Faces of Free Speech with Destiny
Starring political commentator Steven Bonnell II (Destiny), Faces of Free Speech integrates different perspectives on free speech into a synthesis view.
CREDITS
Brought to you by: Synthesis Media
Director: Stephanie Lepp
Script: Stephanie Lepp and Steven Bonnell
Starring: Destiny (Steven Bonnell)
Music: Never Giving Up On You, by GARDNR
Special thanks: Mary Anne Franks, Jonah Sachs, Corey deVos, Jeff Salzman, and Max Paine
POINTS OF SYNTHESIS
When it comes to free speech, the defining polarity is: rights and responsibilities. Some perspectives are holding the mantle of our fundamental right to speak freely. Other perspectives are holding the mantle of our responsibility to protect people from the harm that speaking freely can cause. The idea isn’t to choose between rights and responsibilities, but to hold both in dynamic equilibrium.
In some contexts, more speech might be a remedy for bad speech, but in outrage-fueled echo chambers, more speech just leads to more outrage.
If we want more speech to be a remedy for bad speech, we have to improve the health of the information landscape in which speech happens. That means creating conditions that reward curiosity and critical thought over outrage and spectacle. Just like a healthy gut keeps harmful bacteria in check, a healthy information landscape reduces the need for constant cleanup.
Ultimately, the goal is to create spaces where signal rises above the noise. Spaces that encourage the kind of speech that actually is a remedy for bad speech, and actually does protect democracy from tyranny. For instance, instead of asking ‘moderation yes or no,’ we can ask: ‘how do we use moderation in a way that allows us to need it less?
Let’s reframe the debate: from ‘free speech versus safety’ to (bear with me here) ‘speech that undermines the possibility of future speech versus speech that preserves it.’ Sometimes protecting free speech will mean protecting controversial speech. Other times it will mean limiting coordinated harassment. But always with the aim of creating conditions for the widest breadth of voices to speak freely in a changing society.
SCRIPT
THESIS: Dude, free speech is THE foundation of liberal democracy.
ANTI-THESIS: No shit, Sherlock. But it’s not supposed to be an unbounded right.
THESIS: It’s literally the right that protects all the other rights! If you can’t dissent, then all other rights are on the chopping block.
ANTI-THESIS: Sure, but free speech must be balanced with other values — like truth, and safety! That’s why some speech is RESTRICTED — like, you can’t call 9-1-1 on your neighbors just because they’re irritated that you’re screaming at your monitor all day, or tell your fans to kill me just because I’m stealing your ladder points. And restricted speech ALWAYS lands hardest on vulnerable people.
THESIS: Um, “vulnerable people” have actually been PROTECTED by their freedom to speak! Remember civil rights? Woman’s suffrage? Stonewall? Do you think that those movements would have SURVIVED if MLK and Rosa Parks were banned from social media?
ANTI-THESIS: You think MLK and Rosa Parks would even be DISCOVERED on today’s social media?! They’d drown in the swamp of Russian spam and failed-comedian podcasts. Someone HAS to moderate.
THESIS: And you want to hand that power to Elon? To Zuckerberg?!
ANTI-THESIS: Okay, c’mon. Platforms are private companies that can make their own rules. If someone lied about you on your subreddit, I bet you’d ban them too.
THESIS: Duh! But yesterday’s crazy theory is today’s scientific consensus. Tesla, Galileo, Socrates — they were all so-called “misinformation-spreaders.”
ANTI-THESIS: Okay, in the past, the ruling class might have restricted speech to suppress Tesla and Galileo, but today, “free speech” has people believing in Jewish weather machines and flat Earth! That’s the PARADOX: when lies are constantly going viral, then shutting some people up might actually protect other people who are actually telling the truth.
THESIS: Look — there are two ways to combat bad speech: good speech or war. So unless you wanna switch to killing each other every single time we disagree, we need to allow ideas to be aired and challenged through debate. The remedy for bad speech…is MORE speech.
ANTI-THESIS: Okay, but speech actually CAN lead to war! Is the remedy to death threats just more death threats? Is the solution to child porn just more child porn??? We need restrictions, or else this whole conversation devolves into a dumpster fire.
SYNTHESIS: Okay, your micro is so bad you just need to F1 A everything because this is pathetic. And you, your macro is so bad I’m not even sure if you’re using hotkeys. The reality is, you’re each seeing different parts of the same BIGGER picture.
THESIS: Huh?
SYNTHESIS: When it comes to free speech, the defining polarity is: RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES.
One of you [cut to Thesis] is holding the mantle of our fundamental RIGHT to speak freely. The other [cut to Anti-Thesis] is holding the mantle of our RESPONSIBILITY to protect people from the HARM that speaking freely can cause. The idea isn’t to choose BETWEEN rights and responsibilities, but to hold BOTH in dynamic equilibrium.
But here’s the twist: we’re not balancing rights and responsibilities in a vacuum. We’re now balancing them on private platforms that are locked in an arms race to capture our attention — even if it costs us our sanity. In some contexts, more speech might be a remedy for bad speech, but in outrage-fueled echo chambers, more speech just leads…to more outrage.
So how do we protect free speech in this new landscape? Well, if we want more speech to be a remedy for bad speech, we have to IMPROVE THE HEALTH of the information landscape in which speech happens.
THESIS and ANTI-THESIS: Score! Totally!
THESIS and ANTI-THESIS: Wait, we agree?!
SYNTHESIS: Just like a healthy gut keeps harmful bacteria in check, a healthy information landscape reduces the need for constant cleanup. That means CREATING CONDITIONS that reward curiosity and critical thought over outrage and spectacle.
ANTI-THESIS: So….how do we do that?
THESIS: Well, before posting, you could ask: “would I say this to someone’s face?”
ANTI-THESIS: Yeah, and platforms can track metrics that actually indicate a healthy gut, so to speak — like positive engagement from people that are normally outside our normal bubbles.
THESIS: And we can create cultural norms around things like steel-manning — where instead of tearing down the WEAKEST versions of each other’s arguments, we represent the STRONGEST versions and engage with THAT instead.
ANTI-THESIS: And how about changing the social media business model? From an ad-based model that incentivizes inflammatory click-bait, to subscription- and COMMONS-based models that incentivize thoughtful discourse.
SYNTHESIS: Ultimately, the goal is to create spaces where signal rises above the noise. Spaces that encourage the kind of speech that actually IS a remedy for bad speech, and actually DOES protect democracy from tyranny. For instance, instead of asking ‘moderation yes or no,’ we can ask: ‘how do we use moderation in a way that allows us to need it less?
So let’s reframe the debate: from ‘free speech versus safety’ to (bear with me here) ‘speech that UNDERMINES the possibility of future speech versus speech that PRESERVES it.’ Sometimes protecting free speech will mean protecting controversial speech. Other times it will mean limiting coordinated harassment. But always with the aim of creating conditions for the widest breadth of voices to speak freely in a changing society.
THESIS: So….re-match?
ANTI-THESIS: Let’s go :)
CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
On one hand, the trajectory of free speech has been evolutionary: over the long arc of history, we’re evolving from fighting with sticks and stones to ideas and words. On the other hand, free speech faces new threats: from business models built to maximize engagement at all cost.
The poor state of online discourse can’t be blamed entirely on the platforms. The platforms are working exactly as designed in a business environment that rewards profit over long-term multi-stakeholder value. Which means we must go upstream of the business model, beyond capitalism — to the incentives that drive individual rational actors to create irrational collective outcomes. Specifically, we must go all the way to Moloch.
Moloch is the ancient demon of coordination failure. It’s the force that traps us in tragedies of the commons, arms races, and other competitive dynamics where individual rational actors create irrational collective outcomes. In the context of free speech, the platforms know that maximizing engagement incentivizes inflammatory content, but if they don’t maximize engagement, they’ll lose to those who do. Don’t hate the players, change the game.
We don’t have to choose between rights and responsibilities — we can create spaces that maximize both. In fact, it’s precisely by creating a healthy infosphere — that’s inclusive to diverse voices and free of profit-driven manipulation — that we can protect vulnerable communities from genuine harm while preserving space for dissent, scientific inquiry, and social progress.
REFERENCES
Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment, Mary Anne Franks (2024)
“Fearless Speech”: A Conversation With Mary Anne Franks, University of Virginia School of Law (2024)
The Eternally Radical Idea, Honestly with Bari Weiss (2022)
Currents 050: Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech, The Jim Rutt Show (2022)
Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech For All Suzanne Nossel, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College (2022)
Open letter to Elon Musk from Greg Lukianoff on preserving free expression on social media, Greg Lukianoff (2022)
Elon Musk Wants to Unlock Speech on Twitter. Here’s How He Can Advance Free Expression for Good, Suzanne Nossel (2022)
Musk and Moderation, in Quillette by Jim Rutt (2022)
Charlottesville reflections with Rodney Smolla: So to Speak podcast, FIRE (2020)
Suzanne Nossel, Andrew Marantz, and Sewell Chan in Conversation | Open Book on Location, Altadena Library (2020)
The Future of Free Speech, Suzanne Nossel | TEDxScarsdale (2018)
Steven is a good actor actually.
On the substance, however, I wish he had more to say not only on WHAT is being said but also WHO can say them to WHOM. I think they're just as important and everybody knows it -we restrict children from certain content, we don't allow witnesses to lie-, and might just be the thing that would regulate today's media environment!
Holycow this came outta nowhere and absolutely impressed tf outta me! What an amazing piece of content!