Considering Twitter as a Place

Last year a court determined that Donald Trump, due to his position as an active government official, is unable to block specific users on Twitter. In its report on the case (which you can read here), NPR states that a court of appeals ruled that Trump was unable to prevent users from interacting with him because by doing so he was "barring them from participating in what judges deemed a public forum." While I enjoy how the current verdict of this case forces government officials to hear their constituents' voices, I am also perturbed by one obvious flaw in the ruling, a flaw which both the plaintiff and defendant of the case appear to have overlooked, that Twitter clearly isn't a public forum.

Ultimately, it appears that the initial plaintiff and the appeals court considered Twitter to be the equivalent of a public space that all citizens have access to when they made their decision, that all public officials who mention politics on Twitter, including Trump, cannot prevent other users from interacting with them. Aspects of this decision are rational and could probably help protect the average person's freedom of speech; public officials cannot be interrupted or physically harmed on the site so any negative consequences brought about by the decision would be minor. Still, Twitter is not a public forum because it is not owned by the general public or the government itself; it is owned by private individuals who are solely responsible for regulating and policing their property. Although Twitter claims to "serve the public conversation" on its rules page (which you can access here), the rules it establishes and follows can be used to curtail constitutionally protected speech. The individuals in charge of Twitter are not objective, impartial, or unbiased; they run advertisements on Twitter, they want to make a profit, and they're willing to expunge unpleasant and minority opinions when they could damage their bottom line. Public forums are not privately owned, privately policed, or places from which protected speech can be erased and law-abiding citizens can be banned. Twitter clearly isn't a public forum.

1984

As film adaptations go, 1984 is pretty good. At least, it's pretty faithful to the book. I think William Hurt is terrific.  So are Suzanna Hamilton (Julia) and Richard Burton (O'Brien), for that matter.  They did leave some parts of the book out, of course, most notably the larger portion of Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism, and some parts that explain Julia's character in greater detail (her specific politics).  In some cases they have combined and condensed certain scenes.  But in all cases, they have mostly gotten all the most significant aspects of the book, with one exception. (More on that later.)

One scene that's missing from the movie-- that I wish they had included-- is early on, before (I think) Winston returns to the junk shop.  He sees a very old man, in the proletarian area, and follows him into a tavern. He thinks the old man must remember what things were like before the "Revolution," so he buys him a drink, and asks him questions. But the old man remembers only very specific moments from his own life; he has no sense of a "bigger picture," of whether things were in fact better or worse when he was young.  And Winston is sadly disillusioned.

It's worth noting-- and again, there's more of this in the book than in the movie-- that Winston thinks that "If there is hope, it lies with the Proles." The Proles, he sees, have remained "human": "They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. . . . They had not become hardened inside. They had held onto the primitive emotions which he himself had to relearn by conscious effort." Amid the endless toil and drudgery of their lives, they continue to sing.  This is why when looking at and listening to the prole woman singing in the courtyard (below their window), Winston says, "She's beautiful."

There is one very small but (to my mind) very significant change in the movie.  At the very end of the movie, Winston writes in the dust on the table, "2 + 2 =" [You may remember that in his diary he had written "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."]  Then, following the war announcement, he turns away from the image of Big Brother before saying "I love you," which echoes him saying "I love you" to Julia.  In this sense, the movie makes the ending somewhat ambiguous-- what does 2 + 2 equal? Does Winston say "I love you" to Big Brother? Or to Julia, who moments ago vacated the chair he turns to?

There is no such ambiguity in the book, where he actually writes "2 + 2 = 5." And the final lines of novel read: "it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

The point, I think, is this:  Recall when he and Julia agreed that they would not "betray" each other. Confess, yes.  "Everybody always confesses."  But, Julia says, they can't make you believe it. "They can't get inside you."  They can't make you stop loving someone. In this sense, they will confess, but not betray.  Yet in the end, they do get inside Winston and Julia; they betray each other. Winston becomes willing, really willing (and the book is very clear on this point) to sacrifice Julia in his place. Presumably Julia has done the same.

One other point I want to make about both the book and the movie.  In our culture at large, a lot of attention is usually focused on the idea of Big Brother and the "surveillance state" that we live in-- it's true in many ways. On one hand we have things like the CIA and the NSA, we have increasing numbers of cameras in public spaces and even private ones; and often such videos are widely distributed (I'm thinking here of Mitt Romney, and also Richard Berman).  Other writers have called attention to the ways in which technology and social media (especially our computers and smartphones) constitute a vast "surveillance" network (Perlow; Pepijn).  And all of that is more or less true. But it's also really only one aspect of the world of 1984.

More significant, I think, is this very astute analysis by Chris Taylor:

"Basically, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book about a government that is gaslighting a nation, and a nation that shrugs when confronted with gaslighting." 

The term gaslighting comes from a 1944 film called Gaslight. A man attempts, over time, to drive his wife insane-- one of his primary tactics is to turn down the gas lights in the house.  When his wife asks if the lights are dimmer than they were, he says, "No, of course not."  Then he goes and turns the gas back up again.

Check out this article from the website Psychology Today.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. 

It was their final, most essential command."

Sound familiar?

Alex Jones: The Deplatforming of a User. Free speech?

Alex Jones who was a political analyst and conspiracy theorist on the website InfoWars was always known for his strange and non-standard views he put forth to his users. For instance, on the the Joe Rogan Experience, he stated that many people in the high-paying government positions were in an "inter dimensional war" with aliens.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo7EoL9OAxY

He has continually pushed for people to buy his products which he claims are miracle products that will perform amazing feats. For instance, he pushed forth that his vitamin supplements cure COVID-19.

I could write forever about the craziness of Alex Jones. However, after all of his craziness that he's put forth, one got him in trouble more than anything. After the school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown Connecticut, he proposed conspiracy theories that claimed that none of the students ever died and that the entire incident was a hoax to create gun legislation. One family sued him and the result was the media platforms teaming together to ban him from their platforms. These are products such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Alex Jones is not allowed to use any of these products for his own personal use. His accounts were banned and deleted.

The conversation that gets brought up is whether or not this is inherently infringing on his free speech. Should private companies that have large platforms like this have the right to deplatform him? Or are these platforms at liberty to determine who can use their platform period. This brings up a conversation of liberty vs neoliberty; essentially whether economic liberty trumps personal liberty.

Are the media platforms allowed to do this? Are they infringing someone's free speech by doing this?

The Dark Side of Tumblr (spoiler, but Trigger Warning)

About a year or so ago, I was scrolling on my preferred image/quote/meme website, Tumblr, enjoying the creativity and beautiful style of others, when I  somehow stumbled across the dark side of the website. At this time I thought there was only the adult-content blogs to avoid, but on that day, I learned there was an entire community of people with eating disorders that I did not want to get immersed in. There were blogs that shared tips for extreme dieting and the images of very skinny people were shared as “thinspiration”. There was even a blog that made memes about their eating disorder. I was shocked! I have read books about people with eating disorders and heard of websites where they shared tips, but I had never expected to stumble across one and it to be the same website I enjoy memes, quotes, and cute animal pictures on.

When reading the final chapter of Nigel Warburton’s Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, where he discusses the dangerous websites supporting and encouraging eating disorders and self harm, I was instantly reminded of finding the dark side of Tumblr. Warburton talks about how these and pornography websites can be easily stumbled upon by children or young people. Remembering when I had found the Tumblr blogs where there was a special lingo for, I knew that Warburton’s concerns were real. While I found horror in seeing girls starving themselves, others may have found dangerous inspiration. However, even though I would never want someone to develop or relapse into an eating disorder, I believe that those blogs have their place and should be protected speech. While researching for this blog, I found blogs where people expressed their struggles with their blogs getting taken down for their pro-eating disorder content. These bloggers explained how this helps nothing and actually harms them, because that blog was their outlet and safe place and having their blog removed was like someone had taken that away from them. One blogger expressed how knowing that other people were going through the same problems with eating disorders, she was able to feel less alone and that that was why she found it wrong for her blog to be taken down. Unfortunately, a lot of the people living with eating disorders are in their teenage years, so having a place where they can express themselves and feel as though they are not alone is important. I know of other blogs on Tumblr who share memes about their depression, and just like those with eating disorders, they are just searching for a community so that they do not feel alone and to possibly share some memes that may be dark, but amusing to those going through those things. People on this website use the Internet, that can be dangerous, as a way to share what they are going through and connect with people going through similar things.

One thing I found decent about the blog I found over a year ago was that at the bottom of their posts, they would tag it telling others to “stay safe” or something to that effect. Many of the eating disorder blogs I have found have at least once expressed how they would never wish an eating disorder on another person, know it is not very good for them either, and want others to stay safe and careful.

Tumblr, the website itself, practices censorship though. People can report blogs they believe have inappropriate/dangerous content, which from what I have found, seems to happen often. Tumblr tries to protect people on their website from harmful content and nudity/porn. There are a few different images that can appear over posts that contain content that violates Tumblr’s policy like:

This is restrictive of people’s expression. However, when reading through Tumblr’s Community Guidelines, they seemed interested in restricting some speech, like gore and harm towards minors that I do not want to go looking for. I believe people should be able to express themselves on Tumblr (and other social media platforms) and not have it restricted as strongly. I also hope that people understand there are people there not to promote eating disorders or self harm or suicide, but just want to express themselves to feel less alone. In my research, I also found there are certain phrases that can cause pop ups like this: 

 which shows that Tumblr is aware of people’s mental health and wants people to seek help when they need it. Most social medias today seem to be feeling responsible to police and restrict the people’s potentially harmful speech on their platforms. I understand some of their decisions and others I think can be harmful, like with blogs of people who just want to feel less alone.

What are some of your thoughts on the readings? Should websites or even the government censor what can and cannot be posted/blogged/reblogged on websites? Warburton said on page 81, “The future of free speech must be tied to the ways in which individuals are permitted by governments to use the Internet (and to the practical limits governments have in exercising control over how their citizens do this).” Do you agree with him or disagree? What are your websites of choice and have you noticed changes in policy?

Pornography: Should it be Censored?

Author Nigel Warburton makes an interesting point in his book Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, specifically in chapter four discussing pornography, when he writes "pornography presents a difficult challenge to anyone who believes in freedom of expression. Should pornography be tolerated, in all its manifestations, provided that no one is directly harmed in its making; or are there more important values at stake here than freedom?" (59) When discussing freedom of speech and censoring pornography, one has to ask: is pornography (Warburton specifies "hardcore pornography) speech and should it be protected as such? If it's not considered speech in any important way, Warburton argues, then it shouldn't be protected as such (60). However, could it be protected as artistic expression, and if so, to what extent?

Looking particularly to our readings for class this week, Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon and Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights by Nadine Strossen, it's clear that they take opposite positions on the topic of censoring pornography, particularly when it involves women's rights. Dworkin and MacKinnon argue that porn should be considered a question of "personal injury and collective abuse" (24) rather than it typically is: a question of morality and virtue. They make an argument that porn should be censored because it "increases social levels of violence, hostility, and discrimination" (25) and make a point to say that it perpetuates rape and child sexual abuse (25). They state "What it [pornography] does is subordinate women, usually through sexually explicit words and pictures" (38). Essentially, they do not agree with the statement that porn is liberating for women or allows for women to experience freedom in their sexuality. Rather, it continues the trend of men (who are largely in control of the porn industry) taking advantage of women for their own gain.

Nadine Strossen has a different take, however. She writes "[...] Historically, information about sex, sexual orientation, reproduction and birth control, has been banned under the guise of the 'protection' of women. [...] It is the right of every woman to read, view, or produce the sexual material she chooses without the intervention of the state 'for her own good'" (11). In Strossen's opinion, porn should not be censored because it allows women to explore "forbidden" topics that were previously hid from them, and allows for the betterment of women and their personal lives/freedom. She claims that this kind of censorship "poses a serious threat not only to human rights in general but also to women's rights in particular" (15).

This is an extremely difficult topic to come to any kind of succinct conclusion on, but I want to ask everyone: Should porn be censored? Who do you agree with, Dworkin and MacKinnon or Strossen?

What would it be like if Adolf Hitler came back to life? This film approaches that question.

"Er is wieder da" (English: "Look Who's Back" or "He is Back Again") is a popular 2015 German political comedy film about what would happen if Adolf Hitler were to come alive again in modern day Germany. This is a very popular film in Germany, even being up for selection for a Best Foreign Film nomination at our Academy Awards. But this was one of Germany's first ever comedic portrayals of Adolf Hitler, and it did not come without criticism. 

Watch the trailer here, and note your feelings while watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q_oh9wrJv0

Did you find this scene funny? Did it feel strange, seeing such a serious portrayal of Hitler in a comedic form? (Don't feel guilty if you do - I found it hilarious the first time around.)

The film begins as purely a comedy - making light of Hitler in situations he is not familiar with. However, as the film continues, things gradually take a turn for worse. Real, non-actor Germans are interviewed and asked questions about whether they would support this "fake" Hitler, some of them agreeing with his actions, others laughing off his actions because he isn't "real."

This continues until a scene around the midpoint of the film, where there is a particularly troubling scene occurs when Hitler is seen interacting with a small, playful dog. (NOTE/Trigger warning: This scene doesn't include gore, but it can easily be disturbing. Though it is, of course, fake, Hitler's character is seen "shooting" a dog and there is a gun shown and a gunshot heard. Many people find this moment comedic, and it is portrayed as such, but if you're sensitive or simply do not like violence like this, please be warned or do not watch.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I8wjg6EYfo

From this point on, the comedy takes a dark turn, up until the climax at the end, which makes a political statement: history can very easily repeat itself. I would highly, highly recommend this film (watch if you're bored during the quarantine!), though it is quite heavy at the end (thought-provoking), but I believe it is very relevant to our world today. 

For the second half of my blog post, I want to try something different. Think about what would happen if something like this was made in the United States, and this was a big production. Possibly an actor you know of is in the lead role, and there is decent publicity about this movie. But this movie is about what would happen in Cristopher Columbus came back to life in the modern-day United States and began turning people against Native Americans and possibly even other minorities, as well. This film is viewed as a comedy, and though there is a good amount of political commentary throughout the film, there is a distinct comedic tone and there are interviews included from real people who are speaking publicly about their possibly racist views. What do you think the reception would be like? Would it cause protests? Or would people push it under the rug, dismissing it as art, or simply a dark comedy piece?

In addition to comments about this scenario, how did you feel watching the trailer scene from "Er is wieder da?" Did you find this comedic? How do you think this film was received in Germany? If you viewed it, what about the dog scene? Did you find this scene comedic in comparison, or did something feel wrong to you about it? Why?

Lastly, do you think this film would be received differently without the political twist to it?

The Establishment Clause in the 21st Century

This week for class, we read the Snyder v. Phelps case of 2011, concerning the picketing of military funerals done conducted by members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Specifically protesting the military's tolerance of homosexuality, members of the church held signs that read sentiments such as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers".  The Supreme Court ruled that their speech was protected under the First Amendment because their statements "were on matters of public concern, were not provably false, and were expressed solely through hyperbolic rhetoric," (2011).  As I did more research on this case, I found that both conservative and liberal Americans were angered by the result, especially in regard to Snyder's monetary gain, or rather, loss.  While the Supreme Court first decided to award Snyder with 10.9 million dollars, the judge decided to reduce it down to 5 million.  Later on, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that judgment, citing protection under the First Amendment.  I will be the first to say that I am not an expert on how court cases get decided, but I find this puzzling.  The Westboro Baptist Church had been protesting funerals for 20 years at the time of this case.  Nine years ago, America was fairly polarized political climate.  While it could be argued that the political climate is even more polarized today, it is difficult to find an issue that both the right and the left find problematic in 2011, keeping in mind the political climate under Obama's presidency.  However, this court ruling was one that ideologists across the political spectrum disagreed with, which is something that stands out to me.  I am left to wonder, why do church's have so much power in America?  Part of the First Amendment is the Establishment Clause, ultimately outlining America's belief in the separation between church and state.  Ultimately, this clause was included in the Bill of Rights to promote freedom of religion in the United States.  On this, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said that "compelling citizens to support through taxation a faith they did not follow violated their natural right to religious liberty."  This sounds good on paper, but has this clause actually given churches more power within the political system?  For instance, churches in the United States are tax exempt, meaning that the government provides financial benefit to religious institutions.  In the 1970 case, Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, William Douglas concluded that the tax exemption of churches was unconstitutional.  With these laws in place, cases like Snyder v. Phelps are complicated.  Does the United States give too much power to churches?  Do we truly value the separation between church and state?  How can we hold churches accountable for the actions of the church members?