May 20, 2010
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The “We Own It” Argument
Recently there’s been a slew of controversy’s involving Apple. Amongst them being:
- Their closed App Store where they insist on approving all apps before making them available.
- Their statement of their refusal to allow Flash on iphones and ipads
- Their change in the terms of service to not allow apps that were created using software suites that translate code from any other languages (most notably Flash, but also .Net) into code that will run on the iphone OS.
- The controversy involving the iphone 4G that they lost which was then purchased by Gizmodo which in turn resulted in Apple calling the police which broke into and seized the computers of one of the employees of Gizmodo.I have mixed feelings about all of these issues, but it’s clear that each of these controversies resulted in many people questioning the morality of these practices. Some argued that they were wrong outright. Others argued that they didn’t have a right to do these things. Still others argued simply that these actions would or could have negative consequences.
But many more came out to defend Apple. And their primary argument as is Apple’s can be summarized thusly: “It’s our platform. We can do what we want. If you don’t like it, use something else.”
Facebook has faced a number of controversies as well. Most of which are surrounding Facebook’s privacy settings. Many complain that Facebook has changed its terms of service continuously in a manner that is disingenuous to its users. Users of Facebook thought they were getting into a private-first social network only to find that the new default has become public-first. This graph illustrates the changes over time.
Those who defend Facebook offer an argument almost identical to the one offered by Apple defenders. Facebook’s platform is their platform. They can make whatever changes they want to suite their purposes. If people don’t like the new privacy settings they don’t have to use it.
The argument obviously has some kind of compelling force in people’s minds since it’s invoked perpetually whenever there is a moral conflict involved with a company’s behaviors. I think it invokes our overall sense of the importance of individual freedom. Human beings don’t like being told what to do especially with things that are their own property. Further it ties right in with that idea of market self-regulation. It’s this idea that people will collectively choose the best outcomes through their actions.
Too bad it’s a nonsense line of argument.
Think about it. This line of argument in no way refutes or counters any of the moral force behind an argument. Something doesn’t become any less wrong because you happen to own the area in which you are doing that wrong thing. Bad consequences don’t disappear just because you own the platform that creates those bad results. It’s absurd on the surface.
Think about it this way. Imagine if you tried to apply this argument universally. Let’s say for example we applied it with respect to oil companies. If someone said to BP that their poor safety choices on their oil platforms were wrong and could lead to catastrophic consequences, would it be okay to say to that critic something like: “well if people don’t like how we do safety they can buy oil from some other company!”?
Or consider this, today there’s a controversy involving Rand Paul. On the Rachel Maddow show he made an argument that sounds perfectly reasonable. Basically, he argued the libertarian argument that although sure discrimination and segregation are wrong and sure he would be against both, but nonetheless the Civil Rights Act was wrong because government has no right to force businesses not to discriminate.
The idea is pretty similar to the “We Own It” Argument. Basically, business owners can choose to do whatever they want with their businesses, including allow or disallow segregation, because they own it. If users don’t like a business’s policies on segregation they can just show at another business. Right?
Of course had this policy been in place, most scholars believe we’d still have considerable segregation today and it might be another hundred years before we finally stomped it out. The “We Own It” argument must assume that that outcome is right. That that’s a more Just outcome because it adheres to people’s choices and doesn’t impose things upon people.
But doesn’t it? What about all those people who don’t own businesses and the only businesses near them were places that segregated? What about the people segregated against who had no ability to choose whatsoever?
Imagine if we used the “We Own It” argument with regard to slavery. The logic works exactly the same there too. It could justify keeping slaves, abusing slaves, mutilating slaves. The slave owner could argue “what right do YOU have to tell ME what I can do with MY property! If you don’t like it, get your own slaves and treat them better or hire employees or do whatever you want.” Or a slave owner who runs a plantation could say “well if you don’t like how I run my plantation, buy crops from someone else.”
These kinds of arguments sound so reasonable but under any kind of close analysis they fall apart. “Owning” something does not grant you universal exclusive inalienable rights to the things you own. Many things individuals own have consequences that reach far beyond the thing itself. And you can’t abrogate all responsibility for those consequences just because if things get really bad there’s a chance that market forces might force you to change your policy.
It seems utterly obvious to me that to answer moral objections to your actions you have to actually answer those objections. You have to show why the things they are saying aren’t as bad as they are saying they are or why they should not be objectionable.
If there’s a moral ambiguity about something, the market might or might not show us where society stands on the moral issue. But it can’t show you what is actually right or wrong. For that we actually have to think.
Note that this is entirely different from the legal question. I don’t believe the law should be over zealous in policing companies on the mere rumor or speculation that something might be dangerous. There should be a clear and present danger that effects a substantial number of people before we should change laws in ways that might negatively effect businesses. Because otherwise you risk creating really specialized laws to work against particular companies choices and those laws themselves can have numerous negative unintended consequences. If that’s your argument then I am highly sympathetic. But a sober honest assessment of that fact alone should not be enough to justify entirely ignoring a moral argument in favor of business autonomy.
