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The Freedom To Communicate

The Rail Cars of the 1800s are the Search Engines & Social Media Platforms of Today

It may not have been by design, but search engines and social media companies have become the rail car companies of the 21st Century, telecommunication carriers the railroads, and radio spectrum the federal lands. I am preempting an argument: wouldn’t have Net Neutrality solved this problem by making Internet access a common carrier telecommunication service?

No, it wouldn’t and here’s why. The pro-Net Neutrality argument never reconciled the rail car problem. In fact, it gave the rail car companies the unimpeded ability to travel along the network, which others built and is on federal land, but also gave the rail car companies the power to put limitations on its passenger’s travel. Put another way: Net Neutrality still allowed rail car companies the unchecked discretion to send passengers to the back of the train, deny them the ability to board, and even restrict which routes they could travel. Taken to an extreme, a rail car company could write into its terms of service that if you liked the color purple, you could be denied boarding. Because this rail car problem was never reconciled in the Net Neutrality solution – in fact, made it worse – it is a good thing Net Neutrality was scrapped.

Here’s why: for the Net Neutrality argument to work, where all data on the Internet must be treated the same, would mean that the rail cars companies (social media companies, for example) would also have to, wait for it: treat all data the same.

To illustrate: I board the train, off to give a speech at a conference across the country. While in the café car, I ask people to assemble because I have something to say and would like their response. Some agree to listen while others go about their merry business paying no attention to me. I say two things, one that most passengers find agreeable and one that many don’t. I did not harm anybody. I just said them as points of view that I believe in. When I said something agreeable to the passengers, they gravitated towards me. When I said something disagreeable, they moved away from me. Some were even highly offended.

Here is the key though: I was allowed to say both while traveling on the train and I was still allowed to get to my final destination. As long as I kept a level of civility, made no tangible threats and caused no physical harm to anybody, even if my comments were controversial, the free market determined the result of whether people wanted to gravitate towards me or ostracize me. I should note, the same argument applies to others. If I am a traveler and somebody asks us to assemble, I can either disregard and go about my business or listen. If I decide to listen, I am at liberty to agree or disagree. If I disagree or am offended by what the other passenger has to say, that’s a personal problem of my own which I must reconcile. I can debate or ostracize. If what I think the other passenger is saying is fake or inaccurate, that’s a personal problem of my own where I have the responsibility to validate or invalidate those comments.

Only if this passenger threatens to cause tangible harm or engages in violence towards me (and innocent others) should I be allowed to self-defend myself (or assist in the defense of innocent others)? Similarly, I can also request of the rail car company to toss that passenger off the train on account of their unruly behavior. That is what decent and free societies do. They let people say both agreeable and disagreeable things, allowing the free market to decide which opinion to gravitate towards to.

Consider then what would it mean if the rail car companies only allowed us to board if we believed and said certain things? The rail car companies would, by proxy, have dominance and control over our free speech because they have the ability to limit our ability to communicate. Surely, if we had other comparable means of travel that allowed us to believe and speak freely, we would take them, but no others exist. Therefore, despite the existence of an extensive railway system, my travel, along with the travel of others, is limited to the few rail car companies which hold the ability operate over the majority of the network. And these rail car companies can stop me from boarding, decide which routes to take, and even determine what my final destination will be. And they can do that to you too.

That is what Net Neutrality missed and although the Net Neutrality argument is done, for now, the purpose of bringing it up here is to show the grave deficiency it had. It created an opening to give even more power to the already powerful. And it does that through terms of service and algorithms.

Liberty, Freedom of Speech, Right to Peaceful Assembly, and the Ability to Communicate

Industries evolve over time and play different roles in society as they evolve. The rail, airline, and telecom industries did just that, each playing a different role in society. Social media companies and search engine providers must also do the same, evolve, albeit in a shorter amount of time.

Yes, as private companies they are perfectly with their own rights to deny travel to unruly passengers. If somebody gets on a rail car and starts harassing other passengers, or commits acts of violence, yes, toss them and ban them. But if you are denying travel for any other reasons, you are acting more as a private club as opposed to a tool for social good and peaceful assembly.

If you are offended by somebody’s views, that somebody should not be denied the ability to ride the train. Remember, offensive smelling people are still allowed to travel on the train. If somebody sits beside you on the train and smells offensive, find another seat. And if another seat isn’t available, suck it up for the ride and hope to never sit beside that person again in future travels.

There are a lot of seats on this rail car and just because you don’t like how somebody smells five cars ahead of you shouldn’t mean they get tossed off the train. Decent society has a way of ostracizing offensive people naturally.

It’s time to have the honest conversation: if you are a social media company today or company that provides a public service (search engines), short of causing tangible harm to an individual, you should not be denying passengers travel on your rail cars because you neither own the tracks (internet service provider) nor the land (radio spectrum). And because there is no reasonable competition to the modern day rail car companies (we all know who they are), all societies that value liberty, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly, should protect the ability to communicate.

The Internet has allowed speech to move freely. It is the railroad system of the 1800s and nobody should ever be denied entry onto a rail car for discriminatory reasons, especially when those reasons can serve as proxy to deny somebody their constitutional rights. And because the Internet rests on the use of radio spectrum, a federally-regulated property, nothing should prohibit the free exercise or abridging of the freedom to communicate.

George Platsis
George Platsishttps://georgeplatsis.com/
George Platsis works the private, public and non-profit sectors to address their strategic, operational and training needs, focusing on projects related to business development, risk/crisis management, resilience, cyber and information security, and cultural relations. His primary focus is on human factor vulnerabilities related to cybersecurity, information security, and data security by separating the network and information risk areas. Some of the issues he tackles include: business continuity, resilience strategies, social engineering, insider threats, psychological warfare, data manipulation and integrity, and information dominance. He is a team member of SDI Cyber, based in Washington, DC, an independent consultant, educator, and a founding member of The #CyberAvengers. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and has graduate degrees in Business Administration, Disaster and Emergency Management, Law, and Cybersecurity. He has completed executive education in national/international security and cybersecurity at Harvard, Syracuse University, and Canadian Forces College.

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