After the events of January 6, Emily Ratajkowski and others point to the real dangers
Inez & Vinoodh/Kérastase
Above: Emily Ratajkowski (centre) in a new promotion for KĂ©rastase, as promoted on her Instagram. But it’s what she wrote on Twitter that’s far more on point with the events of January 6 in the US.
When you have US friends on all sides of the political spectrumâgreens, Democrats, Republicans, libertariansâyou tend to get a reasonable idea of who they are, rather be trapped in the bubbles that Big Tech keep you in, to give you a false sense of your own righteousness. Itâs never been healthy to be so entrenched in your own viewpoints that you canât entertain anotherâs, yet our reliance on technology has done just that, as Big Tech platforms seek to occupy our attention, and to do that, they feed us what will increase it. That means telling us weâre right and the other side is wrong, and feeding extreme versions (including lies) of how the other side is wrong, so weâre more outraged, and spend still more time with them on Facebook, YouTube, and wherever else we might wander.
So while itâs easy to be up in arms about some of the facts from the Washington, DC insurgency by supporters of President Donald Trumpâthe flying of a Confederate flag on Capitol Hill, which no one achieved during their civil war; the first time anyone managed to storm the place since the British in 1814; or the tragedy of five deathsâthe big story is in Big Tech and how it decides to shut someone down when it feels like it. These companies, who pay little tax in their own countries, who are generally unanswerable to laws and happily pay fines that amount to mere hours of earnings, yield a power that any âsideâ in a political debate should be wary of.
In the cases of Facebook and Twitter, both are culpable and moved only to save their own arses: had they applied their own terms and conditions evenly to all users, then President Trumpâs use of the platforms would have been moderated through the years; or he may well have found himself on the wrong side of the rules and saw his account terminated long ago. Facebook, in particular, has had a record of not moving till public outcry reaches fever pitch, and its moves to ban Trump from using the platform must be seen in that context. The statements from these platforms struck me as insincere and reactionary, especially as both have taken down accounts for doing absolutely nothing at all, while others have been removed from bucking orthodoxyâfor instance, I can think of a grandmother in Finland who was consistently anti-war, who fell foul of Twitterâs whims.
The webâs original great promise was the even playing field: that we could all benefit equally on there, and that we finally had a truly meritorious medium. Yet that has been steadily eroded over the years by the dominant players seeking to cement their positions. They know they are monopolies, or at best oligopolies. As far as we can tell, Googleâs news results favour corporate media over independents. They have each created an uneven culture, where indulging those in power, political or commercial, has become the norm.
The EU has successfully sued Google over biases in its results. This, teamed with the bubbles, have taken us further away from the promise of the web, as barriers to entry rise, and as it becomes harder to create challengers to the monopolies.
I have long maintained that people in the US have common enemies, rather than each other. Listen to them and youâll find the themes are common: stagnant wages, unaffordable health care, the vanishing middle class, corrupt politicians who do the bidding of donors rather than the people, and unbridled corporate power. I touched upon these in my podcast on September 11, 2020; and my blog has a related post dating back to 2014. Even here in Lucire I published an op-ed in 2017.
Of course one should condemn violence and I admit I felt relieved when Trump was silenced, albeit temporarily, on Twitter, since friends have been banned, suspended or shadow-banned for far less. I thought: finally, theyâre enforcing their own rules evenly. What he wrote must be a breach of their terms and conditions. But after some reflection, this isnât the whole story. Those T&Cs have meant little because they were never applied evenly. These platforms go with the flavour of the month, and while many might cheer on these developments, they may think twice when the sword is pointed their way.
In 2018, The Anti-Media had their Facebook and Twitter accounts deleted in coordinated fashion. Some of their contributors found their presences gone, without explanation. The Anti-Media Radio account was deleted because of âmultiple or repeat violations of the Twitter rulesâ, yet had never Tweeted.
I seldom criticize Chinese platforms such as Weibo even though they are monitored and censored by the rĂ©gime in Beijing. But Weiboâs terms say as much when they tell you what legislation will come into play, which is far more honest an approach. Free speech, after all, doesnât mean platforms must host what we say, or publishers must publish what we write, and as long as I know where the boundaries lie, Iâll aim not to cross them. If I wish to cross them, I will do so in my own spaces.
Big Tech in the US, however, is different, because the terms donât marry up with the reality. And when rules are applied unevenly, just as when laws are applied unevenly (US police actions toward whites versus blacks, for instance), we cannot trust what the powers-that-be might do.
Emily Ratajkowski, who has regularly proved more insightful than many wish to give her credit for, Tweeted along these lines in the wake of the Washington, DC riots yesterday.
âAnyone else feel like proper amount of capital police being absent/letting Trump people in/providing insane visuals of MAGA dudes on the floor of the house was wildly convenient to justifying big techâs rollout of censorship?â she wrote. She followed this with: âIâm saying itâs very convenient to justify taking away more rights & privacyâ and âThis gives Facebook/tech/Zuck THE MOST POWER. If he can shut the president up/off he can shut any of us up/offâ.
Her other words: âMy concern is that this gives big tech the opportunity to shut down âleftist extremistsâ who are important political organizers.â And, in one response, âAnd before tech leftists were being blacklisted by other means. People responding to my tweet somehow do not understand what license this gives big tech to continue to do so this time with people cheering. Patriot act 2.0?â
At no point is she cheering on violence, or agreeing with the MAGA movement, but she paints a chilling picture. Leftists (and a good many on the right) might be delighted at the actions taken by US Big Tech, but would one be as cheerful if a Democratic president or a leftist movement were silenced? All I am advocating for is fairness, and I believe that Ratajkowski is, too. Itâs something weâve not seen.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who unlike so much of the US media plays no favourites, Tweeted a few hours after Ratajkowski: âA handful of Silicon Valley oligarchs decide who can and cannot be heard, including the President of the United States. They exert this power unilaterally, with no standards, accountability or appeal.
âPolitics now is begging them to silence adversaries or permit allies to speak âŠ
âThis is particularly menacing because they’re not just like any other companies with competitors. A Democratic-controlled House sub-committee three months ago definitively concluded that 4 of them â FB, Amazon, Google and Apple â are classic monopolies.
âDemands that Silicon Valley censor more were already rapidly escalating. After yesterday, that tech oligarchs should police our discourse is a virtual consensus. Look for way more.
âAs I wrote today, it’s very redolent of post-9/11 calls for censorship.â
Edward Snowden, meanwhile, Tweeted, âFor better or worse, this will be remembered as a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech.â
I have to concur. By all means, have terms and conditionsâbut have them apply to all. And if youâre going to indulge one to a certain level, you must indulge us all to the same. What happened on January 6 were unilateral exercises by platforms that have allowed one party to violate their own terms and conditions for years, only for them to have a change of heart brought upon by public pressure.
Whatâs worse is that the uneven playing field that they have created was motivated by greed. Twitter was at least frank enough to admit that Trump was given a free pass for years, with his newsworthiness their excuse. But they all knew, just as the US media did when all of themâfrom MSNBC through to the Murdoch Pressâthat his content was good for their business because it meant attention.
Fuelling it was in their best interests. An internal Facebook report revealed that 64 per cent of the time someone joins an extremist Facebook group, they have done so because it was recommended to them by the algorithm. This is no accident. Roger McNamee goes one further when he points out in Wired: âFacebook has also acknowledged that pages and groups associated with QAnon extremism had at least 3 million members, meaning Facebook helped radicalize 2 million people.â Remember that the same argument must apply to leftist extremists, too.
He continues, âCongress and law enforcement must decide what to do about the unprecedented insurrection in Washington. President Trump and elements of the right-wing media must pay. So, too, must internet platforms. They have prioritized their own profits and prerogatives over democracy and the public health and safety of the people who use their products.â
The solutions are numerous, but among them must be the enforcement of antitrust laws as they were originally intended to be used, not what they became over the last three decades. The US Justice Department is pursuing this.
Secondly, the intentional design of these platforms to bubble, radicalize and incite needs to stop, and individual nationsâ legislatures could go some way to enacting laws to force it. Let them serve people and society, which is what technology should doâpeople should not be bending to the technology. Allow us to find alternative viewpoints with âthe other sideâ if we are truly to understand and engage with one another.
Thirdly, when these platforms lie, they should be punished, but with penalties that fit the crime. Fining Google four hoursâ earnings after hacking a setting on Iphones is hardly a punishment, for instance. Lying has become a regular practice in some US businesses because we all know that Big Tech has done so with impunity.
These alterations wonât suddenly make Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and the others poor, either. Their owners will still be worth myriads of millions of dollars, but at least peopleâs lives wonât be threatened to the same extent. While some are blaming Trump for the five deaths on the Capitol Hill insurrection, Big Tech platforms were the ones that helped bring the mob there, just as YouTube recommended conspiracy videos, or Facebook incited genocide against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The US might still be more a democracy rather than an anocracy if not for Big Techâs greed over the last 20 or so years.
Thereâs no left or right to this. And when those divisions are removed, when the bubbles are popped, we might just see where the real obstacles in society lieâcorruption, tax-dodging, monopoly power, environmental harmârather than each other.âJack Yan, Founder and Publisher