Persons unknown, and their algorithm driven robots, swarm over your social network posts passing judgement, and often dole out punishing remarks and censorship and you never know who they are or how their actions could possibly be justified.  You’ve broken no laws.  No one you know is offended.  But these crusading demons act with impunity.

Why do we stand for it?  We’re all judged by the court of public opinion, and that’s fair.  But these masked raiders and supercilious factcheckers certainly don’t operate in public.  They slither and strike at the most innocuous material because it triggered their wokeness or poked at their politics.  They have the right to complain, but they should never be empowered to censor or punish.  In America, only judges and juries are allowed such power. 

Can you imagine yourself in a courtroom where all the jurors had bags over their heads and the judge was fully shrouded behind a mask?  Wouldn’t you scream, “This is an outrage!”

Yet, these bandits of the internet are stealing your voice and crushing your influence on a daily basis.  And we’re not just talking about the public square.  They go so far as to intercede in family matters.  Maybe you just wanted to share a news story with your children but were cancelled. 

How is it possible action such as this is tolerated?  Are we that weak, to take such abuse and not reject the source?  And we’re not talking about running from a mod.  As far as we know, a single individual with the job title Fact Checker is deciding what we can say or share, even among friends.  Really?

In civil society, we judge each other based upon community standards and community standards arise from no one individual but from many persons who are fair witnesses of the world around us.  And “fair” witnesses are only those who reveal themselves in the public square. 

Social network service providers have rights too.  Private companies should be allowed to take whatever lawful action they like over their user community. 

Public companies are another matter.  Public company owners represent the public at large.  Therefore, they should abide by public law and public standards of behavior.  In the public square you don’t get to stifle that man on the soapbox.  The crowd can shout them down, and that’s how public social networks should work. 

Purge the fact checkers and replace them with an algorithm that enables the user community to judge the appropriateness or inappropriateness of our posts.  Then, when the overwhelming majority declare something obscene or offensive, flag it so with a warning label.  Nothing gets cancelled unless it’s clearly condemned by nearly everyone. 

User community standards gives context to any judgements applied and would be most fair.  Art lovers frequenting a photography site may have different standards than soccer mom’s on the middle school’s website, and that’s OK.  My circle of “friends” may be perfectly fine with my colorful language, and if those friends are the limit of the community being addressed, then there is no justification for an outsider to intervene in judgement.

Again, let the community decide.  Flag content where two-thirds or more of the community vote to flag it, and only when the sample size exceeds one hundred.  To censor or expunge content, nearly everyone over a larger sample size must agree.  Let’s say ninety percent of over one thousand people. The shout-down effect. And, like the public nature of a seated jury, no anonymous person gets to participate in judgement of any content.  Only persons verified to be a “Fair Witness” get to judge.  All votes are logged, posted for review and readily accessible and attributable to those Fair Witnesses.

Any adult can be a Fair Witness if they are willing to present themselves to the community.  The criteria are simple:  18 or older, first and last name, passport quality picture, and state of residence.  No more than what’s required for jury duty.

Why the Fair Witness?  Because people in public tend to behave in a civil manner.  Anonymity is a cloak of darkness and deceit.  It gives rise to unfair and bad behavior.

It’s just a matter of programming folks.  A plug-in to whatever Social App.

Wouldn’t this be a win-win for the social network and its users?