Late last year, we received a business enquiry from Infowars. They were looking for a platform to build and run their own self-contained community for followers and fans of alt-right activist and Infowars founder Alex Jones.
We turned them down. But the questions surrounding why we made that decision – not least whether we were right to do so – still loom large for us.
That day, I was running through the long list of new prospects that had come in from our website. The usual assortment of communities had come to Disciple, all wanting to build their own online social platforms. Wellness gurus, politicians, an association for CMOs, an up-and-coming hip-hop artist, an exotic car owners club, a resort in Florida and… an alt-right firebrand banned from most of the internet, accused of fomenting fascism in the US and adored by Donald Trump’s most extreme followers.
You see, one of the unanticipated aspects of my job as Disciple CEO is to be the arbiter of what we, as a company, view as acceptable communities for our platform. Essentially who can and can’t use our platform to build their community. And so far, I think I’ve probably got these decisions right. But rather than referring to an approved rubric when guarding the gates to our platform, it always feels like I’m basing the decision on my own values and the shared values of the company we’re building.
So - after much internal struggle between my unapologetically liberal self and my more pragmatic, business self - I came to a decision. We would not let Alex Jones use our platform. I based this decision partly on my own set of values and - if we’re honest - partly on the fact that we don’t want our good reputation damaged by an association with Alex Jones’ extreme views.
But, if we believe, as I fundamentally do, in freedom of speech, then don’t Alex Jones and Infowars have as much right to a voice as any other community? Banning him, or any other group whose views we fundamentally disagree with, clearly amounts to censorship. And whatever we think about censorship (a debate which has raged for decades), should it be the remit of a software company? As a platform provider, should we have editorial control over the purpose and content of the apps that run on it?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, then how do we get it right? And how do we exercise that control effectively as our business scales and customers increasingly self-serve, rather than interact with our sales and tech teams?
But that brings us back to censorship. In August 2018, Apple, Facebook and Spotify all banned Alex Jones from their platforms. Twitter followed suit in September. All of the platforms cited violation of their content policies as their justification, highlighting the use of hate speech and glorification of violence. Alex Jones has, in essence, been censored from social media and silenced. Purged without trial.
But should he have been? According to the Oxford Dictionary, freedom of speech means: “The power or right to express one's opinions without censorship, restraint, or legal penalty.” By that axiom, Alex Jones should have as much right as anyone else to express his views. Plus there’s a school of thought that says that by giving him a platform, the full malevolence of his views will be exposed and the backlash swift, severe and deserved.
Besides, where do you draw the line? While you may agree that a terrorist cell should be denied the opportunity to amplify their influence, you also need to be clear on what constitutes terrorism. One country or culture’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. So, what’s the truth of the situation and who should ultimately be the judge?
Before social media, this responsibility lay with journalists and editors at large media corporations. The result was either that extremist views weren’t given a platform by the press, or if they were, it was in the context of how the publisher wanted to present them.
The difference with the social media platforms of the 21st century is that they are open-access. Anyone can have a voice and a platform to propagate their beliefs. But does that mean they should? And who has the right to decide? This is why I believe that censorship has, in effect, been forced to return to the zeitgeist by the emergence, expansion and mass adoption of social media.
One very strong argument for a ban on censorship is the Big Brother effect. If even one platform has complete control over its content and users, aren’t the authoritarian consequences potentially worse than anything we might see as a result of allowing a minority of extremists to broadcast their views?
What has become clear in practice is that social media companies can no longer consider themselves mere platforms. Not when they can, and increasingly do, influence the content that appears (or disappears) on them. It has meant the drawing up of lengthy content policies and terms of service, and with those comes the responsibility to enforce them.
But what of private platforms like Disciple? The platform we’re building gives communities the power to create and own their own social community spaces. Unlike a social media platform, each member of each community on our platform is there because they share the same set of interests, beliefs or values as their fellow community members. Communities on our platform operate completely independently of each other and we impose no influence over any of them. Which is just how we like it. But has the Infowars dilemma opened a new chapter for us?
If it has, it’s a subjective one. Do we take the same line with a Christian church community whose beliefs are considered extreme by some? A group of citizens whose passion is building new guns from random spare or printed parts? What about the request we had recently from a community consisting exclusively of blue-collar, black Americans? And would our decision be the same if that community were exclusively white..?
The answer to making those calls is probably to draw up a set of guidelines almost as lengthy as Facebook’s, and assume responsibility to enforce them. But that in itself presents a dilemma to this extreme liberal who believes passionately in freedom of speech and that everyone should be allowed a voice.
So how do we scale to make that vision a reality, whilst remaining socially responsible?
At present, we genuinely don’t know, which is, in essence, the motivation behind this blog. We want to know what you think and we’d love your views. Because if we don’t find the answer (if there is one), there’s a risk that either we won’t have a business, or we’ll end up with a very different business from the one we set out to create.
