Review: Filtering a dim life
Chance encounters with new ideas broaden the mind. What, then, of technology
that filters out the unfamiliar?
Published: May 2 2001 17:55GMT | Last Updated: May 3 2001 10:28GMT
Patti Waldmeir Financial Times
The US constitution protects freedom of speech. Does it also protect my freedom
to tune out anything I do not wish to hear?
Professor Cass Sunstein, one of America's leading constitutional scholars, has
written a new book, Republic.com*, which argues against the unfettered right to
block one's ears.
It is an intriguing argument, which starts from the premise that new
technologies - and especially the internet - will dramatically narrow the life
experience of citizens by allowing them to filter out the wealth of human
diversity. That will, in turn, jeopardise democracy, free speech and the
American republic.
Prof Sunstein, professor of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, worries
that instead of broadening man's horizons by providing a mad profusion of
information and viewpoints, the internet might actually drive him back into his
cave, where he can bar entrance to all but the most ideologically congenial
visitors.
Many of us, of course, would prefer to dwell in such a cave, where we could
tune our antennae to receive only those messages of most immediate relevance to
the troglodytic life - tips on bat control, say, or on smokeless cooking.
Life in the internet-enabled cave of the future may, Prof Sunstein speculates,
be sheltered by filtering technology that will ensure that we never have to
listen to, see or read anything we do not choose in advance.
On Monday this week, I spent the whole day in just such isolation. I visited
only websites congenial to my political views. I read only my own personalised
newspaper, a sort of Waldmeir Times, delivered electronically by
individual.com, the aptly named website.
It covered only topics that I had selected in advance and it included news
about gene therapy for doggy blindness, job losses at Knight Ridder, the media
group, and the financial results of Pearson, which owns the Financial Times.
The Waldmeir Times did not inform me (as Monday's printed newspapers did) that
3m people had died in the Congolese civil war or that anti-globalisation
protests in Washington, DC, had fizzled. It did not tell me of the demise of a
particularly virulent northern Michigan militia or of the good deeds of
octogenarian volunteers in New York City.
It did not tell me because I did not ask. I am in general bored by
globalisation and small wars in Africa, by violent conservatives and benevolent
octogenarians. So I did not include them in topics to be covered by the
Waldmeir Times.
But when The New York Times or the Financial Times forces me to page past such
stories, I quite often stop to read them. I would never choose to do so in
advance but in an unplanned encounter with a story about African genocide, my
better nature triumphs.
That is Prof Sunstein's point. In the world of imperfect filtering, we stumble
over ideas and views we would never seek out and with which we may violently
disagree. But at least we encounter them; and these encounters are central to
the US model of democracy.
They are also central to freedom of speech, Prof Sunstein argues. For freeing
speech means not only forbidding government censorship but also making space
for those who wish to be heard. He points to a US Supreme Court ruling from
early this century that held that American streets and parks must be kept open
to the public for expressive activity.
This "public forum" doctrine of free speech law forces me, by municipal taxes,
to subsidise speech that I may find absurd, if not dangerous. It guarantees
that even nutters can have their say and prevents me avoiding them.
Filtering will keep such intruders from the streets and parks I visit
digitally. Prof Sunstein thinks that is dangerous. Digital isolation will make
it harder for society to solve common problems as it diminishes the range of
experiences we share. It may mean social fragmentation and polarisation.
Prof Sunstein admits he may be overstating the problem and common sense tells
me he is: many Americans already filter out almost all news related to public
issues. Many never read a newspaper, listen to a news broadcast or, for that
matter, walk down a public street. It is hard to imagine how new technology
could increase their isolation.
Common sense also tells me that his proposals to counteract filtering will not
work. He suggests, for example, that visitors to popular or distinctively
political websites might find themselves automatically linked to opposition
viewpoints or sites of others who wish to be heard. Visitors to the Time
magazine site might find themselves opening a web page posted by opponents of
nuclear power.
Less intrusively, net users might find, when they visit popular websites, a
voluntary link to a random draw of sites designed to promote diversity. They
might even find an icon on every new computer desktop linking them to a special
government-subsidised website dedicated to airing many viewpoints.
Prof Sunstein may be right in asserting that such techniques would do no more
than recreate public streets on the internet. But I doubt that the Supreme
Court would see it that way.
He argues that such measures do not violate freedom of speech simply because
they frustrate the individual's freedom to choose when not to listen. His
conception of free speech extends well beyond consumer sovereignty. He believes
broader freedoms cannot be preserved unless listeners are exposed - against
their will, if necessary - to a range of viewpoints.
Prof Sunstein wants the market to correct its own failures. But if it does not,
Congress should legislate. The government already forces broadcasters to carry
educational programmes and closed-captioning for the deaf. Why not require the
same public-spirited approach when they are on the web, too?
But there is a difference. Broadcast spectrum is a limited resource allocated
by the government. This scarcity permits broadcasters to monopolise the
airwaves and gives the government the right to prevent them from choking off
free speech. The internet imposes no such restrictions. There is always room
for another webpage or another website with another point of view. So long as
anyone can create a website if they wish, I cannot imagine the current Supreme
Court sanctioning a requirement to display alternative views.
More importantly, governments never succeed in cajoling (let alone forcing)
citizens to improve themselves. We all think our fellow citizens should be more
public-spirited. But it is hard to believe the constitution requires it. They
either improve themselves because they want to or not at all.
* Republic.com, by Cass Sunstein, Princeton University Press, #12.95
