For a free country, the United States is a bigger fan of censorship than it likes to admit. Sure, the Constitution protects free speech. We have an independent judiciary, and we govern ourselves through elected representatives. But, Americans censor themselves everyday without realizing it. 
Most importantly, our ultimate fear of a strong and centralized power may not be worth the attention that we lavish on it.
There’s another threat out there, and we ignore it all of the time.
Big Brother, in our current situation, isn’t who we think he is. He can be an overly powerful person or group, but in America I’d argue that he doesn’t just take this form. He’s us. And we love him.
Take the Tea Party. Championing small government and free markets, this group of conservatives have hyperventilated over the past two years about an alleged infringement of our liberties by the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Conversely, liberals routinely are up in arms about powerful monied interests like the Koch brothers… who, they argue, wield a disproportionate amount of power.
In each case, there is a fear that “other” groups are trying to control what we see, know, and hear. Be it Rupert Murdoch or NPR, Americans distrust other people’s interpretation of fact. We’re vigilant for external censorship, but never seem to be when looking in the mirror.
Over the past few years, I’ve railed against what I see as technology-enhanced information biases. Among their problems and causes:
- The Internet makes it easy to produce, proliferate, and share information. So [...]
- [...] traditional news sources have segmented allowing people to pick among them. Moreover, [...]
- [...] our biases provide an incentive for us to read, watch, or listen to things that fit our world-view. Worse yet [...]
- [...] this is made worse by a saturated media market full of producers competing for our attention. Of these, those those who reinforce our world-view usually win out. [Also,]
- [...] many cost barriers to media production have disappeared, so professionalization has decreased. So, [...]
- [...] anyone can pretend to be an “expert” while [...]
- [...] it’s difficult to tell who creates what.
Yes. I know that this is an argument that I’ve repeated ad-naseum, but reading Wired today I came across another example that changed my perception of the problem.
In a TED presentation, Eli Pariser argued that the Internet has allowed us to encase ourselves in “information bubbles.” Taking my assessment of bias, he attacks it from another direction by highlighting ”junk food algorithms.” You see many web tools are behaviorally driven. Using Facebook as an example, if I click on links from liberal friends then it will eventually learn to show only links from my liberal friends.
Pariser argued, essentially, that we as a society have moved from an age were people acted as the gatekeepers of information to one where programs do.
Next, he pointed out his desire for developers to make sure that their programs ensure diverse and representative information continues to be shared. A diversity of viewpoints is, after all, necessary to arrive at an informed conclusion.
While his point is interesting, I’d argue that he still opens himself to a dangerous counter-argument.
Algorithm driven or not, web search results are queried by people. Not programmers. Ultimately, people are responsible for the material they search for; both past and present. Since this is the case, doesn’t tinkering disregard their ability to choose? Doesn’t it amount to censorship? Here is where my perception shifted.
The answer, I would argue, depends on how “freely” you believe that people can choose to search for information, and how biased they can be.
On one hand, if people can independently and freely choose what they search for, then creating an algorithm which “learns” preferences isn’t a bad thing. Adjusting to ignore past choices must then amount to censorship. But, on the other hand if they are like I argued – they have biases and habits (exacerbated by new media) which create a self-reinforcing cycle – then the answer is no.
The answer is no because algorithm programmers aren’t choosing winners and losers. Instead, they are directly combating censorship. They’re targeting self-censoring behavior.
Sometimes, people get so caught up in the pursuit of personal liberty that they fail to realize it’s possible to censor oneself without consciously choosing to do so. In a way, then, we arrive at an instance of Big Brother not being an external person. It’s one where Big Brother is us.
It’s ironic then that the mirrors and televisions from 1984 were windows into people’s lives; a tool for direct censorship. In America today, the same is true but it just as quickly reveals a rarely noticed source. Oneself.
You can’t search for what you don’t know about or want to see. And if you can’t search for anything, then you aren’t truly free.
