Editorial: You Will Never Censor Your Way to a Better Internet

As more tout government censorship as a cure-all to all of societal ills, Drew Wilson discusses why this idea will drive down economic growth.

Perhaps one of the more shocking changes I’ve seen over the last two decades is how much people have changed on the view of government internet censorship. Indeed, in the early days of my career, the idea of government internet censorship was a concept best left in the dark corners of the conspiracy theorist side of the internet where nut jobs could spend their days forgotten by most as they freak themselves out over things that aren’t actually happening.

The reason why is because, back then, the government response to the internet is to just let it do it’s thing for the most part. After all, it’s just some hobbyist thing that can’t be treated all that seriously. One of the only notable exceptions was the war on file-sharing in general (i.e. the passage of the horrendous DMCA in the US). Otherwise, the conventional wisdom at the time was “stop treating the internet so seriously” as it’s little more than just a fun distraction.

Further, not only was there little to no government censorship, the feeling was that government censorship wasn’t going to happen because politician’s have better things to do with their time than fretting over some stupid thing someone said on the internet. It just wasn’t a thing.

In retrospect, it’s easy to look back on those days and consider them much more innocent or simpler. In a number of ways, that may very well be. Yet, when you fast forward to today, the attitude about government censorship is so different, it’s enough to give you whiplash.

Today, government censorship isn’t just no longer seen as a generally non-existent thing, but something some corners are actively calling for as something that will somehow “save” them or those they are supposedly trying to protect. It’s much less a tool that sparks images of 1984, but something to be warmly embraced because there are all these bad things out there today. I’m sure of you ask anyone around me in my early writing career what they would think about the attitudes of general internet censorship of today, it would get laughed off as technologically feasible or there would be a massive amount of disbelief that such thoughts were actually real on a wide scale.

To be fair to them, they are at least right on one thing. Government internet censorship is, in fact, technologically unfeasible. Breaking encryption has long been a losing battle for government. There will be something much more well protected from prying eyes somewhere along the line. As those technologies get broken, better technologies will take its place. It will always be a losing battle for the government.

The disturbing part is this increasingly widespread belief that government censorship is even necessary at all. It may take the form of different names, but the end goal is the same. Whether it is “age verification”, “online harms”, “cultural protection”, “cell phone bans”, or “sunset Section 230”, these are merely different forms of the same thing: government internet censorship. If anything, it’s like different alcohol. What kind of alcohol are you feeling? A beer? Wine? Vodka? The same is said for government censorship. What kind of censorship would you like? Age verification? Online harms legislation? Sunset Section 230? Which flavour of government internet censorship are you liking today?

Even more frightening is the fact that people are arguing over which forms of government censorship is best for society. Some argue that age verification is bad because it demands government ID for all, but online harms is different because that form of censorship is only going after bad people. Others say that age verification is the way to go because things like video games and online pornography is just content that the government “should be censoring”, but online harms is little more than thought crime legislation meant to oppress.

The funny thing about both of those arguments is that they both have one thing in common: they a right to varying degrees on the negatives, but completely out to lunch on the positives. The reality is that government internet censorship is bad for a whole variety of reasons with little to no upside.

Indeed, age verification has been a fundamentally flawed concept from the beginning. First, it puts huge amounts of highly sensitive information into the hands of third parties (be it biometric, drivers licenses, or more). Such information can very easily be used by scammers and fraudsters to extort victims. Second, it’s highly ineffective because stolen credentials and anonymous tools do exist. Third, it runs into constitutional problems in many countries for effectively censoring otherwise legally protected speech. The practical effect is that the honest people are exposing themselves more to the internet while those it seeks to bar will simply turn to more sketchy underground sites. As a result, you end up causing more problems than solving. Even worse is that other forms of content is invariably going to get hit with similar laws (such as social media or video games) – hence the censorship creep problems.

Conversely, online harms also has its share of irreparable problems. More often then not, one of these problems is defining what is and is not “harmful” in the first place. Where is the line between “harmful” and “not harmful”? The immediate answer to that is that there is no line because speech, by its very nature, is a complex one – especially when taking into account intent. As a result, most instances of online harms legislation leaves the targeted material ill defined in the hopes that a wide net will capture all the bad stuff. If good content gets caught up, well, the ends justify the means as far as they are concerned. A major problem besides that is the fact that other political parties besides the one you happen to support will also invariably get their hands on this censorship power. What if climate change data is considered “harmful” or “ecoterrorism”? That’s entirely possible.

In observing these debates, one thing that I have noticed about the naive people pushed laws such as these is the common thread about how they all want the internet to be a better place – albeit shaped into an alternative version that they personally support. For them, the ends justify the means, so if the internet ends up being worse off, it’s worth it. That’s because, for them, the “bad stuff” no longer sees the light of day. That is the fatal mistake at the heart of all of these efforts – the reliance of government censorship to make the internet a better place. At the end of the day, you are limiting freedom of expression in some form or another and justifying it because you personally don’t like “that” speech despite it being legally protected.

Even worse is when well reasoned arguments pointing out the flaws of these ideas surfaced, the naive supporters respond by dismissing it as little more than the protection of whatever they are fighting against. If you are against age verification, then you support the crime of porn sites. If you are against online harms, then you support hate speech and terrorism. Rational discussion ends up getting drowned out as a result when debating these laws.

Invariably, the naive supporter is going to scream, “yeah, but what’s the solution? There are bad things on the internet after all!” The answer is actually quite simple: your personal choice and education. That is the solution. The reality is that bad things exist in real life. There was pornography long before the internet arrived. There was bullying and harassment long before the internet arrived. If you think your solution is going to magically make the problem go away by trying to somehow erase it from the internet, you have another thing coming. That kind of stuff will continue to exist outside of the internet no matter what (save for something like a nuclear war that kills everyone off of course).

So, for children being exposed to something like porn on the internet, parents have plenty of tools at their disposal such as child controls with their router or third party nanny services. Children can be educated on these topics as well. A classic example is that the picture of that really hot woman was probably the result of significant image manipulation or airbrushed to look better than in real life. If you aren’t comfortable with discussing these things, then there are others you can turn to. In fact, that’s what things like sex education itself can teach.

Conversely, for people experiencing hate speech, bullying, and harassment, there are tools that exist to deal with that. On social media, for instance, there are tools like blocking and reporting features. If there are more serious issues involved, a report to police can be filed.

In fact, it was a few weeks ago that I experienced harassment (for the first time) on Mastodon. You know what I did? I blocked the user. The user then magically went away and I never had to deal with that harassment again from that user. In fact, my experience on Mastodon is that of being completely harassment free besides that moment.

Now, for those that say that their social media experience is different and the harassment they get is from multiple people, that’s what reporting features are for. If reporting the user does nothing, then that is the perfect reason to leave the platform entirely and go to another platform. Believe me, not daily driving X/Twitter was one of the best decisions I have ever made for my mental health because that place is a highly toxic environment – and not worth sticking around at.

The bottom line is that censorship is not only not going to solve the problems online, but can only make matters worse. You are never going to censor your way to a better internet through government. This isn’t a “both sides are bad” political piece. This isn’t just someone speaking out from both sides of the mouth. What this is is basic logic and reason.

There’s no denying the enormous amount of good that has come from the internet. Whether it is helping business (and promote economic prosperity), helping people connect with each other, or learning about what all is out there, people have been deriving a lot of benefit from the internet for decades now. As some might say, you can’t fully appreciate what you have until it’s gone. As long as people keep relying on internet censorship in an “ends justify the means” mindset, people will miss a lot of things once the government takes it all away.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.