How to deal with Freedom of Speech and Liars
I am a dual citizen, born and raised in New England, the son of French Canadian grandparents and, since 1980, I am a Canadian citizen living on beautiful Vancouver Island. I love my dual heritage, warts and all. I am concerned and care about what’s happening in both my countries. I always have. Deep down, it’s part of who I am, both a lover of history and a visionary of the signs of the time. In my waning days, I pour all the energy I still have cooperating with others to heal the wounds of nature that afflict us.
I am especially concerned about what we humans still contribute to our ailing planet. I am hopeful that we can change our ways and walk the walk of healing. As I see it, the major obstacle on our path of recovery is what divides us. We are gravely polarized between those who prefer to resolve issues by using fear and hate to motivate people and those who choose to walk the narrow path of dialogue and cooperation. The way we communicate the truth of reality with one another is at the heart of this division. There are those who are not averse to distorting the facts of what is truly happening (lying?) and those who are struggling to do the hard work of discovering and building the best solutions possible to the problems that we face.
How we understand Freedom of Speech is at the centre of this divide. Do we have the absolute freedom to say whatever we want? Or are there limitations that restrict what we might say? Common sense tells us that restrictions do exist and, in my view, the preeminent one is violence. If what we say or do leads to violence of any sort, it must be restricted. Those who do it must be held accountable, regardless of whether it was intended or not. Unfortunately, neither in Canada nor in the United States is there legislation incorporating such accountability. This must change. It can change.
It has changed. After years of campaigning, the Avaaz organization (70 million supporters) has managed to convince the European Union to enact legislation curbing disinformation. Please read carefully the following Avaaz information and, if you feel so inclined, spread the word. Together we can save the planet.
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This might just be the most impactful thing Avaaz has ever done.
For years, mega tech platforms like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have been making billions while flooding the world with disinformation, hate speech and other harmful content. But after years of incredible campaigning, the European Union has just agreed on a historic law that will force Big Tech to change – and this could be the start of a global revolution to protect us all!
We can honestly say Europe’s new Digital Services Act wouldn’t look like it does without Avaaz. We ran massive investigations into the harms caused by social media and shared our findings everywhere. Then we drafted groundbreaking legislative proposals on how to protect our societies as well as freedom of speech, and ran a huge push to get key lawmakers on board! And it worked!
He was so convinced by our research that he went on TV to talk about it the day after we met him!
For over four years, our movement – together with an inspiring civil society coalition – has been at the forefront of this battle to protect citizens and democracy. Read on for the full story of how a few dozen activists, researchers, and hundreds of thousands of Avaaz members across the world took on some of the most powerful corporations that have ever existed – and won!
2018: A Hundred Zuckerbergs (yikes!)
It all started almost exactly 4 years ago, in 2018: disinformation was creating havoc in democracies, and hate speech was being weaponised around the world. In April that year, we launched our first global call to platforms and regulators to “Fix Fakebook” and rein in big tech.
2019: Diagnosing the Problem, and Defining the Fix
In 2019, many EU lawmakers didn’t really understand the problem. The idea that lies and conspiracy theories going viral online were having a serious impact on our democracies was contested – and without proof, the regulators wouldn’t act.
So, inspired by a Lithuanian project, we hired researchers we called “elves” to investigate internet “trolls” and reveal the scale of the disinformation problem, especially the impact it was having in Europe.
Working from a war room in Brussels, our team of 30 “elves” uncovered what 30,000 Facebook monitors and their team of experts seemed to have missed: huge networks, using fake accounts and inauthentic pages, spreading toxic lies and hatred across Europe ahead of crucial elections. Following our investigation, Facebook took down networks that could reach an estimated 3 BILLION (!!!!) views in a single year!!
As election day approached, top EU politicians, journalists and security experts were coming to our war room almost every day for information and briefings. Our work made headline news all over the world warning millions of Europeans of the disinformation threat just before the elections. Even Facebook publicly thanked us!
Exposing these networks helped Europe dodge a bullet in the elections. But top EU officials were shocked by what we had found and asked us: what could be done?
So, working with social media insiders, academics and lawmakers, we developed research-backed proposals to clean up social media while protecting freedom of speech:
- Detox the algorithm. Stop platforms from making dangerous disinformation and harmful content go viral just to keep us hooked to our screens
- Correct the record. Show every single person who sees disinformation a correction from an independent fact-checker right in their news feeds. TIME Magazine called it a ‘radical new proposal that could curb fake news on social media’