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E-Pluribus | June 9, 2021

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E-Pluribus | June 9, 2021

More politics will not improve Big Tech's issues, is there a free speech alternative, and 10 principles on fixing K-12 education.

Jeryl Bier
Jun 9, 2021
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E-Pluribus | June 9, 2021

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A round up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Katherine Mangu-Ward: Don't Try To Fix Big Tech With Politics

The power of Big Tech is all the rage these days, and Katherine Mangu-Ward opens her piece with a stark admission and admonition: “I don't know the correct level of content moderation by Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Amazon. And neither do you.” While not dismissing the impact that Big Tech can have on individuals and even their livelihoods, the far greater power of the state should be feared even more.

For every person arguing against moderation on the grounds of ideological bias, there is someone else pushing for more aggressive moderation to control rampant hate speech or "disinformation"—which can mean everything from objectively false claims to arguments that some users consider subjectively offensive. There are those who find the profit-making aspect of the whole industry distasteful, and there are those who fret about the difficulties faced by would-be competitors due to the sheer size of the companies in question.

The push to crack down on Big Tech is both bipartisan and fiercely politically tribal—the worst of both worlds.

[…]

It has become fashionable on both the left and the right to argue that Big Tech is now more powerful than a government or perhaps indistinguishable from one. Here is a list of things governments sometimes do if they dislike what you say or how you say it: lock you up, take your property, take your children, send you to die in a war. Here is a list of things tech companies sometimes do: delete your account.

Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google do play a huge role in many people's lives. To be kicked off a popular platform can be deeply unpleasant and unnerving. But the notion that political interference will result in broader access to a better product is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

Read it all here.

Jesse Singal: Free-Speech Skeptics Don't Really Have Much Of A Theory Of Anything

In his latest, Jesse Singal takes on the notion that the current era is such a dangerous time in American society that it somehow warrants possible curbs on free speech. But even beyond that, Singal points out that these skeptics don’t seem to have much to offer as an alternative - simply saying that we wish to hear fewer terrible things is not a viable alternative to the First Amendment that has served us well for 230+ years.

[I]f we are to adopt the idea that we should question free speech principles when American society gets particularly turbulent or dangerous — and to be clear, I’m only saying this for the sake of argument since I think something pretty close to the opposite is true — how could you possibly pick 2021 as the time to do such questioning? Why not back in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was widespread rioting and regular political assassinations? Or during the peak of some truly horrifying periods of violent crime in major American cities? Hell, one can make a good-faith argument the George W. Bush years were significantly worse than the Trump years.

[…]

Overall, my gripe with a lot of this discourse is simply that the people who are speaking out very confidently against liberal free speech principles rarely lay out exactly what their alternative is, and when they do their arguments tend to be riddled with holes. I have been banging this drum for years, now. In many cases, these thinkers are being driven mostly by disgust — both at the existence of certain speakers and left-of-center figures ‘defending’ them (meaning expression opposition to their censorship or deplatforming) — but without much sophisticated thinking-through of what it would entail to meaningfully attenuate controversial figures’ ability to gather or express themselves publicly.

Read the whole thing.

Greg Lukianoff: The Empowering of the American Mind

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has developed 10 principles to fix what ails K-12 education in America. A number of the principles revolve around teaching children how to learn, in part but not shoving them into boxes. One such principle is excerpted here.

Principle 9: Don’t reduce complex students to limiting labels. 

Sorting students into politically useful categories that involve assigning them character attributes or destinies based on immutable traits circumscribes their potential and hampers their growth. Self-determination is foundational to the American promise and central to our unique national identity. Students must be permitted to decide for themselves how much, or how little, emphasis they wish to place on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, social class, or economic background. 

Americans form a sense of “us” based on a relatively small number of uniting factors like citizenship, pop culture, and, hopefully, appreciation and respect for the Constitution and democracy—our shared operating system. Under this “thin” identity tent, all are welcome. Other countries have much deeper or “thicker” ideas regarding what makes them a first-person-plural “us.” The thin model is better for a truly pluralistic diverse society. The thick identity is exclusive, inflexible, and deals poorly with genuine diversity.

A disturbing trend of my 20 years of watching higher education has been the breaking down of students into different racial groups for the purpose of everything from separate orientations to separate graduations. These groupings, while intended to improve a sense of community belonging, necessarily impede the forming of early friendships among people from different backgrounds. Doubtless, there will be some conflict when students who come from very different backgrounds meet each other. However, allowing students to resolve those differences amongst themselves will prepare them to navigate the diverse world they will inhabit outside of their school environments. 

Read it all at Reason.

Around Twitter

Megan McArdle on the Propublica IRS story which is raising questions about the justification for illegally leaking private information to the media:

Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
I thought the ProPublica analysis of billionaire taxes was going to be exciting. Instead, it told me things I already knew: that the US tax code offers deductions for charitable donations, loan interest, and business operating expenses, and only taxes capital gains when you sell.
12:08 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
2,129Likes325Retweets
Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
The most exciting thing is wondering who gave them the information, and how long that person will spend in jail when they're caught, as I suspect they will be.
12:09 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
412Likes51Retweets
Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
This isn't a case where you could have gotten one person's partial records from an accountant or a disgruntled ex-spouse. Practically speaking, unless all the billionaires have the same tax attorney, I suspect the only place the data could have come from is the IRS itself.
12:11 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
368Likes53Retweets
Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
If so, I see two possibilities: 1) The IRS was hacked, which would be a huge scandal, and make you wonder just how many tax returns the hackers have. 2) Employee, which would make you wonder just how bad IRS IT security is, and how good the employee was at covering their tracks
12:15 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
382Likes50Retweets
Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
But of course, I might be missing something--is there some other database that ought to contain the tax returns of the country's richest people?
12:16 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
155Likes9Retweets
Twitter avatar for @asymmetricinfo
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo
Anyway, full disclosure: Jeff Bezos owns my newspaper, and is mentioned in the story, and Bloomberg, also mentioned, used to employ me, so discount my opinion accordingly. But I genuinely thought the tax avoidance strategies would be something more than unrealized capital gains.
12:18 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
442Likes26Retweets

A short thread from the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism on one teacher’s stand:

Twitter avatar for @fairforall_org
Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) @fairforall_org
Breaking: Dana Stangel-Plowe, an award-winning teacher, resigned from Dwight-Englewood school after many attempts to advocate pro-human values in education. (1/3)
Image
8:57 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
1,118Likes366Retweets
Twitter avatar for @fairforall_org
Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) @fairforall_org
The orthodoxy gripping Dwight-Englewood requires students to view themselves as victims or oppressors, telling students to "grapple with whiteness." (2/3)
Image
Image
8:57 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
230Likes50Retweets
Twitter avatar for @fairforall_org
Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) @fairforall_org
"My conscience does not have a color." We stand with Dana. Learn more about her story and read her resignation letter here: fairforall.org/profiles-in-co… (3/3)
Image
8:57 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
393Likes59Retweets

From Glenn Greenwald on the anti-free speech trend among some journalists:

Twitter avatar for @ggreenwald
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald
For anyone who doubts that liberal journalists are opposed to free speech whenever it conflicts with their liberal activism, look at this memo from the liberal journalists of the Intercept's Union, published by the NYT, where they demanded free speech limits *explicitly*:
Image
2:26 PM ∙ Jun 9, 2021
339Likes97Retweets

Is the Dred Scott case ripe for cancellation?

Twitter avatar for @NewYorker
The New Yorker @NewYorker
A debate has erupted over whether the reviled Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford should be excised from law courses. The language in the decision “gratuitously traumatizes” readers, one professor said.
nyer.cmThe Importance of Teaching Dred ScottJeannie Suk Gersen writes about the recent controversy within academia regarding whether to limit discussion of the infamous Supreme Court decision on Dred Scott v. Sandford, arguing that law-school professors risk minimizing the role of racism in American history.
6:12 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021
446Likes186Retweets
Twitter avatar for @davidfrum
David Frum @davidfrum
Maybe just omit all history altogether? It's full of upsetting things
Twitter avatar for @NewYorker
The New Yorker @NewYorker
A debate has erupted over whether the reviled Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford should be excised from law courses. The language in the decision “gratuitously traumatizes” readers, one professor said. https://t.co/mN7ANXU3T2
1:14 PM ∙ Jun 9, 2021
388Likes60Retweets
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E-Pluribus | June 9, 2021

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