QAnon and those who believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump are ridiculous. They are not the same as ISIS. This appears to be news to a number of influential policy voices, including Facebook’s former chief security officer Alex Stamos and Washington Post columnist Max Boot.
Those who claim that Trump actually won the election do so for one of two reasons — either because they believe it or because they want to consolidate their position with those who do. This isn’t to justify their actions, but as with the calls by some liberals to pack the Supreme Court for nakedly partisan reasons, conservatives have no dominion over disregard for the nation’s democratic values. Such widespread rejection of the election results is concerning but not existential — the election results were affirmed, and the voters’ verdict will be carried out at noon tomorrow. And at least in a judicial or political sense, the outcome was never truly in doubt.
In contrast, ISIS seeks to displace the U.S. government with warped Salafist theological absolutism. As manifested in its theology, propaganda, and action, ISIS offers a binary choice between death and tyranny. While its adherents sometimes engage in terrorist or criminal activity, and deserve reciprocal constraint where they do so, most of QAnon’s followers are delusional but law abiding.
The distinction matters because even as we should rebut QAnon’s more maniacal assertions, so also should we respect the right of our fellow citizens to consume and contribute speech as they desire. The American tradition rightly chooses maximal speech, with all its risks, over beneficent regulation, with its ultimate flaw — the fact that those who would limit others are flawed. Where a few get to set the rights of the many, the many will end up not liking it. I note this in light of the rising sentiment in favor of censoring far-right voices or those giving voice to conspiracy theories. What started with the effected call to kill off Trump’s Twitter is now a trend.
Recognizing that it is ever so slightly un-American to ban speakers entirely, the censors conceal their rallying cries under the cover of de-platforming. Speaking on CNN last weekend, Stamos, the former Facebook executive, explained what was needed.
“We have to turn down the ability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences. There are people on YouTube, for example, who have a larger audience than daytime CNN. And they are extremely radical in pushing extremely radical views, so it’s up to the Facebooks and YouTubes to figure out whether or not they want to be cable networks for disinformation. Then we’re going to have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem. These companies have freedom of speech, but I’m not sure Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such need to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes.”
Stamos deserves credit for admitting that ratings might motivate part of his argument here. Still, it is a shallow folly to suggest that free speech is compatible with a concerted pressure campaign to deny space to voices we dislike. OANN might have a flexible relationship with reality (especially with regard to Russia and Syria), but its viewership should determine its continued presence, not the views of those who believe they know better.
Max Boot took things further on Monday, writing that providers should also remove Fox News. Boot adds that the Federal Communications Commission should restrict Fox News unless it stops commentators from questioning Joe Biden’s victory. Two points stand out here. First, it is notable that Boot does not draw contrast between the network’s opinion voices and its objective journalists. He wants them all silenced. Second, Boot explicitly references CNN as a template for accurate reporting. I have great respect for journalists at both Fox News and CNN, but to suggest that CNN’s coverage is the apex of accuracy and Fox News’s the depth of deception is perhaps a good example of why we don’t have a few individuals choosing who, what, and from where we hear our news.
Chief Justice John Roberts underlined the issue best in the case of Snyder v. Phelps, a First Amendment-tort case involving vitriolic protesters celebrating near a soldier’s funeral. Roberts explained that “speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course – to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
True, the First Amendment only applies to government regulation of speech. But Roberts’s message is one to which Boot, Stamos, and the rest of us should pay closer heed. We should trust and demand that the authorities stop those who cross the line into criminality, but we should not prevent our fellow citizens from speaking or hearing just because we don’t like what’s being said.
