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I’ve been thinking about King Solomon a lot lately.
Working through some things in my day job, someone suggested we “split the baby” on a proposed deal. From the context, it was clear they actually meant “split the difference.”
That is different from splitting babies.
To recap the old Sunday school lesson, two women came before the Israeli king. They were fighting over a child; each claimed to be the real mother.
Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, called for a sword. He would figuratively split the difference by literally splitting the baby. That way, each woman could take half.
Of course, that would probably kill the child. One mother was fine with it. The other begged the King to let the baby live even if she did not take it home. Thus, Solomon determined the latter was the true mother.
Her desire to save the baby, even if she didn’t receive the child, reflected a mother’s love. If you love something, you don’t want to kill it. Similarly, you don’t save it by breaking it.
That holds true with democracy, too.
There is a saga unfolding in Brazil. Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered X (formerly Twitter) to remove a bunch of accounts accused of spreading hate and misinformation.
Elon Musk, CEO of the social media company, effectively told the court “no.” This led to an escalating tit-for-tat, with X pulling its staff out of the country and the court ordering them to have a legal representative available, all ultimately leading to a nationwide ban of X in Brazil effective last weekend.
But that wasn’t enough for Brazil’s leadership. Since Musk leads SpaceX and its Starlink internet service, the Brazilian Supreme Court also froze in-country financial assets of Starlink. It ignores the fact that Musk is only a minority shareholder in SpaceX, holding around 42 percent of the shares.
Moraes’ crusade in Brazil to save democracy drew the attention of The New York Times last year. The Old Gray Lady covered the country’s current iteration of the timeless debate: What is the appropriate balance between freedom and security?
Moraes was criticized by those more skeptical of government power. They argued that you cannot protect and preserve democracy by unilaterally deeming voices “misinformation” and banning them, nor by jailing people without trials.
Some left-leaning commentators argued Moraes was justified given the danger, deeming the temporary suppression of individual freedoms appropriate to protect collective freedoms.
It’s a dangerous balance.
Now, undoubtedly, there is plenty of misinformation floating around the platform formerly known as Twitter. Some of it is ignorance. Much of it is intentional efforts by bad actors seeking their own ends, including Russia and China.
So how should free nations fight it?
Is the Brazilian example — censorship and legal ramifications — the right way forward? Or does that come with the danger of killing free expression in order to save it?
There isn’t an easy answer.
Social media, powered by powerful algorithms that corral people into echo chambers, is a real challenge. The anonymity of the keyboard empowers people to share some of their most base and heinous thoughts. The idea of shutting them down is attractive.
Yet, at the same time, credible-but-unpopular opinions can get crushed under the weight of “goodthink.” You saw it with the “lab leak” theory of COVID’s origins. When it first came up, the idea was attacked as racist and ignorant.
With the passage of time, that once-derided idea has become more credible. The “lab leak” origin is far from proven, yet it is now a potentially legitimate theory. But in mid-2020, it was “misinformation.”
Brazil’s strategy to shut down voices deemed “misinformation” by judges is a dangerous road. It only gets worse when they start banning legitimate global platforms and freezing assets of companies operating in other industries whose only connection is a common CEO/shareholder.
I’m not sure what the right answer is. That’s why I’ve been thinking about Solomon. How do you protect freedom without killing it?