di Danah Boyd
In early September 2018, Facebook and Twitter were accused during a Congressional hearing of having anti-conservative bias. This should sound familiar to many of you in this room as you too have been accused for political purposes of being the “liberal media.” The core of this narrative is a stunt, architected by media manipulators, designed to trigger outrage among conservatives and pressure news and social media to react.
It works. Over the last two years, both social media and news media organizations have desperately tried to prove that they aren’t biased. What’s at stake is not whether these organizations are restricting discussions concerning free-market economics or failing to allow conservative perspectives to be heard. What’s at stake is how fringe groups can pervert the logics of media to spread conspiratorial and hateful messages under their false flag of conservatism.
Accusations of anti-conservative bias are not evaluated through evidence because reality doesn’t matter to them. This is what makes this stunt so effective. News organizations and tech companies have no way to “prove” their innocence. What makes conspiratorial messages work is how they pervert evidence. The simplest technique is to conflate correlation and causation. Conspiracy makers point to the data that suggests that both journalists and Silicon Valley engineers are more likely to vote for candidates from the Democratic party. Or that they have higher levels of education than the average American and are more likely to live in Blue states.
As my colleague Francesca Tripodi points out, accusing tech of anti-conservative bias also leverages and reinforces a misunderstanding of how search engines and social media work. As she notes, “People believe Google is weighing facts instead of rank-ordering results that match the entered keywords.” When the goal is to drive a wedge among the public, it’s not hard to encourage people to see bias.
Illustration: Jim Cooke
Contemporary extremism is designed to increase polarization. One tactic is to twist frames. For example, “ideological diversity” has been deployed to suggest that people who hold conservative viewpoints experience a loss of opportunity similar to those who have faced systemic racism and sexism. But this isn’t about the history of economic inequality in the US. It’s a dogwhistle. It’s about using nominal conservatism as a cloak to promote toxic masculinity and white supremacy. It’s about extremists using conservatives. And it’s about intentionally twisting historical pressure to diversify newsrooms and Silicon Valley to open the Overton Window. Fundamentally, it’s a technique to grab power by gaslighting the public and making reality seem fuzzy.
Don’t get me wrong. Journalism has historically played a central role in shaping public discourse. Through editorial processes, news organizations have served as gatekeepers and chosen what to amplify. And many critics have challenged the media’s power to do so over the years. Ideally, newsrooms reflect the norms of society, but that doesn’t mean that this has worked perfectly in the past. Furthermore, this process has gotten a lot more complicated in the last 25 years as new tools for amplification have emerged.
As we sit here today, both news organizations and tech companies are struggling to figure out their role in the distribution and promotion of different kinds of speech. Like universities and think tanks, they are being pushed into a corner that they don’t understand. In response, and out of fear of being accused of anti-conservative bias, conference promoters are inviting speakers to the stage to share messages of toxic masculinity and white supremacy under the rubric of hearing “both sides.” News organizations are profiling extremists as legitimate voices to perform a version of neutrality that is rooted in false equivalency. And social media companies are hesitant to ban people who flagrantly and hatefully violate their terms of service out of fear of being painted as censors.
How did we get here? The stark reality is that we all got played. And we’re continuing to get played.
Freedom of Speech
In the United States, the First Amendment of the Constitution is sacrosanct. So let’s remind ourselves of precisely what is said:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Congress shall not pass laws curtailing the freedom of speech. Congress shall not pass laws curbing the freedom of the press.
In early September 2018, Facebook and Twitter were accused during a Congressional hearing of having anti-conservative bias. This should sound familiar to many of you in this room as you too have been accused for political purposes of being the “liberal media.” The core of this narrative is a stunt, architected by media manipulators, designed to trigger outrage among conservatives and pressure news and social media to react.
It works. Over the last two years, both social media and news media organizations have desperately tried to prove that they aren’t biased. What’s at stake is not whether these organizations are restricting discussions concerning free-market economics or failing to allow conservative perspectives to be heard. What’s at stake is how fringe groups can pervert the logics of media to spread conspiratorial and hateful messages under their false flag of conservatism.
Accusations of anti-conservative bias are not evaluated through evidence because reality doesn’t matter to them. This is what makes this stunt so effective. News organizations and tech companies have no way to “prove” their innocence. What makes conspiratorial messages work is how they pervert evidence. The simplest technique is to conflate correlation and causation. Conspiracy makers point to the data that suggests that both journalists and Silicon Valley engineers are more likely to vote for candidates from the Democratic party. Or that they have higher levels of education than the average American and are more likely to live in Blue states.
As my colleague Francesca Tripodi points out, accusing tech of anti-conservative bias also leverages and reinforces a misunderstanding of how search engines and social media work. As she notes, “People believe Google is weighing facts instead of rank-ordering results that match the entered keywords.” When the goal is to drive a wedge among the public, it’s not hard to encourage people to see bias.
Illustration: Jim Cooke
Contemporary extremism is designed to increase polarization. One tactic is to twist frames. For example, “ideological diversity” has been deployed to suggest that people who hold conservative viewpoints experience a loss of opportunity similar to those who have faced systemic racism and sexism. But this isn’t about the history of economic inequality in the US. It’s a dogwhistle. It’s about using nominal conservatism as a cloak to promote toxic masculinity and white supremacy. It’s about extremists using conservatives. And it’s about intentionally twisting historical pressure to diversify newsrooms and Silicon Valley to open the Overton Window. Fundamentally, it’s a technique to grab power by gaslighting the public and making reality seem fuzzy.
Don’t get me wrong. Journalism has historically played a central role in shaping public discourse. Through editorial processes, news organizations have served as gatekeepers and chosen what to amplify. And many critics have challenged the media’s power to do so over the years. Ideally, newsrooms reflect the norms of society, but that doesn’t mean that this has worked perfectly in the past. Furthermore, this process has gotten a lot more complicated in the last 25 years as new tools for amplification have emerged.
As we sit here today, both news organizations and tech companies are struggling to figure out their role in the distribution and promotion of different kinds of speech. Like universities and think tanks, they are being pushed into a corner that they don’t understand. In response, and out of fear of being accused of anti-conservative bias, conference promoters are inviting speakers to the stage to share messages of toxic masculinity and white supremacy under the rubric of hearing “both sides.” News organizations are profiling extremists as legitimate voices to perform a version of neutrality that is rooted in false equivalency. And social media companies are hesitant to ban people who flagrantly and hatefully violate their terms of service out of fear of being painted as censors.
How did we get here? The stark reality is that we all got played. And we’re continuing to get played.
Freedom of Speech
In the United States, the First Amendment of the Constitution is sacrosanct. So let’s remind ourselves of precisely what is said:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Congress shall not pass laws curtailing the freedom of speech. Congress shall not pass laws curbing the freedom of the press.
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