For those who aren’t terribly social media savvy, there is a new app out there called Bluesky. It’s been variously described as the “new Twitter” or a “Twitter reboot” and while that isn’t 100% true, it will suffice as a basis for today’s blog post. This post isn’t about Bluesky per se (I may post one of those later), it’s more about the Paradox of Tolerance. As this new platform starts to pick up speed (it’s passed 21 million users at this point), one of the main conversations being had is the approach to free speech and moderation. Other than basic technical competence, this is in my opinion the number one hurdle facing social media platforms: what speech to allow, and what to forbid, and how. It reminds me somewhat of the challenge we face choosing roommates, or partners. There’s clearly a balance to be had: nobody except the most foolish of absolute idealogues advocates for complete free speech without restrictions, and similarly a platform with too draconian restrictions is just not a fun or ethical place to hang out. And to be clear, I don’t believe there are any right answers that can be easily expressed in a single sentence. The closest I’ve come is my guiding principle for all things: When in doubt, be kind.
But this is not strictly speaking about any of that either; it’s about the Paradox of Tolerance. The Paradox of Tolerance is a succinct problem we are all going to face over the next 4 years, and it goes like this: if we regard Tolerance as a virtue, then we find ourselves facing the question of what to do with Intolerance. For the sake of argument, let us say we can only Tolerate it or be Intolerant towards it. If we are Intolerant towards it, then we are, first and foremost, breaking our rule, and because of this, others can point to us and say that we are merely hypocrites. But if we are Tolerant towards it, then by the very nature of Intolerance, which stamps out dissent, we will eventually be overtaken by it.
In the context of social media, if we are Tolerant towards Intolerance, Intolerance will eventually dominate the conversation, but if we are Intolerant towards Tolerance, we risk becoming the very thing we disdain. There are many real-world approaches to this, the most common of which is the Tolerance Rules, or what I call the “Tolerance, But” plan. For example, we may say that we disallow Hate Speech. But this just really kicks the can down the road, ethically, because now we have to define Hate Speech. Clearly, it can’t just be any speech indicating that somebody hates something, or I wouldn’t be able to post that I don’t like TV shows about sparkle vampires. So, is it speech that hates a person? Well, then I can’t post that I hate Donald Trump. (And maybe I shouldn’t be able to, but that seems a bit draconian). Is it speech that hates groups of people? Hates people with specific intent to commit harm? We can construct counterargument scenarios for all of these.
I don’t have an answer here, by the way. There is no big reveal at the end of this post. But I do think that this is the essential challenge if we want to build a happy and tolerant society, and it mirrors the challenge of the penal system, of building our own relationships, having friends, etc.; how much tolerance is, well, too much tolerance? At one point are we just being taken advantage of and how do we know the difference?
When in doubt, be kind.