You Have No Power Over Me
We want to wake up in the morning with the partner or partners we choose, in a home we chose and decorated how we like, have the breakfast we want to eat, wear the clothes we feel like wearing, go to work or school by the means we choose, maybe in the car or on the bike, work at the job we chose or study the classes we chose, come home and play the games or watch whatever shows we want, listen to or play the music we love, read or write what we want, or go out and get sporty, work out or hang out with the friends we chose… you get the picture, right?
I decide what course I study, what job I do or business I run, what clothes I make or wear, what food I eat. If I want to be a Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Pagan, or be open about my orientation and engage my gender and sexuality, be it gay, straight, trans, poly or whatever, that’s definitely my choice that I am free to make without retribution, and nothing to do with you or my mother, father, uncle, brothers or anyone else.
We want to do all these things without fear or duress. If I choose a same-sex partner or marry two men, that’s my business. If I wear pants or a dress, my business. If I want to read, write or share a book about trans kids that’s my business. It’s NOT your business and the only role for government here is to provide the framework of agreements that protects both my freedoms and yours.
I Show Up as Myself
Even if I work for ‘your’ business, you have no right to curtail my freedoms as long as I can do the work that needs done, respect the law and abide by common decency. The duty of a barista is to respectfully make and serve coffee, in a good or bad mood, with a frown or a smile and show up as themselves. It is not to dress up in a green and white mermaid suit and fake a smile for 10 hours. We’ve allowed owners to take far too many liberties with our liberties.
As long as I don’t harm anyone, I am free to be myself, say what I want, and to fashion myself how I like and run with the crowd I like.
Accountability
But just because I’m free doesn’t mean that I’m not accountable. Freedom, accountability and responsibility, when fully blossomed, work together to maximise freedom and well being for all.
Capitalism and conservatism, on the other hand, encourage unaccountability under the false rubric of privacy. They hide a multitude of sins under the veil of privacy and anonymity, and that is wrong.
I am free to say what I want, but not if I express myself purely with the intent to bully, harass or cause harm, especially under the guise of anonymity.
The freedoms of Transformationism:
Freedom from harm, meaning coercion, false incentive, theft, exploitation, oppression, discrimination (including discrimination before the law), violence, mutilation, torture, enslavement, degradation, arbitrary detainment, invasion of privacy or otherwise inhumane treatment.
Freedom of thought, belief, movement, relationship, gender, sexuality, expression, association, assembly, vocation, culture and self-determination.
Expression
Expression includes individual and organizational speech, artistic expression, mediated expression, unlimited personal expression in any word, deed, appearance, ornamentation, decoration, sound, music, meaning, gesture, style, quality, intensity, sincerity, comedy, performance or language.
Note: freedom of expression does not entail anonymity of expression.
Please also note that the Transformationist book of rights and freedoms is a work in progress.
Policy Example: Accountability in Social Media
Transformationist governments will create a digital identity authentication service for digital media, and encourage the growth of social media platforms where,
a) users are not anonymous or anonymized and are thereby personally accountable for their expressions
b) commercial interests cannot pollute the exchange of information
c) political or economic groups cannot utilize fake accounts to spread disinformation
d) groups cannot use accounts without the personal accountability of their members
Authenticated child and youth accounts can be used to protect children and youth from manipulative content and predation by limiting access to specific services to child and youth accounts. For example, a chat service can be limited to accountable and authenticated child and youth accounts with parental controls. The same authentication can be used as a digital ID that can prompt general apps and websites to restrict access to manipulative or otherwise inappropriate content automatically.
Policy Example: Controlling Advertising
Transformationism does not consider advertising or marketing (commercial expression) to qualify as the type of expression understood to be protected under the general principle of freedom of expression.
Transformationism will use legislation to require digital service providers to decisively disambiguate all informative, educational, artistic and personal expression from commercial expression throughout all forums and services. This would include all streaming and broadcasting services, content creators, social media platforms, search engines and websites, programs and shows.
Tentatively, products and services with commercial expression must have, at least, the option to ‘include’ commercial expressions on a case-by-case basis, with ‘exclude’ being the default option on all commercial expressions. Again, this would include all streaming and broadcasting services, content creators, social media platforms, search engines, apps, websites, programs and shows.
However, providers will not be permitted to create multiple tier memberships where they can charge more for commercial-free content.
People will be able to pay for the content they want because Transformationism will bring prosperity. Commercial information can flow through separate, optional channels.
Policy Example: Social Media, Children and Youth
Tentatively…
All products and services provided for the use of children and youth will be free of commercial expressions, including commercial sponsorship of individual children or families.
All child and youth engagement with digital media up to an agreed upon age will proceed via an authenticated digital ID that identifies the user as a child and automatically restricts content across the internet.
All services will be disambiguated with include/exclude functions easily accessible to parents. For example, at minimum, a parent will be empowered to enable a child’s access to the chat function of a service while disabling their access to a social media feed.
At most, parents can be empowered to allow access to specific commercial feeds on a separate channel and to control the flow of information on that channel.
Policy Example: Selling User Information
By requiring digital media service providers to disambiguate commercial expression and render attention to it fully discretional, Transformationism empowers users with greater freedom to govern their personal attention.
People will be further empowered with discretionary powers over the sale or sharing or their personal information. Transformationism will require digital service providers to elicit uncoerced, unincentivized and fully informed consent to gather and/or share personal information from each of any disambiguated service, solely for the purpose of improving the relevance of commercial expressions to the user.
In time, I will try to address the many other facets of life impacted by our agreements about rights and freedoms. If you share my values and like the Transformationist manifesto, please let me know as I would love some collaborators. Also, be aware that I ignore haters.
Copyright Simon Wilson and Transformationism