Daily Archives: August 18, 2017

It was 1934 and fascism was on the march not only in Europe but in America. People who admired Adolf Hitler, who had taken power in Germany, formed Nazi organizations in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union, represented by lawyers who were Jewish, faced an existential question: Should the freedoms it stood for since its founding in 1920 apply even to racist groups that would like nothing more than to strip them away?

Ultimately, after much internal dissent, the ACLU decided: Yes, the principles were what mattered most. The ACLU would stand up for the free-speech rights of Nazis.

We do not choose our clients, the ACLUs board of directors wrote in an October 1934 pamphlet called Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis In America? Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us. To those who support suppressing propaganda they hate, we ask where do you draw the line?

Once again, the ACLU is wrestling with how to respond to a far-right movement in the U.S. whose rising visibility is prompting concerns from elected officials and activists.

In response to the deadly violence at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, the ACLUs three California affiliates released a statement Wednesday declaring that white supremacist violence is not free speech.

The national organization said Thursday that it would not represent white supremacist groups that want to demonstrate with guns. That stance is a new interpretation of the ACLUs official position that reasonable gun regulation does not violate the 2nd Amendment.

Officials in Charlottesville had initially denied organizers of the Unite the Right rally a permit to hold the event at the site of a Robert E. Lee statue. But the ACLU filed a lawsuit defending protesters rights to gather there. The rally ended with one woman killed and dozens of people injured as neo-Nazis and other far-right groups that had come armed with shields, helmets and even guns clashed violently with counter-protesters.

Now, with more far-right events scheduled in California, the states ACLU affiliates are warning that there are limits to what they will defend.

We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the 1st Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence, said the statement, which was signed by the executive directors of the ACLU affiliates of Southern California, Northern California, and of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution, the statement continued. The 1st Amendment should never be used as a shield or sword to justify violence.

That statement drew some criticism from former ACLU board member Samuel Walker, a history professor at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, who supports the ACLUs historical stance on far-right groups. He called the remarks irresponsible.

How is the 1st Amendment being a shield for violence? he said. They need to be clear on that, and this statement is not clear.

Ahilan Arulanantham, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said it was not the organizations perspective on civil liberties that had changed, but the nature of the far-right groups themselves a willingness to come to events ready for violence.

The factual context here is shifting, given the extent to which the particular marches were seeing in this historical moment are armed, Arulanantham said.

For decades, the ACLU has defended the speech rights of far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on the principle that if those groups rights are not upheld, the government will try to restrict the free-speech rights of other groups as well.

Most famously, the ACLU successfully defended the rights of neo-Nazis to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., in 1978, which was home to many Holocaust survivors.

But the ACLUs stance was costly. The groups membership and donations which had soared during the Nixon administration declined sharply after the Skokie case, with thousands of supporters abandoning the group. A left-wing civil liberties counterpart, the National Lawyers Guild, accused the ACLU of "poisonous evenhandedness.

The group has seen its membership and its donations soar under the Trump administration as left-leaning Americans embrace the organization as a bulwark against the administration.

But some emerging factions of the left do not share the ACLUs values on free speech and assembly. Surveys have shown that young people are more likely than older Americans to support a government ban on hate speech, which is constitutionally protected.

Leftists who call themselves anti-facists and in many cases endorse illegal violence, viewing it as a morally just tactic to prevent neo-Nazis from gathering publicly, have also seen their numbers grow since Trumps election, which was supported by far-right groups.

The ACLUs decision this month to file a 1st Amendment lawsuit on behalf of right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos whose rhetoric about immigrants and minorities has made him a target of violent protests prompted a high-profile ACLU attorney to publicly object.

Though his ability to speak is protected by the 1st Amendment, I don't believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle in all cases, wrote Chase Strangio, who stressed he was speaking in a private capacity. His actions have consequences for people that I care about and for me."

The outcry from the ACLUs California affiliates prompted the groups national leader, Anthony D. Romero, to respond with a statement of his own.

We agree with every word in the statement from our colleagues in California, Romero said. The 1st Amendment absolutely does not protect white supremacists seeking to incite or engage in violence. We condemn the views of white supremacists, and fight against them every day.

But, Romero added: At the same time, we believe that even odious hate speech, with which we vehemently disagree, garners the protection of the 1st Amendment when expressed non-violently. We make decisions on whom we'll represent and in what context on a case-by-case basis. The horrible events in Charlottesville last weekend will certainly inform those decisions going forward.

See original here:
Tensions grow inside ACLU over defending free-speech rights for the far right - Los Angeles Times

The University of California at Berkeley is a place where right-wing provocateurs such as Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos know they can get a rise. But maybe less so, starting now: On Tuesday, the school's recently-appointed chancellor, Carol Christ, declared this year to be a "Free Speech Year" on campus, and marked that the school would be doubling down on not only protecting speech, but also teaching the value of discourse to college students that seem to have forgotten.

In February, campus protests became violent, shutting down a Milo Yiannopoulos appearance. This upcoming academic year, he's slated to speak again. A less controversial (but still somewhat cringe-worthy) Ben Shapiro will be speaking on campus later next month. This time, though, new policies will be in place to bolster security and event preparation, regardless of viewpoint. "We have not only an obligation to protect free speech but an obligation to keep our community safe," said Christ.

Other Berkeley events during this upcoming year will center around core constitutional issues, the school's history as the forefront of the student activism movement, and employ a "point-counterpoint" format for panels, where participants can practice civil exchange of ideas in a public forum.

In Christ's own words, Berkeley "would be providing you less of an education, preparing you less well for the world after you graduate, if we tried to protect you from ideas that you may find wrong, even noxious."

She's completely right, and it's wonderful to see a university administrator choosing not to mince words when it comes to defense of free speech, especially at a place such as Berkeley. If administrators were more fervently clear that hateful, offensive speech is protected under the First Amendment too, we might see more ideologically-tolerant college students.

Of course, Christ isn't claiming that every year can't be devoted to free speech rather, she's making it abundantly clear that there is, and will always be, immense value to civil discourse. And she is making it clear that the birthplace of the student free speech movement shouldn't be desecrated by violent protesters who don't understand the most challenging aspects of a liberal democracy that one should extend free speech rights to those you find abhorrent, lest your own be taken.

Perhaps Berkeley will, once again, lead the campus free speech movement.

Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is managing editor at Young Voices.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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Free speech might be coming to Berkeley in a shocking turn of events - Washington Examiner

Some speakers have dropped out of the Boston Free Speech rally planned for Saturday on the Common, but at least two right-wing extremists, including a Clinton conspiracy theorist and a founder of a group dubbed by hate watchdogs as an Alt-Right Fight Club, will still address the crowd at the event, which expected to draw counterprotesters and a heavy police presence.

The rally organizers said early Thursday in a Facebook post that the four headliners will be Kyle Chapman, Joe Biggs, US Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai, and congressional candidate Samson Racioppi.

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So its been a little tumultuous running up to the 19th. Weve attracted much love from the Alt Left aka Antifa and their trolly bits, the post said. We apologize for the upheaval of our speaker list.

Of the four speakers, Chapman and Biggs appeared likely to draw the most ire.

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Chapman gained notoriety earlier this year after a video went viral of him smashing a wooden post over the head of an anti-fascist protester at a march for President Trump in Berkeley, Calif.

No weapons, no backpacks, no sticks, Mayor Walsh said. If anyone gets out of control at all it will be shut down.

Chapman, who became known on the Internet as Based Stickman, then started a group called the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a New Alt-Right Fight Club ready for street violence.

The Alt Knights are linked to another extremist group, the Proud Boys. According to the SPLC, Chapman says his new militant, highly-masculine group will be the tactical defensive arm of the Proud Boys, another group that shows up at pro-Trump rallies looking to rumble with counter-protesters.

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The Proud Boys were founded by Gavin McInnes, who was originally scheduled as a speaker at Saturdays rally but dropped out earlier this week.

Biggs, a former US Army staff sergeant, worked until recently for Infowars, a website founded by Alex Jones, the notorious conspiracy theorist. Biggs was among those promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that claimed a pedophile ring with links to Hillary Clinton was operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.

The conspiracy theory almost went horribly wrong when a man showed up at the pizzeria and fired a miltiary-assault-style rifle. He was later sentenced to four years in prison.

Biggs previously told the Globe that Saturdays rally is designed to promote free speech not hate or violence.

These events are not violent in nature at all but people will defend themselves if provoked and thats what happened in Charlottesville, he said.

He was referring to the rally in Virginia that turned deadly when white supremacists and neo-Nazi demonstrators clashed with counterprotesters, and one white supremacist allegedly plowed his vehicle into Heather Heyer, killing the young woman who was part of the counterprotest.

Tensions have been high in the leadup to the planned rally in Boston, with Mayor Martin J. Walsh telling hate groups that the city does not want you here. City officials have granted the organizers a permit allowing them to rally on the Common from noon to 2 p.m., with restrictions on objects that attendees can bring into the area.

Among the banned items for demonstrators on both sides: bats, sticks, and backpacks. Walsh said police will have a zero-tolerance policy.

Walsh is not the only political leader to condemn bigotry ahead of the rally.

During an ornate State House ceremony on Thursday, Governor Charlie Baker was joined by a number of elected officials including Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg in submitting an official resolution decrying white nationalism in the wake of the Charlottesville violence.

The officials took turns reading portions of the resolution, including one excerpt read by Baker that said the state strongly denounces the bigoted ideologies promoted by white nationalists.

Meanwhile, the rally organizers continue to insist that the event is open to a range of political views and not a forum for hate groups.

We are STILL offering our platform for left groups to join us and have open slots for speakers if any left groups would like to furnish some, the Facebook posting said. We will, of course, ask that speakers stick generally to the subject of Free Speech. We will not tolerate advocacy for hate against any ethnic/racial groups, as stated on our recent release.

Ayyadurai, a Cambridge Republican who has staked out a populist stance in the early months of the GOP Senate primary in Massachusetts, recently told the Globe via e-mail that he was concerned Saturdays rally could turn violent.

He added that racial strife is manufactured and fueled by the Establishment to distract from the economic problems that they have caused and profit from. ... The Establishment creates and funds groups like Antifa, KKK and Black Lives Matter with the aim of dividing everyday poor black and white Americans.

Racioppi, the fourth speaker who is also running for Congress, is enrolled at Suffolk University and served as a Cavalry Scout in the US Army for three years, according to his campaign website.

Speech is such an important thing to me, a blog post says on his site. It is the most important value a society can recognize for free people to stay that way.

The site also includes a YouTube video of Racioppi speaking under a headline that says, How drug legalization reduces addiction and overdose deaths.

See the original post here:
Speaker list for 'free speech' rally includes right-wing extremists - The Boston Globe

On Wednesday afternoon, a Canadian university, Ryerson, decided to immolate its educational principles. It cancelled a discussion between conservative journalist, Faith Goldy, and Professors Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad.

Let's be clear, the excuse the school offers is fake. What's really going on here is that Ryerson has decided to sacrifice intellectual curiosity at the altar of far-left fascism.

Declaring that it is "prioritizing public safety" over free speech, Ryerson is offering a false choice. For one, Ryerson is in Toronto, a city with more than 5,000 police officers and named the safest city in North America in 2015. Had Ryerson sought to preserve free speech, it could have requested and enacted a security envelope around the event.

A warped sense of political correctness is at blame here. The individual who led the effort to force Ryerson to cancel the event, Christeen Elizabeth, explained that "Transphobia is violence, Islamophobia is violence. Violence is contextual."

Sure.

Regardless, to sabotage the discussion, Elizabeth told the National Post that she "inundated Ryerson with calls and emails protesting the panel. She said she also collaborated with the school's student union, who added to the pressure." The pressure campaign worked as Ryerson yielded to the threats and abuse.

Still, what's most troubling here is the degree to which this situation shows how far the far-left's "no speech" platform now extends. After all, the panelists who were no-platformed are hardly neo-Nazis.

For one, Faith Goldy bears nothing in common with Hitler. She works for an online conservative media outlet, The Rebel, which revels in being controversial and cheeky. But that website is not a malevolent entity. Indeed, this week, Goldy gave a compelling defense of her viewpoints. "I do not bathe in tears of white guilt, that doesn't make me a white supremacist. I oppose state multiculturalism and affirmative action, that doesn't make me a racist. I reject cultural marxism but that doesn't make me a fascist."

Indeed.

Similarly, Professor Jordan Peterson isn't Himmler, he's a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. His great crime against social justice? Making intellectual arguments against the subjective appropriation of gender pronouns. But search for any video of Peterson.

And Gad Saad? His topic is consumer choices.

In the end, there's only one takeaway from what's just occurred. Goldy, Peterson, and Saad, are far better people than Christeen Elizabeth, her fascists, and Ryerson's administrators. Professor Peterson proved as much when he offered a very measured response to the cancellation of his event. He told the National Post that "We're drifting into a scenario of increased polarization, and it's not an advisable time to contribute to that, wittingly or unwittingly."

Read more:
The far-left strikes another blow against free speech - Washington Examiner

Reuters:

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook has joined a chorus of business leaders who have voiced their opposition to President Donald Trump after he blamed white nationalists and anti-racism activists equally for violence in Virginia over the weekend.

I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans, Cook wrote in a note late on Wednesday to employees, according to technology news website Recode.

Cook also said in the letter that Apple will donate $1 million apiece to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League and will match two-for-one their donations to the organizations and other human rights groups until Sept. 30.

Let me note first that I am not very impressed (to put it mildly) with the way that the president has responded to the events in Charlottesville.

That said, lets concentrate on this: Cook is spending $1m of shareholders money on a gift to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC has, shall we say, its issues. You can find some interesting commentaryover at that well-known bastion of the right, Harpers Magazine, here, here and here.

But Id like to focus on the SPLCs Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists, and two of the names included in that guide (something already discussed by Ericka Andersen on this very Corner back in June).

Firstly, theresMaajid Nawaz a British activist and part of the ex-radical circuit of former Islamists who use that experience to savage Islam.

Amongst the evidence of his extremism is this:

According to a Jan. 24, 2014, report in The Guardian, Nawaz tweeted out a cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad despite the fact that many Muslims see it as blasphemous to draw Muhammad. He said that he wanted to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge.

So Apple is funding an organization that deems taking a stand in favor of free speech as evidence of extremism. The company that once advertised itself as the antithesis of Big Brotheris now a de facto supporter of controlling blasphemy. Times change.

Doubtless this will play well in Apple (Saudi Arabia), so theres that.

Heres (part of) what The Atlantic had to say about Nawaz last year (my emphasis added):

Nawaz is a star in certain anti-terror circles, thanks to a compelling personal narrative: A self-described former extremist who spent four years in an Egyptian prison, he has changed approaches and now argues for a pluralistic and peaceful vision of Islam. He stood for Parliament as a Liberal Democrat in 2015, and advised Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron.

Nawazs work has earned him detractorscritics claim he has embellished or neatened his narrative, some attack him for opportunism, and others question his liberal bona fidesbut calling him an anti-Muslim extremist is a surprise. Unlike the likes of Gaffney and Geller, he doesnt espouse the view that Islam itself is a problem; unlike Ali, who now describes herself as an atheist, Nawaz identifies as a Muslim.

Ali? Ah yes: Someone else who is on the SPLC extremist list is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali knows a thing or two about Islam, having been brought up in thatfaith (at one point in her youth she was very devout) and then broken with it publicly and, yes, abrasively, something that put her life in danger (which goes some way to backing up what she has to say about Islam). Sometimes she has, in my view, overreached in her rhetoric (others will disagree), but to go from that to claiming that she is an extremist in the way that the SPLC use that word is absurd, no more than that, its sinister.

Another prominent atheist, Sam Harris, has described the labeling of Hirsi Ali and Nawaz as extremists as unbelievable. After Hirsi Ali was snubbed by Brandeis in 2014 (two years before the SPLCfield guide came out), Richard Dawkins referred toher as a hero of rationalism & feminism.

Over at Patheos,Hemant Mehta. the Friendly Atheist (and no rightist)called the SPLCs designation of Hirsi Ali and Nawaza f****** joke :

If criticizing religious beliefs makes them extremists, then it wont be long before other vocal atheists end up on that list, too. And make no mistake, thats what Nawaz and Hirsi Ali are doing. Thats all theyre doing. Theyre not anti-Muslim; they work with moderate Muslims. Theyre critical of the worst aspects of Islam. For goodness sake, theyre not attacking Malala Yousafzai.

Hell, Hirsi Alis foundation works to end faith-based honor killings and female genital mutilation. Who knew that would make her the Worst Person Ever?

Mehta added:

Essentially, while her words may have been harsh, they should be seen with the understanding that she has been personally affected by the worst aspects of the faith. As I wrote before, it takes a very uncharitable interpretation of Hirsi Alis words to think her goal of defeating Islam means we should commit violence against peaceful law-abiding Muslims or descends into hate speech. Her goal is full-scale reform of Islam, not genocide against all Muslims.

She has repeatedly said that her goal is to prevent the spread of Islamic radicalism, not to prevent peaceful Muslims from practicing their faith.

Yet sheand Nawaz have attracted the ire of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But all of thats fine with Apples Tim Cook, so fine that hes prepared to throw one million dollars of his shareholders money SPLCs way.

See original here:
Silicon Valley and Free Speech: Tim Cook Edition - National Review

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I sat down with Kevin Systrom, the CEO of Instagram, in June to interview him for my feature story, Instagrams CEO Wants to Clean Up the Internet, and for Is Instagram Going Too Far to Protect Our Feelings, a special that ran on CBS this week.

It was a long conversation, but here is a 20-minute overview in which Systrom talks about the artificial intelligence Instagram has been developing to filter out toxic comments before you even see them. He also discusses free speech, the possibility of Instagram becoming too bland, and whether the platform can be considered addictive. Our conversation occurred shortly before Instagram introduced the AI to the public.

A transcript of the conversation follows.

Nicholas Thompson, Editor-in-Chief: Morning, Kevin

Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram: Morning! How are you?

NT: Doing great. So what I want to do in this story is I want to get into the specifics of the new product launch and the new things youre doing and the stuff thats coming out right now and the machine learning. But I also want to tie it to a broader story about Instagram, and how you decided to prioritize niceness and how it became such a big thing for you and how you reoriented the whole company. So Im gonna ask you some questions about the specific products and then some bigger questions

KS: Im down.

NT: All right so lets start at the beginning. I know that from the very beginning you cared a lot about comments. You cared a lot about niceness and, in fact, you and your co-founder Mike Krieger would go in early on and delete comments yourself. Tell me about that.

KS: Yeah. Not only would we delete comments but we did the unthinkable: We actually removed accounts that were being not so nice to people.

NT: So for example, whom?

KS: Yeah well I dont remember exactly whom, but the back story is my wife is one of the nicest people youll ever meet. And that bleeds over to me and I try to model it. So, when we were starting the app, we watched this video, basically how to start a company. And it was by this guy who started the LOLCats meme and he basically said, To form a community you need to do something, and he called it Prune the trolls. And Nicole would always joke with me, shes like, Hey listen, when your community is getting rough, you gotta prune the trolls. And thats something she still says to me today to remind me of the importance of community, but also how important it is to be nice. So back in the day we would go in and if people were mistreating people, wed just remove their accounts. I think that set an early tone for the community to be nice and be welcoming.

NT: But whats interesting is that this is 2010, and 2010 is a moment where a lot of people are talking about free speech and the internet, and Twitters role in the Iranian revolution. So it was a moment where free speech was actually valued on the internet, probably more than it is now. How did you end up being more in the prune the trolls camp?

KS: Well theres an age-old debate between free speechwhat is the limit of free speech, and is it free speech to just be mean to someone? And I think if you look at the history of the law around free speech, youll find that generally theres a line where you dont want to cross because youre starting to be aggressive or be mean or racist. And you get to a point where you wanna make sure that in a closed community thats trying to grow and thrive, you make sure that you actually optimize for overall free speech. So if I dont feel like I can be myself, if I dont feel like I can express myself because if I do that, I will get attacked, thats not a community we want to create. So we just decided to be on the side of making sure that we optimized for speech that was expressive and felt like you had the freedom to be yourself.

NT: So, one of the foundational decisions at Instagram that helped make it nicer than some of your peers, was the decision to not allow re-sharing, and to not allow something that I put out there to be kind of appropriated by someone else and sent out into the world by someone else. How was that decision made and were there other foundational design and product decisions that were made because of niceness?

KS: We debate the re-share thing a lot. Because obviously people love the idea of re-sharing content that they find. Instagram is full of awesome stuff. In fact, one of the main ways people communicate over Instagram Direct now is actually they share content that they find on Instagram. So thats been a debate over and over again. But really that decision is about keeping your feed focused on the people you know rather than the people you know finding other stuff for you to see. And I think that is more of a testament of our focus on authenticity and on the connections you actually have than about anything else.

NT: So after you went to VidCon, you posted an image on your Instagram feed of you and a bunch of celebrities

KS: Totally, in fact it was a Boomerang.

NT: It was a Boomerang, right! So Im going to read some of the comments on @kevins post.

KS: Sure.

NT: These are the comments: Succ, Succ, Succ me, Succ, Can you make Instagram have auto-scroll feature? That would be awesome and expand Instagram as a app that could grow even more, #memelivesmatter, you succ, you can delete memes but not cancer patients, I love #memelivesmatter, #allmemesmatter, succ, #MLM, #memerevolution, cuck, mem, #stopthememegenocide, #makeinstagramgreatagain, #memelivesmatter, #memelivesmatter, mmm, gang, melon gangIm not quite sure what all this means. Is this typical?

KS: It was typical, but Id encourage you to go to my last post which I posted for Fathers Day

NT: Your last post is all nice!

KS: Its all nice.

NT: Theyre all about how handsome your father is.

KS: Right? Listen, he is taken. My mom is wonderful. But there are a lot of really wonderful comments there.

NT: So why is this post from a year ago full of cuck and #memelivesmatter and the most recent post is full of how handsome Kevin Systroms dad is?

KS: Well thats a good question. I would love to be able to explain it, but the first thing I think is back then there were a bunch of people who I think were unhappy about the way Instagram was managing accounts. And there are groups of people that like to get together and band up and bully people, but its a good example of how someone can get bullied, right. The good news is I run the company and I have a thick skin and I can deal with it. But imagine youre someone whos trying to express yourself about depression or anxiety or body image issues and you get that. Does that make you want to come back and post on the platform? And if youre seeing that, does that make you want to be open about those issues as well? No. So a year ago I think we had much more of a problem, but the focus over that year, over both comment filtering so now you can go in and enter your own words that basically filter out comments that include that word. We have spam filtering that works pretty well, so probably a bunch of those would have been caught up in the spam filter that we have because they were repeated comments. And also just a general awareness of kind comments. We have this awesome campaign that we started called #kindcomments. I dont know if you know the late night show were they reads off mean comments on another social platform; we started kind comments to basically set a standard in the community that it was better and cooler to actually leave kind comments. And now there is this amazing meme that has spread throughout Instagram about leaving kind comments. But you can see the marked difference between the post about Fathers Day and that post a year ago on what technology can do to create a kinder community. And i think were making progress which is the important part.

NT: Tell me about sort of steps one, two, three, four, five. How do you you dont automatically decide to launch the seventeen things youve launched since then? Tell me about the early conversations.

KS: The early conversations were really about what problem are we solving and we looked to the community for stories. We talked to community members. We have a giant community team here at Instagram, which I think is pretty unique for technology companies. Literally, their job is to interface with the community and get feedback and highlight members who are doing amazing things on the platform. So getting that type of feedback from the community about what types of problems they were experiencing in their comments then led us to brainstorm about all the different things we could build. And what we realized was there was this giant wave of machine learning and artificial intelligenceand Facebook had developed this thing that basicallyits called deep text

NT: Which launches in June of 2016, so its right there.

KS: Yup, so they have this technology and we put two and two together and we said: You know what? I think if we get a bunch of people to look at comments and rate them good or badlike you go on pandora and you listen to a song, is it good or is it badget a bunch of people to do that. Thats your training set. And then what you do is you feed it to the machine learning system and you let it go through 80 percent of it and then you hold out the other 20 percent of the comments. And then you say, Okay, machine, go and rate these comments for us based on the training set, and then we see how well it does and we tweak it over time, and now were at a point where basically this machine learning can detect a bad comment or a mean comment with amazing accuracybasically a 1 percent false positive rate. So throughout that process of brainstorming, looking at the technology available and then training this filter over time with real humans who are deciding this stuff, gathering feedback from our community and gathering feedback from our team about how it works, were able to create something were really proud of.

NT: So when you launch it you make a very important decision: Do you want it to be aggressive, in which case itll probably knock out some stuff it shouldnt? Or do you want it to be a little less aggressive, in which case a lot of bad stuff will get through?

KS: Yeah, this is the classic problem. If you go for accuracy, you will misclassify a bunch of stuff that actually was pretty good. So you know if your my friend and I go on your photo and Im just joking around with you and giving you a hard time, Instagram should let that through because were friends and Im just giving you a hard time and thats a funny banter back and forth. Whereas if you dont know me and I come on and I make fun of your photo, that feels very different. Understanding the nuance between those two is super important and the thing we dont want to do is have any instance where we block something that shouldnt be blocked. The reality is its going to happen. So the question is, is that margin of error worth it for all the really bad stuff that gets blocked? And thats a fine balance to figure out. Thats something were working on. We trained the filter basically to have a one-percent false positive rate. So that means one percent of things that get marked as bad are actually good. And that was a top priority for us because were not here to curb free speech, were not here to curb fun conversations between friends, but we want to make sure we are largely attacking the problem of bad comments on Instagram.

NT: And so you go, and every comment that goes in gets sort of run through an algorithm, and the algorithm gives it a score from 0 to 1 on whether its likely a comment that should be filtered or a comment that should not be filtered, right? And then that score is combined with the relationship of the two people?

KS: No, the score actually is influenced based on the relationship of the people

NT: So the original score is influenced by, and Instagram I believeif I have this correcthas something like a karma score for every user, where the number of times theyve been flagged or the number of critiques made of them is added into something on the back end, is that goes into this too?

KS: So without getting into the magic sauceyoure asking like Coca Cola to give up its recipeIm going to tell you that theres a lot of complicated stuff that goes into it. But basically it looks at the words, it looks at our relationship, and it looks at a bunch of other signals including account age, account history, and that kind of stuff. And it combines all those signals and then it spits out a score of 0 to 1 about how bad this comment is likely. And then basically you set a threshold that optimizes for one-percent false-positive rate.

NT: when do you decide its ready to go?

KS: I think at a point where the accuracy gets to a point that internally were happy with it. So one of the things we do here at instagram is we do this thing called dogfoodingand not a lot of people know this term but in the tech industry it means, you know, eat your own dog food. So what we do is we take the products and we always apply them to ourselves before we go out to the community. And there are these amazing groups on Instagramand I would love to take you through them but theyre actually all confidential but its employees giving feedback about how they feel about specific features.

NT: So this is live on the phone to a bunch of Instagram employees right now?

KS: There are always features that are not launched that are live on Instagram employees phones, including things like this.

NT: So theres a critique of a lot of the advances in machine learning that the corpus on which it is based has biases built into it. So DeepText analyzed all Facebook commentsanalyzed some massive corpus of words that people have typed into the internet. When you analyze those, you get certain biases built into them. So for example, I was reading a paper and someone had taken a corpus of text and created a machine learning algorithm to rank restaurants, and to look at the comments people had written under restaurants and then to try and guess the quality of the restaurants. He went through and he ran it, and he was like, Interesting, because all of the Mexican restaurants were ranked badly. So why is that? Well it turns out, as he dug deeper into the algorithm, its because in massive corpus of text the word Mexican is associated with illegalillegal Mexican immigrant because that is used so frequently. And so there are lots of slurs attached to the word Mexican, so the word Mexican has negative connotations in the machine learning-based corpus, which then affects the restaurant rankings of Mexican restaurants.

KS: That sounds awful

NT: So how do you deal with that?

KS: Well the good news is were not in the business of ranking restaurants

NT: But you are ranking sentences based on this huge corpus of text that Facebook has analyzed as part of DeepText

KS: Its a little bit more complicated than that. So all of our training comes from Instagram comments. So we have hundreds of raters and its actually pretty interesting what weve done with this set of raters: basically, human beings that sit there and by the way human beings are not unbiased thats not what im claimingbut you have human beings. Each of those raters is bilingual. So they speak two languages, they have a diverse perpsective, theyre from all over the world. And they rank those comments basically, thumbs up or thumbs down. Basically the instagram corpus, right?

So you feed it a thumbs up, thumbs down based on an individual. And you might say, But wait, isnt a single individual biased in some way? Which is why we make sure every comment is actually seen twice and given a rating twice by at least two people to make sure that there is as minimal amount of bias in the system as possible. And then on top of that, we also gain feedback from not only our team but also the community, and then were able to tweak things on the margin to make sure things like that dont happen. Im not claiming that it wont happenthats of course a riskbut the biggest risk of all is doing nothing because were afraid of these things happening. And I think its more important that we are A) aware of them, and B) monitoring them actively, and C) making sure we have a diverse group of raters that not only speak two languages but are from all over the world and represent different perspectives to make sure we have an unbiased classifier.

NT: So lets take a sentence like These hos aint loyal, which is a phrase that I believe a previous study on Twitter had a lot of trouble with. Your theory is that some people will say, Oh thats a lyric, therefore its okay, some people wont know it will get through, but enough raters looking at enough comments over time will allow lyrics to get through, and These hoes aint loyal, I can post that on your Instagram feed if you post a picture which deserves that comment.

KS: Well I think what I would counter is, if you post that sentence to any person watching this, not a single one of them would say thats a mean spirited comment to any of us, right?

NT: Right.

NT: So I think thats pretty easy to get to. I think if there are more nuance in examples, and I think thats the spirit of your question, which is that there are grey areas. The whole idea of machine learning is that its far better about understanding those nuances than any algorithm has in the past, or any single human being could. And I think what we have to do over time is figure out how to get into that grey area, and judge the performance of this algorithm over time to see if it actually improves things. Because by the way, if it causes trouble and it doesnt work, well scrap it and start over with something new. But the whole idea here is that were trying something. And I think a lot of the fears that youre bringing up are warranted but is exactly why it keeps most companies from even trying in the first place.

NT: And so first youre going to launch this filtering bad comments, and then the second thing youre going to do is the elevation of positive comments. Tell me about how that is going to work and why thats a priority.

KS: The elevation of positive comments is more about modeling in the system. Weve seen a bunch of times in the system where we have this thing called the mimicry effect. So if you raise kind comments, you actually see more kind comments, or you see more people giving kind comments. its not that we ever ran this test but Im sure if you raised a bunch of mean comments you would see more mean comments. Part of this is the piling-on effect, and I think what we can do is by modeling what great conversations are, more people will see Instagram as a place for that, and less for the bad stuff. And its got this interesting psychological effect that people want to fit in and people want to do what theyre seeing, and that means that people are more positive over time.

NT: And are you at all worried that youre going to turn Instagram into the equivalent of an East Coast liberal arts college?

KS: I think those of us who grew up on the East Coast might take offense to that *laughs* Im not sure what you mean exactly.

NT: I mean a place where there are trigger warnings everywhere, where people feel like like they cant have certain opinions, where people feel like they cant say things. Where you put this sheen over all your conversations, as though everything in the world is rosy and the bad stuff, were just going to sweep it under the rug.

KS: Yeah, that would be bad. Thats not something we want. I think in the range of bad, were talking about the lower five percent. Like the really, really, bad stuff. I dont think were trying to play anywhere in the area of grey. Although I realize, theres no black or white and were going to have to play at some level. But the idea here is to take out, I dont know, the bottom five percent of nasty stuff. And I dont think anyone would argue that, that makes Instagram a rosy place, it just doesnt make it a hateful place.

So you feed it a thumbs up, thumbs down based on an individual. And you might say, But wait, isnt a single individual biased in some way? Which is why we make sure every comment is actually seen twice and given a rating twice by at least two people to make sure that there is as minimal amount of bias in the system as possible. And then on top of that, we also gain feedback from not only our team but also the community, and then were able to tweak things on the margin to make sure things like that dont happen. Im not claiming that it wont happenthats of course a riskbut the biggest risk of all is doing nothing because were afraid of these things happening. And I think its more important that we are A) aware of them, and B) monitoring them actively, and C) making sure we have a diverse group of raters that not only speak two languages but are from all over the world and represent different perspectives to make sure we have an unbiased classifier.

NT: So lets take a sentence like These hos aint loyal, which is a phrase that I believe a previous study on Twitter had a lot of trouble with. Your theory is that some people will say, Oh thats a lyric, therefore its okay, some people wont know it will get through, but enough raters looking at enough comments over time will allow lyrics to get through, and These hoes aint loyal, I can post that on your Instagram feed if you post a picture which deserves that comment.

KS: Well I think what I would counter is, if you post that sentence to any person watching this, not a single one of them would say thats a mean spirited comment to any of us, right?

NT: Right.

NT: So I think thats pretty easy to get to. I think if there are more nuance in examples, and I think thats the spirit of your question, which is that there are grey areas. The whole idea of machine learning is that its far better about understanding those nuances than any algorithm has in the past, or any single human being could. And I think what we have to do over time is figure out how to get into that grey area, and judge the performance of this algorithm over time to see if it actually improves things. Because by the way, if it causes trouble and it doesnt work, well scrap it and start over with something new. But the whole idea here is that were trying something. And I think a lot of the fears that youre bringing up are warranted but is exactly why it keeps most companies from even trying in the first place.

NT: And you wouldnt want all of the comments on your,You know, on your VidCon post, its a mix of sort of jokes, and nastiness, and vapidity, and useful product feedback. And youre getting rid of the nasty stuff, but wouldnt it be better, if you raised like the best product feedback and the funny jokes to the top?

KS: Maybe. And maybe thats a problem well decide to solve at some point. But right now were just focused on making sure that people dont feel hate, you know? And I think thats a valid thing to go after, and Im excited to do it.

NT: So the thing that interests me the most is that its like Instagram is a world with 700 million people, and youre writing the constitution for the world. When you get up in the morning and you think about that power, that responsibility, how does it affect you?

KS: Doing nothing felt like the worst option in thew world. So starting to tackle it means that we can improve the world; we can improve the lives of as many young people in the world that live on social media. I dont have kids yet; I will someday, and I hope that kid, boy or girl, grows up in a world where they feel safe online, where I as a parent feel like theyre safe online. And you know the cheesy saying, with great power comes great responsibility. We take on that responsibility. And were going to go after it. But that doesnt mean that not acting is the correct option. There are all sorts of issues that come with acting, youve highlighted a number of them today, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt act. That just means we should be aware of them and we should be monitoring them over time.

NT: One of the critiques is that Instagram, particularly for young people is very addictive. And in fact theres a critique being made my Tristen Harris who was a-classmate of yours, and a classmate of Mikes, and a student in the same class as Mikes. And he says that the design of Instagram deliberately addicts you. For example, when you open it up it just- KS: Sorry Im laughing just because I think the idea that anyone inside here tries to design something that is maliciously addictive is just so far fetched. We try to solve problems for people and if by solving those problems for people they like to use the product, I think weve done our job well. This is not a casino, we are not trying to eke money out of people in a malicious way. The idea of Instagram is that we create something that allows them to connect with their friends, and their family, and their interests, positive experiences, and I think any criticism of building that system is unfounded.

NT: So all of this is aimed at making Instagram better. And it sounds like changes so far have made Instagram better. Is any of it aimed at making people better, or is there any chance that the changes that happen on Instagram will seep into the real world and maybe, just a little bit, the conversations in this country will be more positive than theyve been?

KS: I sure hope we can stem any negativity in the world. Im not sure we would sign up from that day one. Um, but I actually want to challenge the initial premise which is that this is about making Instagram better. I actually think its about making the internet better. I hope someday the technology that we develop and the training sets we develop and the things we learn we can pass on to startups, we can pass on our peers in technology, and we actually together build a kinder, safer, more inclusive community online.

NT: Will you open source the software youve built for this?

KS: Im not sure. Im not sure. I think a lot of it comes back to how good it performs, and the willingness of our partners to adopt it.

NT: But what if this fails? What if actually people actually get kind of turned off by instagram, they say, Instagrams becoming like Disneyland, I dont want to be there. And they share less?

KS: The thing I love about Silicon Valley is weve bear hugged failure. Failure is what we all start with, we go through, and hopefully we dont end on, on our way to success. I mean Instagram wasnt Instagram initially. It was a failed start up before. I turned down a bunch of job offers that would have been really awesome along the way. That was failure. Ive had numerous product ideas at Instagram that were totally failures. And thats okay. We bear hug it because when you fail at least youre trying. And I think thats actually what makes Silicon Valley different from traditional business. Is that our tolerance for failure here is so much higher. And thats why you see bigger risks and also bigger payoffs.

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Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom on Free Speech, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet Addiction. - WIRED

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