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Last week Silicon Valley silenced the president. In unison, the social media giants, with an assist from Amazon and Apple, also eliminated their most popular conservative competitor and announced that their own moderation policies would now extend to other companies. Meanwhile, CNN openly called for Fox News to be banned from cable, while a major talk radio network issued new speech rules to its hosts, extending tech’s moderation policies to the offline world. Beyond all this, Congress and the European Union called for powerful new regulation of online speech.
As a handful of unelected billionaires declare sovereignty over digital speech, where might the coming months take us?
Twitter once touted itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party” and rebuked Congress’ calls for it to ban terrorists, proclaiming that “the ability of users to share freely their views — including views that many people may disagree with or find abhorrent” — was its mission. Indeed, most of the early social platforms emphasized unfettered speech above all other considerations. Over the years, this utopian dream has given way to an emphasis on “healthy conversation” and ever-changingenforcement.
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Yet for most of their existence, social media platforms have largely avoided censoring elected officials in the U.S. even as they have deleted the accounts of foreign leaders. That all changed last year as Silicon Valley for the first time began labeling President Trump’s tweets as “disputed” and “false.” As progressive segments of the public embraced this new censorship, platforms moved from merely fact-checking posts to deleting them entirely and threatening to ban some lawmakers.
The courts have repeatedly ruled that Trump’s Twitter account is an official government outlet and thus he is prohibited from blocking users with whom he disagrees. How then is a private company able to establish “acceptable speech” rules for a government publication or silence it entirely?
Perhaps more troubling is that speech rules no longer just govern social spaces. Uber, Lyft and Airbnb have all banned their services from being used by those whose online and offline political speech was deemed unacceptable. Facebook last year extended its reach to the offline world, banning certain kinds calls for protest while permitting others.
It was a remarkable sight to behold Democratic lawmakers and the press lamenting that Congress does not have the power to silence voices with which it disagrees and instead urging Silicon Valley to exercise the power only it holds: the ability to silence any voice from the digital world. And this plea came from the very lawmakers who had once condemned social platforms as dangerous monopolies.
Moreover, the companies’ announcements that they were permanently suspending the president referenced not potential illegal activity banned by law but rather the companies’ decision that permitting him to continue communicating with the nation posed too great a risk to democracy.
The companies themselves had little choice but to remove Trump or face even greater wrath from the new Democratic majority in Congress. Even the ACLU, in its condemnation of Twitter’s suspension of Trump, acknowledged the “political realities” of the incoming administration. Activist groups rushed to claim credit for silencing Trump, touting the high-level discussions they had had with Twitter leadership.
While there has been widespread support for Silicon Valley’s actions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of the dangers in silencing a democratically elected head of state. Moreover, while Democrats are narrowly focused on the present, in a world in which lawmakers and activist groups can wield the monopoly power of social media to mute dissenting voices, what is to stop a future Republican Congress from using those very same powers to silence Democrats? Such is the slippery slope we find ourselves on.
And what about alternatives to Silicon Valley’s platforms? Social media companies have long argued that they are not monopolies because it is possible for competitors to challenge them.
Twitter clone Parler had emerged as just such a competitor, reaching number one on Apple’s App Store this week as conservatives flocked to its minimally moderated platform. Yet within days Apple and Google had banned the sale of it from their respective app stores and banishing it from mobile devices. Parler’s cloud hosting provider, Amazon Web Services, evicted it, taking the site offline until a conservative cloud provider agreed to host it. Yet even if it can rebuild in some fashion, without a smartphone app and blacklisted by most service providers, Parler will be merely a shadow of its former self.
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In taking these steps, Silicon Valley cited Parler’s lack of strong content moderation as grounds for elimination. In their letters to Parler, the companies demanded that it adopt acceptable speech policies identical to their own.
Even offline media are not immune. Television channels must contract with cable carriers to transmit them into homes, syndicated radio shows must be hosted by stations, and even independent newspapers must have websites and mobile apps. With local news outlets diminishing, it is important to note that no matter how editorially independent some may be, all are still dependent on cloud providers, app stores, Internet service providers, etc. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s events at the Capitol, CNN openly called for cable carriers to drop Fox News, while Cumulus Media issued new acceptable speech rules to its conservative talk radio hosts.
Where does this leave us?
The nation’s founders chose not to give Congress the power to silence even a madman in the Oval Office, other than to remove him through impeachment. This week taught us that a handful of billionaires in California essentially have that power. Trump’s near-total disappearance from the digital world since his ban serves as a stark reminder of this.
The near-unanimous support from the new Democratic majority for this ban means Silicon Valley is now emboldened to eliminate any voice, no matter how powerful. It creates a dangerous normalization of the silencing of dissent.
The willingness of Uber, Lyft and Airbnb to ban some users for political speech shows that as technology companies’ tentacles reach into other industries, a new era of permanent societal exclusion, much like China’s “social credit” program, is emerging.
To some, the newfound emphasis on combating “misinformation,” with private companies as curators of permissible speech and definers of “truth,” might seem like a positive development. After all, threats of violence, racism, sexism, doxing, sedition, harmful medical advice and the like are damaging to society. Yet billionaires that can silence presidents, a Congress that can silence dissent and private companies deciding what is “best” for the nation and what constitutes “truth” pose an existential threat to democracy. In the end, the very future of our shared society hinges on the ability of Silicon Valley to balance thoughtful moderation with freedom of speech. Perhaps the answer is for the tech companies to become democracies themselves and let society decide what is best.
RealClear Media Fellow Kalev Leetaru is a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security. His past roles include fellow in residence at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government.
James Pitaro ’91 focuses on the everyday magic of Disney
James Pitaro ’91 chairman of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (DCPI), is a man on a mission.
“At DCPI, it’s our mission to bring the magic of Disney into the daily lives of families and fans around the world,” said Pitaro, who oversees the The Walt Disney Company’s creation of physical and digital experiences across more than 100 categories.
“We’re [Disney] fans’ everyday connection to their favorite stories and characters, which is a huge responsibility and honor.”
That honor, and indeed DCPI’s function, is to bring to life the characters and stories of four iconic brands – Disney, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel – serving as the world’s largest licensing business across toys, apparel and home goods; a leading children’s book publisher; a robust digital game slate including mobile and console experiences; 300-plus Disney Store locations around the world; and a digital network that reaches 1 billion people.
Pitaro’s journey to Disney all started at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology.
“Between the opportunity to play football and the incredible academics, there really was no question,” said Pitaro, who reminisced about falling in love with Cornell during the football recruiting process. “I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated, but was really attracted to the variety of academic options at Cornell.”
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“I knew I would get all the benefits of a medium to large university, but also have the intimacy I was so accustomed to from high school through the College of Human Ecology – and I was right,” he added. “I formed some very close relationships with my teachers during my four years and, actually, in my senior year, became a teacher’s assistant within the College.”
During his junior year, Pitaro had a life-changing experience while in the Cornell in Washington program. He interned by day and attended classes by night, including one titled The Holocaust and Jurisprudence.
“After one of the classes, my professor came up to me and said that I’d make a good lawyer,” he recalled. “I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life at that time, but I really respected and admired this professor and decided right then and there to become a lawyer.”
“Obviously my career has twisted and turned, but I would not be where I am without that moment.”
Upon graduation from Cornell, Pitaro went on to study law at St. John’s Law School in New York City and after receiving his Juris Doctor degree, practiced law at several firms in the city.
Following his wife’s career to the West Coast, he got a job as legal counsel for a start-up called Launch.com. A little over a year later, the start-up was bought by Yahoo! and through the acquisition, Pitaro joined the company, working in business affairs for Yahoo! Media Group.
He was then made general manager of Yahoo! Sports, and as a sports fan and someone who was looking to run a business, Pitaro says it was a dream opportunity.
“Then, in 2010, Sheryl Sandberg, who is on Disney’s board, recommended I meet with Disney CEO Bob Iger about an opening leading what was then the Disney Interactive Media Group,” Pitaro said. “I met with Bob and I quickly knew I wanted to work for him and for Disney.”
Pitaro and his DCPI team are focused on infusing technology into Disney’s physical products and fully leveraging digital experiences to immerse fans into their favorite stories in new ways – something he says is exciting.
This includes new approaches to some of Disney’s longest-running franchises, such as turning Minnie Mouse into a fashion icon, and pioneering in the digital space to bring the new Club Mickey Mouse series to Facebook and creating the BB-8 app enabled droid toy based on the Star Wars character
“Technological change is the most transformative force in the industry,” he said. “Looking ahead, we’re focused on cutting edge tech, like artificial intelligence, machine learning and augmented and virtual reality to create next-generation experiences.”
“Too often, innovation gets confused with technology, but really, innovation is all about mindset, not 1s and 0s,” Pitaro said. “Bob Iger often talks about the most important attributes of an executive and at the top of his list is always curiosity. The point being that it’s not enough to be smart and talented – you have to be curious.”
Decades later, his time at Cornell is something that he still holds close today.
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“I have a sign outside my office with advice I received from one of my mentors, and it reads: ‘Work Hard and Be Nice to People,’” Pitaro said. “I was inspired and challenged all the way through Cornell, and there was no cruising. I bring that work ethic with me every day.”