Suzanne Nossel headshot

Photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Every Friday, we discuss tricky questions about free speech and expression with our CEO Suzanne Nossel, author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, in our weekly PEN Pod segment “Tough Questions.” In this week’s episode, we talked about the way the attempted coup at the Capitol prompted congressional Republicans to realize the damage that President Trump has inflicted, the “conspiracy treadmill” that enabled this insurrection, and how to stay vigilant as the inauguration approaches.

We’re recording on Thursday morning, just hours after an insurgency on the American Capitol. I’m not going to ask you to make any predictions. Instead, I’m just curious what you make of the last 24 hours—in particular, what it says about the power of words, speech, and the threat of disinformation.
 It was shocking, appalling, shameful, embarrassing. Particularly, as someone who has represented the U.S. around the world, just thinking about how this looked through the eyes of allies and adversaries in foreign capitals, and they will never be able to unsee it—to me, it’s a day that lives in infamy. The hope I have—if there’s any silver lining—is that we, as so many others over the last four years, have been on a desperate quest to try to convince congressional Republicans to face up to the danger that Donald Trump represents to our democracy, and nothing would do the trick: not the lies and corruption over Ukraine, not the misogyny, not the racism, not the suborning of white supremacists in Charlottesville, not the nepotism, not the self-dealing, not the inflaming of allies, the courting of Putin. None of that would persuade congressional Republicans that this man posed a serious risk to everything that we stand for.

The irony is that yesterday, those protesters—insurrectionists, let’s call them—hit the bullseye. They went right to the heart of Congress and sent senators fleeing for their safety, in fear. Finally, at least on the Senate’s side, it seems like some of them have woken up to the fact that this man poses grave peril to everything that we stand for, and you saw some shifting of opinions last night. Unfortunately, that pattern really wasn’t borne out in the House of Representatives. So the silver lining, if there is one, is that as Trump’s legacy begins to harden, this is the image—these horrifying images of looting and pillaging of the Capitol, just rank lawlessness, derisiveness, chaos. That’s what he sowed from the beginning, that’s what we were worried about in 2016, that was the logical conclusion to this presidency, and perhaps now we’ll finally see him own up to that.

“The silver lining, if there is one, is that as Trump’s legacy begins to harden, this is the image—these horrifying images of looting and pillaging of the Capitol, just rank lawlessness, derisiveness, chaos. That’s what he sowed from the beginning, that’s what we were worried about in 2016, that was the logical conclusion to this presidency, and perhaps now we’ll finally see him own up to that.”

The president ended up sending out a few tweets and a video message yesterday. Shortly thereafter, the social platforms actually took action against them, first flagging the posts, pulling them, and then ultimately suspending Trump and his accounts on those social platforms. Is that a little too late for these social media platforms, especially as we learn more about how these insurrectionists were organizing basically in the light of day on these platforms?
 Look, I have had the position over the last few years that there is reason for Twitter to allow the president to use the platform, and that there is some merit in enabling the American people and publics around the world to hear directly from the president and to see him for who he is. I think that’s been revealing, and perhaps it’s one of the reasons that the political tide has turned against him. I always made the exception—I wrote a piece on this with my colleague, Summer Lopez, about a year and a half ago—we said in that piece very clearly, if it comes to actual incitement and calls for lawlessness, that’s where the line should be drawn.

Now, did Trump do that? I think you will not find incitement in the words that he used—you have to contextualize it: Rudy Giuliani talking about trial by combat, Trump calling on supporters to march down to the Capitol, knowing that many of them were armed, and with this message of mortal grievance that this election had purportedly been stolen from them. So I think that went far enough—I think Twitter was justified. I find it to be a relief that he is off the platform, and I hope they keep him off the platform for the next two weeks.

“At a certain point, while there is value to people being able to hear directly from a leader, these [social media] platforms are not just your bulletin boards. That’s something that’s become clear to me over the last year or so—the ways in which the algorithms are a jet fuel ignition for certain kinds of incendiary messages. So it’s not simply a matter of letting them say something, but it’s that the platform is allowing that message to explode and providing the gunpowder for it.”

The legal standard for incitement in this country is a very high one. It’s very narrow—it’s only incitement to imminent violence. Even Giuliani’s comments about trial by combat I don’t think would meet that very strict criteria, but Twitter and Facebook are not bound to that definition. It’s become patently clear that utterances that fall far short of that legal definition can nonetheless prompt violent action, and that’s what we saw yesterday. There’s no question that this was encouraged, inspired, and egged on by the president not just in his proximate speech yesterday morning, but over the last few months in his rallying of this sense of aggrievedness on behalf of his supporters who he knows are prone to violence, who took violent action over the summer in Michigan, taking over the state house there—something that he encouraged and applauded.

I think it was well justified. I think we’ll be debating for a long time whether they should have taken action sooner, and perhaps they should have. At a certain point, while there is value to people being able to hear directly from a leader, these platforms are not just your bulletin boards. That’s something that’s become clear to me over the last year or so—the ways in which the algorithms are a jet fuel ignition for certain kinds of incendiary messages. So it’s not simply a matter of letting them say something, but it’s that the platform is allowing that message to explode and providing the gunpowder for it.

“It’s so tempting to want to turn the page and to listen to the soothing tones of members of the new administration, who bring integrity, competence, and reason. And that’s all great, but I do worry that if we are too quick to turn the page, and if we don’t force ourselves through the difficult work of coming to grips with and understanding at a deeper collective level of what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and how to prevent it, we open ourselves up to the risk that it can happen again.”

Something else we have to come to grips with is that, apparently, these demonstrations and the takeover of the capital—the attempted coup—were organized on these shadowy, less mainstream social media platforms where conspiracy theories flourish. We see there was one conspiracy theory dominant yesterday: The election was stolen, which is a manifest, proven falsehood. Today, there’s another one. These protesters, now that they sort of hang their heads in shame—and so many people have disavowed and decried what happened—the new conspiracy theory is that it was actually Black Lives Matter or antifa protesters masquerading as Trumpers and taking over the Capitol, which is just patently a lie, and nonetheless, a claim that is being amplified and trafficked this morning. So we have a lot of work to do.

I was actually going to raise that. In a tweet this morning, you called it a “conspiracy treadmill,” which I think is pretty apt. It seems like, on the one hand, there’s this action being taken against the Trump account, and maybe it was long overdue and it’s a relief over the next two weeks that maybe he’ll be somewhat limited on these platforms. But it doesn’t seem to address that problem—the conspiracy treadmill problem.
 I agree. We’ve done a lot of work on disinformation defense, educating people about the dangers of disinformation, equipping them to spot it, check it, and stop it—this was the basis of our campaign in the pre-election period, and we’ve done trainings for tens of thousands of people, and put out tip sheets and information and videos that have reached millions. That’s all great, but what worries me is that there is a hardened core that is very difficult for us and all the other well-meaning organizations working in this space to really reach, because they are in an information bubble that we don’t really penetrate. That’s a place where we really need to do some work, researching how to get to these people, what messages resonate, who they trust and why they trust them, and how to finally interrupt this cycle. Even if it’s 15 or 20 percent of Americans, what we saw yesterday is that the potential for harm just from a few thousand marauders to our international reputation and standing was really great.

“We really need to do some work, researching how to get to these people, what messages resonate, who they trust and why they trust them, and how to finally interrupt this cycle. Even if it’s 15 or 20 percent of Americans, what we saw yesterday is that the potential for harm just from a few thousand marauders to our international reputation and standing was really great.”

Finally, we’re now less than two weeks from the inauguration. It feels a little bit like an eternity, but what can we—as defenders of free speech—do in the coming days to be vigilant?
 I think we have to absolutely keep our foot on the pedal when it comes to disinformation, conspiracy theories, and the debunking and the prebunking that we have been doing, holding the media accountable to cover and tell this story accurately. We saw yesterday there were some attacks on the press and the disregard of the press that the president once again was resorting to, the “enemy of the American people” rhetoric at his rally. So we need to hold firm in defense of the press. As PEN America, we take an enlightened approach to free expression and the role of truth and facts in our society.

I think the question is how we reckon with the Trump era—what is the retrospective here? Is there a truth and reconciliation process that we can undertake? It’s so tempting to want to turn the page and to listen to the soothing tones of members of the new administration, who bring integrity, competence, and reason. And that’s all great, but I do worry that if we are too quick to turn the page, and if we don’t force ourselves through the difficult work of coming to grips with and understanding at a deeper collective level of what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and how to prevent it, we open ourselves up to the risk that it can happen again.