggressive the weaponization of rules becomes ("I am offended" as a general trigger for suspension would be the equivalent of "free nukes for everyone"), the larger the chance that unintended side-effects materialize ("I wanted to be safe from their attacks, but this also outlaws my attacks").
I'm do agree with you that breaking up the monopolists is the much better way to go. But that seems very unlikely, the utility route is the one that I consider much more probable.
Very fair criticism. I don't think that Europe's restrictions are quite that broad, but there are a few countries with active hate speech laws on the books that are enforced.
That being said, Facebook doesn't really have control over European hate speech laws. This is worth keeping in mind, both Facebook and Twitter are American companies, and if they become utilities, they'll either become utilities under the American rules, or they'll get fractured and have different requirements for European users (see GDPR). I don't see how attacking Facebook/Twitter will change what the government can and can't do.
My (unrealistic) advice would be that if this is something Europe is really concerned about, then it should just adopt the more expansive American system of free speech. I realize that's unlikely to happen, but making a company public and giving the government control over what gets posted on it is a regression in free speech rights in most cases, no matter what country you're situated in.
You're worried about what happens if the government says that disagreement is hate speech. Have you considered the danger in the opposite direction?
What happens if the government says that criticizing a politician for openly bigoted remarks is cancel culture and not allowed, or that boycotting an awful company is illegal? What makes you think your government wouldn't abuse the power to force companies and individuals not to criticize, boycott, or filter objectionable content?
Even if you do live in a country with limited free speech protections, forcing platforms to carry content and forcing consumers not to boycott is counterproductive if you don't trust the government not to charge someone with a hate speech law. If you don't trust your government not to ban speech, you probably shouldn't trust it with compelled speech/association either.
My main problem with the idea of hate speech is that it hinges on individual judgement and is weaponized to suppress opposing speech. It's vague and in the end is only defined on a case-by-case basis by looking at the majority or the position of powerful institutions, and generally sympathy-based - a terrible foundation to build rules on.
You're certainly right that outlawing cancel culture would get us into trouble as well. We do have far reaching rules for compelled speech & association (not least via taxes that are redistributed), so I'm not sure there's a good reason to say "but we won't add this one" (I see no good reason to protect religious but not political convictions for example).
My favorite solution is to find rules that everybody is happy with, even if big tech fires all employees tomorrow and replaces them with proponents of the opposite ideology: build the shoe in such a way that you're okay if it's on the other foot tomorrow.
Why is your opinion about a group that you're not a part of suddenly more important?