Ben Franklin Was All About Content Moderation

Well, here’s a weird one. I was going through the various amicus briefs filed in support of the governments of Texas and Florida’s ability to tell websites that they must host speech that violates their rules, and, damn, there are some ridiculous ones (more posts coming on that front soon…). However, one of them — which I’m not even going to bother linking to — had this bizarre passage trying to argue that founding father Ben Franklin supported “common carrier” laws for owners of printing presses.

This… struck me as very odd. I did a search on the quote in the brief, and found it was also quoted on the website of a sketchy nonsense peddling think tank making the same argument. But the whole thing sounded quite silly, so I decided to dig into the full quote (not the partial, extracted version) used by nonsense peddlers trying to pretend that social media can be a common carrier.

If you want to understand all the many, many reasons why it makes no sense to call websites common carriers, I covered that a while ago. The shortest version of the argument, though, is that throughout the history of common carriage, it’s always been about temporary service, most of which is “carrying” something (people, cargo, data) from point A to point B, and then being done with it. Even public access laws are about letting people in for a short period of time.

But, with websites and social media, there’s a hosting aspect — which goes on in perpetuity. And that makes no sense at all for a “common carrier.” You have to allow them to host something… forever? What?

Anyway, let’s get back to Ben Franklin. The quote that’s being passed around, misleadingly, is from his Autobiography which is very much in the public domain these days. And, read in context, it sure sounds like someone who supports the rights of private property owners to refuse to promote and distribute works of people they feel are up to no good:

In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which any one who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests.

The ridiculous amicus brief argues that this is Ben Franklin supporting that printers are a “common carrier” who should expect to print whatever people want. But, it’s hard to read that full quote as anything like that at all.

Franklin is clearly stating that printers have no obligation to print whatever customers want, and certainly not to put it next to other content they do support. In fact, he’s suggesting that they should refuse to do so, and actually seems to suggest that “augmenting animosity” through the use of their printing presses is not a noble pursuit.

Indeed, this quote seems to make the very point that websites are making in this case: that when it’s your printing press you get to decide what you print, what you distribute, and how. The states’ argument is literally the reverse of this. They think they can force the printing presses (websites) to not just print whatever speech the government wants them to print, but also to host it in perpetuity.

And that’s true even if (or, in the case of Texas and Florida, especially if) the intent of that speech is “personal abuse” and “augmenting animosity.”

But any actual reading of Franklin in context suggests he wishes printers chose “not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices.” Instead, he suggests they moderate — that they “refuse steadily.”

It sure sounds like Ben Franklin would support the right of private websites to choose to do what they wanted with their own printing presses, and never to be mandated by law to have to be forced into such “infamous practices.”