Onision & the Open Society: Will Social Media Break Democracy?

I mean we have this thing in English
innocent until proven guilty what about the guilty people mean an is Ian's guilty don't get me wrong he slept with the babysitter he came out here and he promised everyone he was never gonna sleep with her and he insulted the audience and said that you people have a dirty imagination to imagine he was sleeping with this girl just because she was living with him as their live-in babysitter and everyone was wrong and evil and bad accept him and then what do you know she turned 18 and he slept with her I don't think he's innocent I think he's guilty of that exactly as described but guess what we all got to live in a society together the innocent and the guilty alike what is controversy controversy is unearned attention so we have people quitting the house of parliament giving up their role in the democratic process because of controversy because it hurts them right and you have people who are accelerating their careers and becoming prominent influential politicians through controversy so controversy starts to become a currency to be exploited and maybe the darkest and most miserable interpretation of what an Essene has done in the latest chapter is that he did this intentionally just for the controversy but I mean look there's there's got to be justice and dignity and respect for all of us and even a scumbag like anisia look guys human rights aren't just for people you personally like they are civil rights aren't just for people you sympathize with how is it is Ian supposed to live what I look as bad as his conduct has been what he actually did you know there were allegations and insults being made I guess that are grossly exaggerated and wildly untrue and sometimes the figment of people's imagination what about justice and dignity and civil rights for him so we've reached the point where it's being asked is Twitter to mean is Twitter to rough-and-tumble for our elected representatives in democracy we've also got to ask is Twitter to mean as Twitter to our front temple for the weakest among us for the strongest most for the most notorious among us even for innocent himself in this video we're taking on the daring and difficult challenge of dealing with to two topics in one video adjust the position if you will there's a story in the mainstream press you may or may not have heard about British Parliament and about members of parliament resigning because they couldn't endure the controversy and the word controversy has huben reinterpreted as abuse and meanwhile in the demi-monde that is youtube's anisia initia is the man who has made his career out of controversy and he is now jokingly saying we all know it's a joke that he is gonna quit YouTube forever because he can't endure the controversy and or the abuse all right so you know there's a little bit of parallelism stick with me here we get to pass judgment on an Sen and we get to have some slightly profound reflections on the practical philosophy of democracy in the 21st century so the first thing I got to say about this this news story that you may have heard you may not even recognize it with this description this story has been picked up and broadcast on different TV stations radio shows and newspapers with significant differences in the slant or the interpretation placed on it but at its most extreme the story has been broadcast with the claim that an improbably large number of female members of parliament in England all simultaneously resigned their positions because they could not put up with the level of abuse being directed towards them on Twitter now if you do just a little bit of reading what your figure out is no it wasn't as if all these women have so much in common quite a few different members of parliament resigned for different reasons but in this cohort of women all resigning the same time it did include some examples that came close to that headline-grabbing version of the story so for example Heidi Allen Heidi Allen is a former Conservative member of parliament who has said now that she is not going to run for re-election at all because she cannot stand quote the nastiness and intimidation that has become commonplace so some of the other MPs also who resigned for other reasons did include in their reflections that they really don't appreciate the level of abuse again let's just pause and reflect here guys in the last 20 years the word harassment completely lost its meaning through overuse of the internet right I mean it's even in YouTube policy YouTube has a policy against harassment what's the meaning of harassment when you really look and do it on a technical level it's become impossible to define harassment and now I feel like just in the last five years the word abuse used to mean something tremendously serious and now sort of step-by-step the word is becoming more and more dilute in its meaning to the point where mean comments on Twitter are considered and categorized as abuse all right so Heidi Allen she was elected as a Conservative member of parliament and she is today a Liberal Democrat she switched parties now even if you know nothing about British politics you can imagine that would get you a lot of hate mail in any country around the world you may not use the term conservative and Liberal Democrat doesn't take much imagination if you were supported financially by the Conservative Party that was the party you said you were gonna represent and those people supported you when they voted for you and they came to your rallies and you said that was the ideology you were gonna represent in Parliament and then you're elected and then you decide to switch political parties and switch to a political party that at least on the level of adjectives is the diametric opposite a liberal Democrat party you're gonna get a lot of hate mail people are really gonna feel a sense of betrayal and hatred Wars you know the the whole story of Heidi Allen is more complex and convoluted than that in between being a member of those two parties she actually so she quit the Conservative Party to stand as an independent and then she teamed up with a number of independents and created a new political party that failed and then that new political party rebranded itself it's really quite an epic drama but this is this is as much controversy as you could possibly have as a Member of Parliament in the British system this is as the highest level of scrutiny and scorn you could possibly bring on yourself if you like peace and quiet maybe try dictatorship democracy as a system as many redeeming qualities social stability is not one of them you know if you like people who are mozi and cowed and afraid to state their opinions about politics try living in a tyranny try living in a dictatorship try living under an absolute monarchy you'd be amazed many people who grow up in England or America they don't know what it's like to live in a country where people are afraid to answer the question of what is your opinion or you know what's going on in politics where people really live with that level of fear and democracy were right now in Athens Greece I mean coming back to the Penix here in Athens and even even earlier this ancient tradition in Greece what you see again and again in the ancient texts that criticize democracy because the ancient texts don't celebrate it uncritically they really do talk about everything that's wrong with it this element of democracy is complained about politicians were ruthlessly ridiculed and satirized in the comedies in the theater in Athens and they didn't really appreciate it Socrates himself ruthlessly satirized and criticized in the theater in comedy and ultimately it got him killed ultimately he was executed in part because of the controversy that was stirred up in the scorn the criticism that was placed on Socrates in the theater and then eventually he went to court and what do you know you know the average man didn't didn't sympathize with his case didn't like his his side of the story so the rough and tumble of democracy I'm not saying all things are forgivable or all things are excusable but there are really some important questions to ask here but what did you expect what did you think the job was when you were elected to be a member of parliament I had an interesting moment reflecting on this I had a friend who went to Italy because he had a girlfriend in Italy he was enough he was a white Canadian and in Italy his girlfriend's brother was a major union activist so labor union leader when they met him he had two armed security guards and wore a bulletproof vest that was normal for him as a labor union activist labor union leader he had armed guards and more about professed when he went out in public from place to place this is Italy and I forget what year this was this is 2001 or something it's not that long ago right and you know this was normal but you know this is this is politics this is real politics all right I mean I do think the you know the question has to be asked what was democracy what is democracy and what ought democracy to be and I mean this sincerely I think it applies to people like an Sen as much as it applies to an elected member of parliament like Heidi Allen you guys may not know this about me I know what it's like to have really unreasonable rumors and allegations made about your sex life on the Internet and it's awful and it's heartbreaking and discredit to you and it makes you unemployable and you know then you're trying to do fundraising for a charity and nobody wants to have you there or you know I go to a conference on vegan activism and I know I know the people who are whispering against me were there at that conference and people are afraid to stand next to you or people are people feel intimidated to look you in the eye so on and so forth now look that's on them you got it you got a meeting vegan activists people say they're gonna change the world come on homie you gotta have a little bit more backbone than this if you got a problem with me you should have the courage to say it to my face if you've heard a rumor about me you should have the courage to talk to me about it and resolve it you know lay it to rest one way or the other you know come on you can't stand up to me can't talk to me and you want to stand up to Tyson chicken corporation Nestle corporation you want to stand up to you know the cheese and dairy Lobby you want to change the world you know come on this is ridiculous the level of just cowardice and sincerity in the vegan movement is a much bigger problem than the rumors against me but I know so there was a there was a young woman at the last vegan conference I attended and I know exactly what she says about me behind my back as other people tell me sometimes with a laugh and sometimes sometimes with a concern but I know she goes around tells me tells people about me you know he says really problematic things on his YouTube and that's all it takes that's all it takes to to denounce someone right now look I mean we have this thing in English innocent until proven guilty what about the guilty people and this seems guilty don't get me wrong he slept with the babysitter he came out here and he promised everyone he was never gonna sleep with her and he insulted the audience and said that you people have a dirty imagination to imagine he was sleeping with this girl just because she was living with him as their live-in babysitter and everyone was wrong and evil and bad accept him and then what do you know she turned 18 and he slept with her I don't think he's innocent I think he's guilty of that exactly as described but guess what we all got to live in a society together the innocent and the guilty alike you know and look it makes them course we have stated tolerance for people who are homosexual and trans actors that I completely did it completely dig the tolerance of light across the bedroom but yeah that we also have a question of well how much tolerance do we have for the oldest sin on earth guys if you read the Old Testament there are there are cases of us sleeping with and getting pregnant the the the slave who takes care of the children in the household service this goes back this goes back centuries because ultimately men aren't just immoral and selfish they're also lazy and the easiest woman to sleep with is the one he's already sleeping two rooms down the hall so it happens homie it happens and you know all these people think it's self-evident that Aniston doesn't have the right to earn a living as a comedian because he's loved with a babysitter look he's a bad dude there's a lot to learn from it it's a lot for him to learn it's a lot for us to learn I think he's in terms of even public relations he's handling this completely wrong I can disapprove as much as the rest of y'all okay but um you know how is this gonna work in a democratic society how are we gonna tolerate people as deeply flawed as a nishan so look it never occurred to me that Twitter would be the straw that broke the camel's back I think everyone assumed that communication is becoming more rapid and elected people in office becoming more transparent that this would only galvanize and improve democracy as we knew it but here we have a kind of canary in a coal mine situation where people and these people make a lot of money it's a very well paid job being a member what these people were elected and went to Parliament and they say they can't tolerate being criticized by the average man on the street you know via Twitter you know what is what does that tell you and you know initials had his whole sag he's brought a lot of this on himself but understandably he's saying sometimes joking and son is he's not joking that he can't handle you know the level of scrutiny and hate mail the nasty comments on Twitter or on YouTube on on Facebook or whatever media they're wrong so I mean I know for example he's not joking when he complains that his wife later his husband his broker is weeping he used to say oh you know Lanie is crying made her feel bad now he says kai is crying you made him feel bad same person what their gender transition so you know there's a sense in which he's not joking in all right here's the fundamental tragedy I think is that the time is gonna come when controversy becomes an end in itself how did a OC Alexandria Ocasio Cortes how did she become the most important politician in America she's she's one of them she's in the top ten now I mean she just did the cut tougher pardon me she appeared on the cover of Time magazine you know she's become an enormously influential and powerful person through controversy right what is controversy controversy is unearned attention so we have people quitting the house of problem and giving up their role in the democratic process because of controversy because it hurts them right and you have people who are accelerating their careers and becoming prominent influential politicians through controversy so controversy starts to become a currency to be exploited and maybe the darkest and most miserable interpretation of what Anacin has done in the latest chapter is that he did this intentionally just for the controversy have you considered that I mean you know he didn't need to sleep with the babysitter but he sure did need to get tens of thousands of views and you know again controversy is unearned attention think of from his perspective just how little effort it is now for him to get 50,000 views 100,000 views on a video that he recorded spontaneously taking off his shirt and pouring liquids over his head and it's this kind of nonsense this is really low effort you know drama mongering does anyone think it's impossible that Aniston started off this process by saying well there's a fork in the road if he does sleep with the babysitter this is going to lead to controversy this can lead to promotion this is going to lead to raising his profile that's going to lead to money in his pocket and if he doesn't then how is he going to get ahead talent hard work dedication so it's scary I mean yes it's kind of paradoxical to have an elected politician who wants to avoid controversy in the case of Heidi Allen in England there's no way you can quit your own political party and go work for the opposite political party and it not be controversial there's no way you can start your own political party and have it fail and then switch political parties and not be controversial and it's fundamentally incompatible with the role of the pursuit of public interests and debating the future of a democracy to avoid controversy for the sake your private life you're becoming a public figure and you're becoming a public figure on a mission on a crusade right but then there's a new kind of rot that's gonna set in to democracy where politicians will do whatever is most controversial do and say whatever is most controversial to propel their own career and you know I think it's happening already to a greater extent than people people realize the right-wing politician who just got banned from Twitter in the United States there's a right-wing conservative because she said another politician should be hung from the neck should be executed you think she doesn't know what she's doing I mean just like an SEM like you think he wasn't intentionally going for this controversy yo she who is she she's a nobody I mean there are so many there are hundreds and hundreds of people elected in the state Senate and the federal Senate and so on doesn't it start to become a competition for who can say the most outrageous thing much like Donald Trump himself to get that get that moment of the spotlight get that leverage get that influence the digitization of our social lives puts each and every one of us in a situation where the long-term consequences of the controversies we've been involved in go on forever endlessly permanently and they're instantly accessible by all in the United States of America anyone with a criminal record how trivial has enormous difficulty renting an apartment anyone who in the past has missed payments of their rent you know where there's a record of you failing to pay your rent on time has enormous difficulty now signing up to rent a new apartment lease a new apartment so and so whether these kinds of consequences and like I said about addition initiate is guilty you may be guilty but we've got to live together in a society the guilty and the innocent alike there was that young man covered in the press he had made some racist comments as a joke and it was obvious that it was a joke when he was still in high school and then his applications for university were turned down not all universities some rather than others you know this wasn't politically correct enough to get a university education again look who are you educating and it's a real question if you're a university don't you have a mission to educate racists and rednecks do you only accept students who are already at a very high level of enlightenment when the United States people University it's 17 years old you should be more interested in educating the ignorant than the racist you should whatever I'm you know get get motivated again aren't you teaching something worth learning do you want to read next to learn and look I mean you know I'm sincere about this I've asked people this question when there was this completely made up controversy above me was completely fake made up lies about my sex life but some said to people look if this were true like why are you doing this and what's your motivation where it's going like you know why just talk to me like if this is true you know it was completely impossible but like if I actually flew to Scotland have a love affair with the vegan lass she was a popular YouTube then flew back you know kind of so what but if I'd done this like this all this made-up crap but okay so you know where where do we go from here um I think an inn is completely guilty but I'm still really concerned about how we have a society including social media including all these ridiculous and how we have a democracy that really kind of you know includes and respects and that people like an isiand can participate in and it certainly is a bizarre contrast to look at elected members of parliament for whom it's outrageous to think that they would endure the slings and arrows of criticism when they've done something as obvious as being elected by the Conservative Party then quitting crossing the aisle as we say and joining another political party but look maybe we have to legislate on that too maybe we all have to sit down and ask ok what is the culture of public criticism you know what up most of these things are not written in any democracy you know it comes up in court every so often you know lawyers lose their temper and swear in court and then they have to face court proceedings punishing them for using curse words according you know it's night there's some vaguely written word vaguely written law about you know not disrespecting the judge or something well what does that really mean you know how is how is that applied hey look all these questions were there centuries ago I read this gruesome gruesome description of a debate about slavery in the American house of Congress that ended with one of the two members bleeding in a puddle of his own blood on the floor beaten half to death the the pro-slavery guy beat the other guy half to death didn't even challenge him to a duel just beat him right there on the on the Congress floor you guys been in this but you know in American history you have a couple different presidents who died in in duels or killed each other in duels were you know a single word of dishonor would result in men and men drawing pistols but I mean look there's there's got to be justice and dignity and respect for all of us and even a scumbag like initialise human rights aren't just for people you personally like they are civil rights aren't just for people you sympathize with how is it is Ian supposed to live what look as bad as his conduct has been what he actually did you know there were allegations and insults being made guess that are grossly exaggerated and wildly untrue and sometimes the figment of people's imagination what about justice and dignity and civil rights for him so we've reached the point where it's being asked is Twitter to mean is Twitter to rough-and-tumble for our elected representatives in democracy we've also got to ask is Twitter to mean is Twitter to Reverend Temple for the weakest among us for the strongest most for the most notorious among us even for an Sen himself [Music]