In the day-to-day defense of liberty and the preservation of a free society, it is hard to think of an organization more competent than the Cato Institute at swiftly completing their appointed rounds. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the process of logic behind the release of their new policy analysis, “What to Do about the Emerging Threat of Censorship Creep on the Internet.” While they can be commended for calling attention to the continuing threat of censorship, in this instance they seemed to have prized pragmatism over principle.
As I was reading the paper, I was energized when I came across this statement: “Companies must be proactive in rigorously reviewing hate speech….”
Excuse me?
Let’s be clear — there has always been hate speech. There will always be hate speech. However, when defending liberty and domestic tranquility, it is endemic upon a free-thinking people to deploy the dual broadswords of reason and ridicule, rather than lazily rely on government or corporate guardians.
Disagreeable speech, hate or otherwise, is to be met, and matched, by countervailing speech, informed with reason and sometimes invigorated with sarcasm, satire and wry irony. The simple reason being that, “censorship creep” is inexorable, inevitable and incremental — opening the door, even a little, to corporate review, or to any remedy other than countervailing speech, is just one more path to hell paved with good intentions.
That’s why this analysis from Cato is such a disappointment — it’s easy to look to an academic framework that sounds innocuous and feels good, like we are doing something preventative. But there is no good that will come from companies conducting “proactive review” — an Orwellian phrasing for gestating censorship if there ever was one. Companies do not exist in order to do the right thing — they exist to efficiently organize and deploy resources. It is unreasonable to expect them to act any differently, and wishing won’t make it so. Unspoken censorship creep in the name of efficiency, cutting costs and increasing ROI is not difficult to imagine.
In a free society that aspires to remain free there is not, and can never be, any substitute for vigilance and vigorous challenge to disagreeable speech, especially incitements to hatred or violence. At some point, we need to stop looking for easy answers and understand that some things don’t have scalable solutions. Some problems must be solved the old-fashioned way — in this case, by confronting disagreeable speech with fact, reason and a healthy dose of ridicule. The pen is, after all, mightier than the sword.