The Case for Internet Originalism
thehill.com
thehill.com
The author seems to believe the original role of social media platforms was to provide censorship resistant channels for maximal free speech under the presumption that this was the original "intent" of the internet, and thus the only valid utility for any site on the internet. Apparently forums that moderated content didn't exist before Facebook, etc.
But this is historical revisionism. The intent of social media is to monetize user-supplied content and data. They are not and have never been utilities, the are and have always been businesses.
And it's ironic for someone arguing "internet originalism" to invoke the First Amendment in the spirit of "Constitutional" originalism to support an argument that the First Amendment is explicitly not intended to support. A truly originalist interpretation of both the First Amendment and the internet would support the right of social media platforms to do exactly what they're doing, and strictly oppose attempts by the government to interfere by, for instance, forcing them to act as "utilities" and publish speech against their will.
Your bias is showing. It's not very liberal of them, is it?
I would argue that originalism doesn't really exist in practice in the context of the Supreme Court. Interpreting the constitution is always an active process where the interpreter injects some of themself into the the interpretation. The difference is that those who interpret the Constitution as a "living document" are up-front about this process, while originalists deny that it is happening.
And then I'd argue that this half-baked notion of Internet Originalism isn't really a sensible metaphor. The author argues that the way we use and build the internet should be in line within the framework that the web is a democratizing tool, and I agree with that (simply because I share those values, though I'd debate how much they're truly enshrined in the concept of the internet itself).
But the author seems to care more about not Internet Originalism but...Twitter Originalism. That a private company has to abide by a set of values that it (purportedly) supported at its inception.
> That is why a “living internet” interpretation is so dangerous. These companies are driven by profits and politics, not principle. [...] > The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism [...]
Yes—companies are driven my profits (and, to the extent that they're at risk of regulation, politics)! That's, like, their whole thing. Regardless of the potential greater good of these companies returning to their supposed "original roles," they're supposed to be forced to do so even when it means losing money and failing to self-regulate? It seems perfectly reasonable that a company which seeks to provide a mass communication platform might realize that the rules which worked at first need to be adjusted at scale. I don't see that as some massive betrayal.
No doubt there will be (and has been) some over-correction as Twitter navigates how to quell the use of its platform for spreading misinformation and hate speech. They've historically not been great at it, and they'll probably get to an ~ok~ solution eventually. And if they don't? A new private venture can show up to offer something better (as has happened several times).
I really wish this were true. Maybe it once was. But today, if that call involved a Nazi speaking to a white supremacist about suppressing black votes, I'd guess that a large fraction if not a majority would support that censorship. Those of us who disagreed would be widely painted as at the least, Nazi/white supremacist enablers.
I think this because that seems to be a very common reaction to Twitter blocking DMs that included the NY Post link, a much milder violation of norms that the Nazi phone call hypothetical.