americanconservative | Apparently, there is great commercial value in understanding our
attributes and then using what is learned. Sometimes this is in our
interest, but many times it is not.
In the digital world,
companies dissect us and package us for commercial gain without
compensating us—and too often without our consent. That is not merely an
invasion of our privacy, but in actuality is a theft of our personal
property.
In
any free society, respect for the individual is predicated upon his or
her sovereignty. Our most important property right is our right
to ourselves. If we lose ownership of ourselves, we become the property
of others.
Social media companies, and other platforms that
sell or monetize our data without permission are appropriating aspects
of the sovereign individuals who are their users, and it is a
violation of our rights.
These companies really aren’t “social media.” They are not public
forums. An actual public forum respects the First Amendment, in spirit,
and does not monetize content or personal data. Google, Facebook,
Twitter and other tyrannical tech giants are private companies operating
opaquely in the digital domain, exempt from discovery or
accountability, gifted by Congress with a liability exemption that
allows them to do whatever they want. Including deplatforming you.
Rabbi Hillel said, “that which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow.”
If
you want the right to speak, to express your ideas and opinions, it
would be despicable to you if someone prevented you from doing so. You
would not want someone else to persecute, dehumanize, deplatform or
digitally exterminate you.
Such behavior is abhorrent to the
ideal of free speech. It is unfathomable that, in the twenty-first
century, “I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the
death your right to say it,” has, somehow mutated into, “I wholly
disapprove of what you say and will digitally exterminate you if you
dare try to say it.”
A true public forum eschews censorship of any
kind. Freedom of expression, and the exchange of knowledge that goes
along with it, can flourish only in an environment where there is no
authoritative entity or controlling party, where one speaks by right,
not by permission.
