Inside #Politics

Back in May 2011, I wrote a post that complained about the sad state of the Tumblr Politics tag; I wrote another in July 2011 because I thought there ought to be somewhere to feature more global political content. There’s been a whole lot more written about the tag over the past few days, largely because of one editor’s behavior, but I’ve avoided wading back in because a) I’d already expressed my thoughts and b) my readership outside of Tumblr is significant and has absolutely no use for such posts.

But now it seems there’s been a major shake-up, all of the tag’s editors have been thanked for their service … and I’ve been made an editor myself.

Despite my complaints about the tag, I should note that the idea of the Tumblr tags is certainly not in and of itself a bad idea; indeed, it could be a very good idea. As I wrote almost a year ago now:

For my part, I generally like the idea of tags. A good tag, used well, could foster a sense of community for people from very different backgrounds who all share a common interest. Indeed, I think they can provide a way to find new and interesting material to read and also introduce people to new authors they wouldn’t otherwise have found. I’ve begun to follow the Tumblr blogs of several people entirely as a result of the Politics tag; I also recognize that I’ve benefitted from the tag, as a few editors have chosen to feature my writing there with some regularity.

Looking at the new group of editors, I see some friends that I’ve made entirely from interacting via Tumblr (like Squashed and PoliticalProf, whose secret identities I promise only to reveal for a tidy sum) and even one of my real-life students, Justin Green (which means that the number of Politics editors from Nebraska is shockingly disproportionate; expect a lot of promoted content about corn, cattle, and the “I-Option” offense).

Of course, I’m also a bit sad that some of my other friends are no longer editing the tag. I think Ilya Gerner, Jeff Miller, Torie DeGhett, and Naum Trifanoff did some great work, all while a whole lot of people were yelling at them. I’m also sad to note that amongst the new slate of editors, you won’t find people of color, women, or anyone who lives outside the United States; I think that’s a very serious omission by the Tumblr staff, especially given the amount and the quality of political blogging on the Tumblr platform by people of color, women and non-Americans. There’s also not much ideological diversity. Say what you will about the previous slate of editors, at least you always knew you’d get a healthy dose of the Mises Institute with your morning coffee.

But here’s what I’ll say about my upcoming run as an editor:

I have the ability to promote up to ten posts each day. I’ll be looking to promote original content, reasoned argumentation, and a genuine mix of material from across the ideological spectrum; I also tend to like posts about human rights and posts about parts of world beyond America’s borders. You will always know that I promoted a particular post because I’ll “Like” it right before or right after I promote it. Some days, I’ll use all ten of my promotions and some days I won’t. I have a full-time job as a professor of political science and I have a family that I like very much … so you can be sure that I’ll miss some interesting posts that I would have ordinarily promoted.

Admittedly, I don’t follow very many Tumblr blogs because I like to read all of the things that are written by the people I follow, but I’m always open to suggestions for new blogs I really ought to be reading. Indeed, I’m very happy to hear from you about the workings of the tag, about the posts I’ve promoted, or with suggestions for things I ought to promote. Feel free to let me know about posts that you’ve written, so long as they conform to the standards I set out in the previous paragraph; I promise I’ll take a look as soon as I can. Use the Ask or the Fan Mail feature, send me a tweet, or find me on Facebook; I’m generally pretty accessible and, so long as you’re polite, very happy to hear from you.

The Hero Report Broadcasts

Since it’s Friday morning, I wanted to remind RC readers that The Hero Report podcast will be broadcast live on Google+ this afternoon at 4pm Eastern. Our guest this week will be Mike Dilbeck, whose Every | Day Hero Campaign got under way recently. 

We’ve only done one live broadcast — last week — and we’re hoping to use this feature in as many interesting ways as possible. Not only is this a chance to watch the podcast being produced and to hear (and see) it a few days before it’s available, it’s also a chance to impact the conversation as it happens by commenting while we’re on the air.

To be sure that you’ll be able to watch the broadcast and comment on what we’re discussing, I recommend adding me to one of your Google+ circles. Drop by and see what we’re up to … and, of course, tell your friends!

Want to make the podcast portable? Subscribe via iTunes (video / audio-only).

Censorship and Corporate Heroism

In response to yesterday’s post about Twitter and censorship, Jake Wobig offers the following critique:

In doing this, Twitter agrees to stifle the voices of its users and to be complicit in the “The Big Lie” described by Vaclav Havel in Power of the Powerless.  The Big Lie is that everyone supports the government’s view of what is right and proper and beneficial to harmonious relations, to the maintenance of order.

Havel describes how, in Czechoslovakia under Communist rule, shopkeepers would put signs with loyalist slogans in their stores because it was good for relations with the authorities.  And because people saw so many of these expressions of faith all around them, they could not help but think that their own honest sentiments – that the system was corrupt, exploitative, immoral – were not just wrong, but crazy.  How could their own impressions be right when apparently everyone else had differing views?  This insidious inculcation of self-doubt was one of the most powerful tools of oppression in the Communist repertoire.

By agreeing to participate in each local government’s censorship scheme, Twitter is agreeing to help those governments spread their versions of the Big Lie among the local Twitterati.  They are agreeing to help those governments make the point that certain topics are just not available for discussion, and anyone who thinks otherwise is dangerously deviant. They are agreeing to help those governments spread the view that
everyone agrees and is happy and anyone who disagrees is just off their rocker.  And why?  To get access to their markets.  This is a kind of moral cowardice.

In one sense, this critique is right on the mark: There is a real danger whenever we have acquiescense with human rights abuses of any kind and, like most people who care about human rights, I wanted — initially — to protest vehemently about Twitter’s policy.

But, of course, I didn’t. In fact, I agreed with it in what I hoped would be a nuanced way. My reasoning, again, is this:

Governments all over the world can demand that Twitter remove certain content or make it unavailable in some other way. Twitter then has a choice to make: It can decide to comply or not to comply. If it chooses what Wobig regards as the heroic route of non-compliance, the government can simply block Twitter entirely. If it chooses to comply, local users can continue to use the service with some degree of censorship. Twitter has decided on the latter and Wobig thinks this is moral cowardice.

And yet the story is more complicated because Twitter’s isn’t simply shutting down access to certain users or removing content at the insistence of a government. As the piece I quoted from TechDirt rightly notes, Twitter plans to be “quite transparent about this — posting all info to ChillingEffects, and trying to let users know if they were visiting the page of a censored tweet.” In this way, Twitter isn’t helping to propagate “The Big Lie;” it’s actually pointing out those instances where a government is censoring users, in a sense pulling back the curtain on censorship while also allowing users to continue to use the service (and perhaps to find ways to communicate locally and internationally that don’t attract the censor’s notice).

And Wobig seems to recognize this:

Twitter might be thinking that communication cannot help but be democratizing, and no matter what censorial directives an authoritarian government might issue, the people will find a way to communicate what they really mean and therefore subvert the Big Lie.  To borrow another metaphor from Homer, Twitter might think they are the Trojan Horse.  And if so, more power to them.

Twitter isn’t acting heroically here, to be sure. But the heroic position is one that would most likely remove the option of speaking freely about anything to users in some countries. I wouldn’t call this moral cowardice at all; as I put it yesterday, “Twitter is making decisions in the real world, where access is being restricted, and is attempting to carve out a way for more speech and more access to communication to be allowed.” I don’t know if Twitter sees itself as the Trojan Horse, but my sense is that their policy is the one that’s most likely to operate in that way.

Twitter and Censorship

Last week, the internet was abuzz with anger and frustration over Twitter’s announcement that it could block content in specific countries in response to governmental requests. The majority of that buzz has quieted down, either because there are always more things about which we can get frustrated and angry or because people forgot about the whole thing pretty quickly.

At least I’m assuming it was one of these two reasons and not because cooler heads prevailed, though it would be nice if the cooler heads explanation turned out to be correct.

Let me begin by saying that I oppose censorship. My position is that people should be able to express themselves as they see fit and that there are only a very few exceptions wherein government intervention is permissible. I hold free expression to be a critically important human right.

But then let me also point to two thoughtful pieces that cast the problem faced by Twitter in a slightly different light and that might make clear that the sky isn’t necessarily falling:

From TechDirt:

[R]ather than completely taking down content (as it would do before), instead it would limit the blocks to just the geographic region. On top of that, it would be quite transparent about this — posting all info to ChillingEffects, and trying to let users know if they were visiting the page of a censored tweet. 

Unfortunately, many people interpreted this as Twitter giving in to censors and allowing censorship. But that’s a misreading of the situation. Again: Twitter already takes down content when required by law. Now it’s trying to limit such takedowns. However, because people interpreted this to mean it was getting into the censorship business, there were protests against Twitter, which I think missed the point entirely.

And from Sci-Fi Hi-Fi:

I’d never argue, of course, that Internet companies should collaborate with oppressive regimes, and Google was probably wise to finally exit China entirely, but for Twitter to truly be a worldwide mass communication platform they’re going to need to acknowledge the reality of different standards of free speech around the world. The approach they’re using (e.g. notifying people when content is being withheld and why) seems nuanced and on the mark to me.

I think Google was naive in their approach to China, and perhaps a bit arrogant to think they would transform Chinese society through the power of the web and their own good intentions, but on the whole I still think the Internet is a force for free speech and transparency in the world. In my opinion, it’s better for Twitter to be available in a potentially compromised way in more sensitive parts of the world than for it to be restricted entirely.

My own position tends to line up much more closely with the argument made by the former piece rather than the latter, as the idea of “different standards of free speech around the world” strikes me as a bit wrong-headed. This lines up with the sort of thinking that claims human rights for some people — those in the global North, for example — who tend to already have access to the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — while asserting that other people or other cultures simply don’t recognize the importance of those rights.

What I’d say, instead, is that freedom of speech is equally important to people all over the world; it’s generally the repressive governments who want the ability to censor the people, not the people themselves saying they’ve simply got too much access to speech. But, as both pieces rightly point out, Twitter is making decisions in the real world, where access is being restricted, and is attempting to carve out a way for more speech and more access to communication to be allowed.

It’s not perfect … but when it comes to responding to repressive regimes and to promoting human rights around the world, perfect is a goal that’s seldom achievable.

Israel First?

I debated with myself about whether or not to wade into the shark-infested waters of the on-going “Israel Firster” debate that’s been raging online for more than a month now. For those who haven’t been following it on the blogs and on Twitter, Spencer Ackerman provided a helpful recap a couple of days ago. Since I teach a class on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, since I’ve been following along as bloggers launch one blistering ad hominem attack after another, and since I’ve written before about the way that casual anti-Semitism has crept into progressive discourse of late, I thought I might briefly weigh in.

Every year, after I’ve wrap up all of the grading for my Israel/Palestine class, I look through the course evaluations. And every year, it’s the same story: I get blasted by half of the class for being a rabid Zionist and I get blasted by the other half of the class for hating Israel. On the one hand, this sort of thing makes me sad because it means decidedly lower scores on my evaluations than I’d like and because it means that some students have spent an entire semester being angry rather than learning. On the other hand, it’s a good sign since it means that I’m presenting the information in a way that makes it impossible for students to accurately decide my own position on which side is right and which side is wrong.

Except that my position is, I think, pretty clear: As a human rights scholar, I try to make clear that both sides are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

I criticize the Palestinians for rocket attacks, suicide bombings, prisoner abuse, and whatever happens to be in the news or in the readings I’ve assigned. And I criticize the Israeli government for violating the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, for systemic discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, and whatever happens to be in the news or in the readings I’ve assigned.

And, of course, I discuss the American position of support for Israel, which is the subject behind the arguments about whether or not it’s appropriate to call someone an “Israel Firster.” Having said that, though, I should note that I’m a little bit baffled by the entire concept of the “Israel Firster,” which is allegedly someone whose primary loyalty is to Israel and who thus routinely attempts to make a case for the strategic relationship between the America and Israel (which non-“Firsters” see as overwhelmingly detrimental to U.S. interests these days).

I’m puzzled because I don’t imagine that anyone is really criticizing anyone else for actually believing that Israel is always in the right or for believing that the U.S. government puts (or ought to put) Israel’s interests ahead of America’s. In other words, someone might tweet that “[Eli] Lake supports #Israel line 100% of the time, always Israel first over U.S.,” but what the tweeter probably means to say is that Lake holds a position on some particular issue that the tweeter finds incomprehensibly wrong. It’s possible, of course, that Lake or someone else holds the above positions but those positions just seem to me to be impossible to defend. So, my puzzlement really stems from my belief that the “Israel Firster” charge is wrong-headed; if Lake really held the position that Israel should be supported by America to America’s detriment, Lake’s argument would probably be pretty easy to take down. But rather than making an argument against Lake’s position on a particular issue, someone simply attacks Lake.

In doing so, of course, the attacker resorts to an unpleasant term or trope. The “Israel Firster” charge has a historical connection to anti-Semitic white supremacists and it’s a shame — but not a real surprise — to see it being used by the progressive Left to vilify opponents on the Right. I’ve actually written about this sort of thing before and I think it bears repeating now:

There is no doubt in my mind that I’m seeing more casual anti-Semitism, especially amongst American and European progressives under the age of thirty. This is a group that, by and large, will condemn racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, Islamophobia — and so on — but fails to offer any challenge to the casually anti-Semitic trope that, for example, the Jews control America’s foreign policy. It’s also a group that actively condemns the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians (in some of the most vitriolic language) while ignoring or even excusing abuses by Hamas — for example — against Palestinians.

In making use of this sort of casual anti-Semitism, members of the progressive Left really do themselves a disservice because they open themselves up to all sort of allegations that then move the conversation away from the one they really want to have in the first place. In other words, with everyone talking about whether or not “Israel Firster” is anti-Semitic, fewer people are actually talking about any particular policy or action of the Israeli or American government. If someone on the Left wants to criticize the Israeli or American government for some course of action, (s)he ought to do so and if someone on the Right wants to offer a defense, (s)he ought to do so. And then we can have a conversation about who made a good or a bad argument. But as soon as we stop making arguments and start issuing ad hominem attacks, then we’ve stopped talking about the right or wrong course of action and just started talking about ourselves.

At bottom, there has got to be a way to discuss the bad policies of the Israeli government without being labeled an anti-Semite and there have got to be ways to support Israel without being smeared as some sort of monster, moron, or stooge.

And, while it’s amazing to me that this even needs to be written down, it’s got to be possible to have these debates without resorting to language that people have found and continue to find offensive and harmful.