Facebook Isn't the Only Thing That Failed Free Speech

Hi, folks. For the most part, this week was the usual mix of disasters and screw-ups. But then came the uplifting news that courageous journalist Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize. Thanks, Norwegians! This week’s Plain View is dedicated to her.

The Plain View

Almost exactly two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg took to the podium at Georgetown University and made a public plea for free expression. His vast public relations apparatus flagged the speech in advance, signaling that Facebook’s cofounder, CEO, and all-powerful czar would be speaking earnestly on an issue of importance. Delivered from the belly of the federal beast—in that same city where we just saw a whistleblower challenge Facebook to its core—he sketched out how his beleaguered company would prevail in its struggles to maintain comity while giving voice to billions—many of whom were liars, propagandists, or just plain creeps.

Zuckerberg posited himself as a modern Tom Paine, a free speech crusader. The country, and maybe the world, was at a crossroads, he warned. “We can continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us,” he said. “Or we can decide the cost is simply too great. I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.”

At one time, I would have stood firmly in Zuckerberg’s corner. I saw myself as a free-speech absolutist, which is not a shocking stance for a journalist. Of course, I adored the First Amendment, which banned the government from stifling people’s views, with rare exceptions like calls for violence. But I also believed that through the process of unfettered expression, we would sift our way to the truth. Judge Louis Brandeis said it most famously, in a 1927 opinion: “It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears … the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” I’m still up with that. But while I’m still in that more-speech-solves-bad-speech corner, I’m not standing as firmly these days—and not just because of social media.

Certainly, Zuckerberg isn’t the best spokesperson for this issue, and Brandeis didn’t anticipate social media when he wrote that a hundred years ago. Does anyone think that Facebook provides an intellectual scrum that ultimately results in truth? More likely, because of algorithms that optimize for engagement and reward those that generate anger or outrage, it is the opposite: Those who once accepted the benign wisdom about things like vaccine efficacy or the outcome of a fair election are drawn into a maelstrom of ignorance. Or healthy teenage girls are lured into eating disorders.

Even so, I don’t assign Facebook as the key force refuting Brandeis’ optimism. We had conspiracy theories and hate talk well before Facebook and Twitter. Our history is infested with megalomaniacs, tinpot saviors, and rabble-rousing radio demagogues, all peddling ersatz narratives that animated hate and lies. The internet was supposed to embody the “more-speech-solves-bad-speech” ethic by allowing people to bypass gatekeepers, despised elites who generally decided who had a voice. For a glorious period, this seemed to work.

But we forgot that gatekeepers could be guardrails. Traditionally, on many issues, institutions and leaders on both sides of the political divide were united in supporting a point of view that conformed to some sort of decency and truth. (The glaring exception, of course, came when our conventional wisdom was bigotry—a shameful example of what happens when a guardrail itself is evil.) Their presence could assure a nation to proceed, for instance, on a scary project to vaccinate a generation of children against polio, despite rumblings from the cave-dwelling population.

Those days seem to be gone. Even though gatekeepers have lost traction, we still have leaders. But too many seem to have abandoned their moral responsibilities. The very concept of truth and reason is often disputed by many elected officials and network television commentators. We hear rhetoric from them that’s as bad as the most objectionable posts in a Facebook News Feed. We see laws from them that are just as objectionable. (I am trying not to be partisan, but truth forces me to say that we’re talking about the right wing here.) Social media just makes all this worse.

Zuckerberg himself has come to realize that his expansive view of free speech was, well, too expansive. For much of Facebook’s history, Holocaust deniers were free to post away. Zuckerberg even bragged about this in a 2018 podcast, citing it as an example of the way people can sort out for themselves whether the indisputable extermination of 8 million people actually happened. But in October 2020, one year after his Georgetown speech, Zuckerberg said his thinking had “evolved,” and he banned Holocaust denial on the platform. Facebook has also decided that “more speech” won’t convince Covid conspiracists of the value of masks and vaccines, so it now tries to suppress misinformation on those subjects.

During the three years I worked on a book about Facebook, a period where the company was under incredible pressure and scrutiny, I had a lot of conversations with their communications people. Though, ultimately, they bleed blue—at least until they skedaddle to other companies—they are a thoughtful bunch. Sometimes they’d ask me my opinions about the speech issue. Facebook isn’t to blame for the dark side of human nature, I’d concede. But, I told them, they’re responsible for what goes on the platform they built: It may not be your fault, but it’s your problem, I’d say. Facebook made dangerous speech its problem by working so hard, and proceeding so recklessly, to provide 3 billion people with digital bullhorns. Sadly, it has dealt with that problem poorly, favoring growth over its ability to moderate harmful speech. As a result, much of the toxicity and untruth on Facebook is now the company’s fault.

But that doesn’t mean we should ignore what I see as an even more alarming danger: The collapse of reason and the abdication of responsibility by a significant part of the establishment.

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg needs to fix Facebook. But it will take all of us to douse the sweeping conflagration that threatens truth. I’m happy to be free to say that, and I welcome opposing views, however wrong they may be.

Time Travel

Getting ahead of the remote reporting boom, I covered Zuckerberg’s 2019 speech from the comfort of WIRED’s New York office in the World Trade Center, which I haven’t seen the inside of for 19 months. Soon!

Zuckerberg’s highly promoted speech introduced no new Facebook features or initiatives, but was a defiant reply to critics of Facebook’s destructive effects on global society—manipulating voters, fomenting division, and even aiding genocide. He doubled down on Facebook’s handling of the treacherous business of implementing free expression at an unprecedented global scale. Despite considerable evidence that the approach has often fallen short, Zuckerberg still professes optimism: Giving people a voice and connecting the world, he believes, are transformationally positive actions. Essentially, he’s saying—as he always has—that Facebook is essentially positive.

What’s more, he was claiming high ground for Facebook’s values. If you disagree with him on speech, he implied, you’re siding with the forces of censorship and elitism. He described a “countertrend … to pull back on free expression.” His foes, he implied, are the same kind of people who wanted Eugene Debs in prison, who wanted Vietnam protesters stopped. But the people whose Facebook presence is more disturbing include the likes of Alex Jones (whom Facebook ultimately banned) or … Donald Trump. The speech didn’t really take on those kinds of choices.

Zuckerberg clearly believed in what he was saying: Though his presentation was sometimes halting (maybe reflecting that he was tinkering with the speech until his deadline), his voice grew stronger when invoking Facebook as an instrument of empowerment. He spoke for almost 40 minutes, which is what happens when senators aren’t interrupting you.

Ask Me One Thing

Arlene asks, “What is the Microsoft game plan when a large portion of the PC universe will not be able to upgrade to Windows 11 for hardware reasons? This isn't just more memory or drive space, it’s throwing your computer away and buying a new one. We all saw how well W7 migration worked. Much like autos are on about a 16-year median cycle, computers are quite easily five or more years. Is this simply an extraordinarily long view, or do they believe they can force the hardware market?"

Thanks, Arlene. You correctly point out that the much-awaited Windows upgrade requires something called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0, a security feature found on fairly recent computers running Microsoft system software. But those who bought their PCs five years ago or earlier might not be able to run W11, period. Windows 10 will run, of course, but mark October 14, 2025, on your calendar, because that’s when Microsoft will stop supporting it. (By the way, here’s how to check whether your machine is up to the task.)

This is an age-old issue in the computing world. Companies want to improve their software, and often that means taking advantage of advanced features and more powerful chips in newer computers. But quite often people are happy with what they have, and outraged when their system software is orphaned. In Microsoft’s case, upgrades are also a huge revenue source, so people assume the worst—that the company is intentionally knee-capping the old stuff so you’ll buy the new stuff.

What makes this Windows 11 flap sort of defensible for Microsoft is that TPM isn’t some spiffy graphics update or a file system. It’s about security. Windows software has long been a big fat target for malicious hackers and state-sponsored attacks. So I’m not inclined to demonize the Lords of Redmond for this move. That said, if you’re happy with your early-2000s computer, the world won’t stop if you ignore Windows 11. You have exactly four years before Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 10, and we all may be living in caves by then anyway.

You can submit questions to mail@wired.com. Write ASK LEVY in the subject line.

End Times Chronicle

William Shatner’s ecstatic and glorious reaction to space travel is so over the top that he passed the Kármán line two sentences in.

Last but not Least

I had the privilege of interviewing Maria Ressa at last year’s WIRED25 conference. Here’s a video, along with Gregory Barber’s account of the exchange.

By the way, on November 9 and 10, WIRED is doing another virtual conference, now called RE:WIRED. Sign up here, it’s free.

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