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(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM (/ embed)
For an actor who made a career playing silly characters, actor Sacha Baron Cohen yesterday delivered one of the most eloquent and convincing speeches ever delivered in support of taking strong measures against large social networks to prevent the spread of lies and hate speeches that These platforms allow.
Cohen delivered the speech yesterday, at an awards gala for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), where he received the ADL International Leadership Award.
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While accepting his award, Cohen referred to the role that companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter have played in spreading lies and hate speech online, calling the sites "the biggest propaganda machine in history."
Cohen's speech, in video format, is embedded above. Below is a brief summary of their main conversation points. A complete transcript, courtesy of the ADL, is included below the summary:
Thanks Jonathan for your kind words. Thank you, ADL, for this recognition and your work in the fight against racism, hate and intolerance. And to be clear, when I say "racism, hate and intolerance" I don't mean the names of Stephen Miller's Labradoodles.
Now, I realize that some of you may be thinking, what the hell is a comedian doing speaking at a conference like this! I certainly am. I have spent most of the last two decades in the character. In fact, this is the first time I stand up and deliver a speech like my least popular character, Sacha Baron Cohen. And I have to confess that it's scary.
I realize that my presence here may also be unexpected for another reason. Sometimes, some critics have said that my comedy risks reinforcing old stereotypes.
The truth is that I have been passionate about challenging intolerance and intolerance throughout my life. When I was a teenager in the United Kingdom, I marched against the Fascist National Front and abolished Apartheid. As a university student, I traveled through America and wrote my thesis on the civil rights movement, with the help of the ADL archives. And as a comedian, I've tried to use my characters to get people to let their guard down and reveal what they really believe, including their own prejudice.
Now, I will not say that everything I have done has been for a higher purpose. Yes, part of my comedy, OK, probably half of my comedy, has been absolutely youthful and the other half completely childish. I admit that there was nothing particularly enlightening in me, like Borat, from Kazakhstan, the first fake news reporter, at a mortgage broker conference when I was completely naked.
But when Borat was able to get an entire bar in Arizona to sing "Throw the Jew into the Well," he revealed people's indifference to anti-Semitism. When, like Bruno, the Austrian gay fashion journalist, I started kissing a man in a fight in a cage in Arkansas, almost starting a riot, he showed the violent potential of homophobia. And when, disguised as an ultra-awake developer, I proposed to build a mosque in a rural community, prompting a resident to proudly admit: "I am racist, against Muslims," he demonstrated the acceptance of Islamophobia.
That's why I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. Today, all over the world, demagogues appeal to our worst instincts. Conspiracy theories, once confined to the margin, are becoming widespread. It is as if the Age of Reason, the era of probative argument, was ending, and now knowledge is delegitimated and scientific consensus is ruled out. Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in retreat, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is underway. Hate crimes are increasing, as are murderous attacks against religious and ethnic minorities.
What do all these dangerous trends have in common? I'm just a comedian and an actor, not a scholar. But one thing is quite clear to me. All this hatred and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that constitute the biggest propaganda machine in history.
The biggest propaganda machine in history.
Think about it. Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others, reach billions of people. The algorithms on which these platforms depend deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps the users involved, stories that appeal to our lower instincts and that provoke outrage and fear. That's why YouTube recommended videos of the conspirator Alex Jones billions of times. That is why false news outperforms real news, because studies show that lies spread faster than the truth. And it is not surprising that the best propaganda machine in history has spread the oldest conspiracy theory in history: the lie that the Jews are somehow dangerous. As one headline put it: "Think about what Goebbels could have done with Facebook."
On the internet, everything may seem equally legitimate. Breitbart looks like the BBC. The fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion seem as valid as an ADL report. And the ravings of a madman seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. It seems that we have lost a shared sense of the basic facts on which democracy depends.
When I, as the aspiring to be Gansta Ali G, I asked astronaut Buzz Aldrin "what is it like to walk on the sun?" the joke worked, because we, the public, share the same facts. If you think the moon landing was a hoax, the joke was not funny.
When Borat got that bar in Arizona to accept that "Jews control everyone's money and never return it," the joke worked because the audience shared the fact that the representation of Jews as miserable is a conspiracy theory that originated in the middle Ages.
But when, thanks to social networks, conspiracies gain strength, it is easier for hate groups to recruit, easier for foreign intelligence agencies to interfere with our elections, and easier for a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Rohingya. .
Actually, it is quite surprising how easy it is to turn conspiracy thinking into violence. In my last program Who is America ?, I found an educated and normal guy who had kept up a good job, but who, on social media, repeated many of the conspiracy theories that President Trump, using Twitter, has spread more 1,700 times to its 67 million followers. The president even tweeted that he was considering designating Antifa, anti-fascists marching against the extreme right, as a terrorist organization.
Then, disguised as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, Colonel Erran Morad, I told my interviewee that, at the Women's March in San Francisco, Antifa planned to put hormones in babies' diapers to "make them transgender." And he believed it.
I instructed him to plant small devices on three innocent people on the march and explained that when he pressed a button, it would trigger an explosion that would kill them all. They weren't real explosives, of course, but he thought they were. I wanted to see, would I really?
The answer was yes. He pressed the button and thought he had killed three human beings. Voltaire was right, "those who can make you believe the absurd, can make you commit atrocities." And social networks allow authoritarians to take absurdities to billions of people.
In their defense, these social media companies have taken some measures to reduce hatred and conspiracies on their platforms, but these steps have been mostly superficial.
I am speaking today because I believe that our pluralistic democracies are on a precipice and that the next twelve months, and the role of social networks, could be decisive. British voters will go to the polls while online conspirators promote the despicable "great replacement" theory that white Christians are being deliberately replaced by Muslim immigrants. Americans will vote for the president while trolls and bots perpetuate the disgusting lie of a "Hispanic invasion." And after years of YouTube videos that call climate change a "hoax," the United States is on track, within a year, to formally withdraw from the Paris Accords. A sewer of fanaticism and vile conspiracy theories that threaten democracy and our planet; This may not be what the creators of the Internet had in mind.
I think it's time for a fundamental rethinking of social networks and how it spreads hate, conspiracies and lies. Last month, however, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg delivered an important speech that, as expected, warned against new laws and regulations about companies like yours. Well, some of these arguments are simply absurd. Let's count the ways.
First, Zuckerberg tried to portray this whole problem as "elections around free expression." That's ridiculous. It is not about limiting anyone's freedom of expression. It is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the largest platform in history to reach a third of the planet. Freedom of expression is not freedom of reach. Unfortunately, there will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites and child abusers. But I think we could all agree that we should not give fans and pedophiles a free platform to broaden their views and target their victims.
Second, Zuckerberg said that the new limits on what is published on social networks would be "to withdraw freedom of expression." This makes no sense. The First Amendment says that "Congress will not make any law" that restricts freedom of expression, however, this does not apply to private companies such as Facebook. We are not asking these companies to determine the limits of freedom of expression in society. We just want them to be responsible on their platforms.
If a neo-Nazi enters goosebumps in a restaurant and begins to threaten other customers and says he wants to kill Jews, would the restaurant owner be required to serve him an elegant eight-course meal? Of course, no! The restaurant owner has all the legal rights and moral obligation to expel the Nazis, just like these internet companies.
Third, Zuckerberg seemed to equate the regulation of companies like his to the actions of "the most repressive societies." Amazing. This, from one of the six people who decide what information much of the world sees. Zuckerberg on Facebook, Sundar Pichai on Google, in his parent company Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Brin's ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki on YouTube and Jack Dorsey on Twitter.
The Silicon Six, all billionaires, all Americans, who care more about raising the price of their actions than protecting democracy. This is the ideological imperialism: six non-elected individuals in Silicon Valley impose their vision on the rest of the world, do not report to any government and act as if they were outside the scope of the law. It's as if we live in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar. At least that would explain his haircut.
Here is an idea. Instead of letting the Silicon Six decide the fate of the world, that our elected representatives, voted by the people, of all the democracies of the world, have at least something to say.
Fourth, Zuckerberg talks about welcoming a "diversity of ideas," and last year he gave us an example. He said he found posts that denied the "deeply offensive" Holocaust, but he didn't think Facebook should eliminate them "because I think there are things that different people are wrong about." Right now, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook, and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites with a simple click. One of the Google bosses once told me, incredibly, that these sites only show "both sides" of the problem. This is crazy.
To quote Edward R. Murrow, one "cannot accept that, in each story, there are two equal and logical sides in a discussion." We have millions of Holocaust tests, it's a historical fact. And denying it is not a random opinion. Those who deny the Holocaust intend to encourage another.
Still, Zuckerberg says that "people should decide what is credible, not technology companies." But at a time when two-thirds of millennials say they haven't even heard of Auschwitz, how are they supposed to know what is "credible"? How are they supposed to know that a lie is a lie?
There is objective truth. The facts exist. And if these Internet companies really want to make a difference, they should hire enough monitors to really monitor, work closely with groups like the ADL, insist on the facts and purge these lies and conspiracies from their platforms.
Fifth, when discussing the difficulty of removing content, Zuckerberg asked "where do you draw the line?" Yes, drawing the line can be difficult. But this is what he is really saying: eliminating more of these lies and conspiracies is too expensive.
These are the richest companies in the world and have the best engineers in the world. They could solve these problems if they wanted to. Twitter could implement an algorithm to eliminate more hate speech from white supremacy, but reportedly they did not because it would expel some very prominent politicians from its platform. Maybe that is not a bad thing! The truth is that these companies will not fundamentally change because their entire business model depends on generating more commitment, and nothing generates more commitment than lies, fear and indignation.
It's time to finally call these companies what they really are: the biggest publishers in history. And here is an idea for them: to comply with the basic rules and practices just like newspapers, magazines and television news do every day. We have standards and practices in television and movies; There are certain things we cannot say or do. In England, I was told that Ali G could not curse when he appeared before 9 p.m. Here in the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America regulates and qualifies what we see. I have had scenes in my movies cut or reduced to meet those standards. If there are standards and practices for what cinemas and television channels can show, then surely companies that publish material to billions of people should also have to comply with basic standards and practices.
Take the issue of political announcements. Fortunately, Twitter finally banned them, and Google is also making changes. But if you pay them, Facebook will post any "political" ad you want, even if it's a lie. And they will even help you micro-orient those lies to your users for maximum effect. Under this twisted logic, if Facebook existed in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads in his "solution" to the "Jewish problem." So here is a good standard and practice: Facebook, start checking the political ads before executing them, stop the targeted micro lies immediately, and when the ads are fake, return the money and do not post them.
Here is another good practice: reduce speed. It is not necessary to publish each publication immediately. Oscar Wilde once said that "we live in a time when unnecessary things are our only needs." But is it really necessary to have every thought or video posted instantly online, even if it is racist, criminal or murderer? Of course, no!
The shooter who slaughtered Muslims in New Zealand live broadcast his atrocity on Facebook, where it later spread over the Internet and was probably seen millions of times. It was a rap movie, presented by social networks. Why can't we have more delays so that this filth that causes trauma can be caught and stopped before it is published in the first place?
Finally, Zuckerberg said social media companies should "fulfill their responsibilities," but says nothing about what should happen when they don't. For now it is quite clear, you can not rely on them to regulate. As with the Industrial Revolution, it is time for regulation and legislation to curb the greed of these high-tech thief barons.
In any other industry, a company can be held liable when its product is defective. When engines explode or seat belts malfunction, car companies remove tens of thousands of vehicles at a cost of billions of dollars. It just seems fair to tell Facebook, YouTube and Twitter: your product is defective, you are required to fix it, no matter how much it costs and no matter how many moderators you need to use.
In any other industry, you can be sued for the damage it causes. Publishers can be sued for defamation, people can be sued for defamation. I have been sued many times! I am currently being sued by someone whose name I will not mention because I could sue again! But social media companies are largely protected from liability for the content that their users publish, no matter how indecent, according to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, prepare for it. Absurd!
Fortunately, Internet companies can now be responsible for pedophiles who use their sites to attack children. I mean, let's also hold these companies responsible for those who use their sites to advocate for the mass murder of children because of their race or religion. And maybe the fines are not enough. Perhaps it is time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies: you have already allowed a foreign power to interfere in our elections, you have already facilitated a genocide in Myanmar, do it again and go to jail.
In the end, it all comes down to what kind of world we want. In his speech, Zuckerberg said that one of his main objectives is "to maintain as broad a definition as possible of freedom of expression." However, our freedoms are not only an end in themselves, but they are also the means to another end, as you say here in the United States, the right to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. But today these rights are threatened by hatred, conspiracies and lies.
Let me leave you with a suggestion for a different goal for society. The ultimate goal of society should be to ensure that people are not attacked, harassed and killed for who they are, where they come from, who they love or how they pray
If we make that our goal, if we prioritize the truth about lies, tolerance about prejudices, empathy about indifference and experts about the ignorant, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop the biggest propaganda machine From history, we can save democracy, we can still have a place for freedom of expression and freedom of expression, and, most importantly, my jokes will continue to work.
Thank you very much to all.
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Sacha Baron Cohen gave the best speech on why social networks should be kept under control - Mash Viral