This is not new. Many of the mailing lists that dominated the discourse of the early Internet in the 1990s operated under a similar rule. The novelty is that it disappeared almost entirely for decades.
The original purpose (on the Internet) was to create a space where complex ethical and moral questions could be explored and discussed in depth without risk of someone taking a hypothetical statement out of context to slander you, as people are wont to do. It would be orders of magnitude worse in this current age of people obsessed with generating click-bait for engagement, which wasn’t a thing back then. I personally found that environment to be intellectually stimulating and rigorous, I miss the standard of discourse of those days.
Chatham House Rule is going back to the old Internet, which valued novel insight and reasoned discourse highly, before the masses took over the Internet. The purpose was not to enable edgelords. Rational defense of ideas, statements, and hypotheses was expected and table stakes. Related rules of that era, such as Crocker’s Rule[0], placed responsibility on the reader to address uncomfortable or offensive feedback in the most dispassionate way possible.
Agreed - This article is wrong at the beginning, Chatham House Rules are not a gag, they allow everyone to talk FREELY. I have been to many classes and forums under this rule, not least at Chatham House in St James Square, and it means that the speakers can speak freely, name names, without hedging or fudging or perambulating around the shrubbery. You can report whatever you like, but not who said it. I have heard so many truths in these discussions that were 15 years before their time - the behaviour of Mohammed Al-Fayed, for example - which carry much more weight when you hear them from an eyewitness, even if they do not wish to be named.
> Agreed - This article is wrong at the beginning, Chatham House Rules are not a gag
FYI gag as in "gag order" not gag as in a joke.
In case anyone else was confused about this as I was :)
Chatham House Rule goes back to 1927, a pre-transistor era.
It seems that already back then, during the early radio era, it was recognized that people dwell on "shocking sound bites" too much, at the cost of thinking things through.
Denunciations of the Chatham House Rule seem underdeveloped. According to the history on Wikipedia, it was invented to let members of post-WW1 English civic society discuss and debate potential reforms, and then get as much of that discussion into the public record as desired without having individual members pilloried for things they said during the discussion, even if the rest of the group disagreed with them.
This doesn’t even seem unique. Newspaper editorial boards don’t assign individual names to editorials or sentences thereof. Individual members of Congressional commissions aren’t cited for the sentences they (or their staff) committed to reports.
Chatham House Rule, meet Chesterton’s Fence.
The easy solution to this in my state is to just wear a recording device.
I live in a one party consent state for the recording of conversations [1,2], whether on the phone or in person. I don't know how y'all get away without it in California. It pairs really well with free speech, and it feels wrong to not have this legal feature available.
[1] https://www.justia.com/50-state-surveys/recording-phone-call...
If you don’t plan on following the rule, you don’t need a recording device.
Rules like this are an agreement among friends or attendants at an even. If you go in to such an event with an awareness of the rules but an intent to go against them, that’s bad faith. If you go in to such an event with an intent to secretly record people and release recordings of them that’s just terrible behavior, regardless of what the law says.
"Chatham House Rules" is not a problem that needs solving. I've only seen it used as a courtesy extended by peers to each other out of mutual respect.
"We will have conversations and share information and we agree we can act on the information but would all prefer not to be directly quoted or have the information we shared be shared with others outside the meeting."
It's not legal, it's social.
Break trust with a wiretap (really?) and you'll just find yourself no longer invited to the fun places.
> "We will have conversations and share information and we agree we can act on the information but would all prefer not to be directly quoted or have the information we shared be shared with others outside the meeting."
My understanding is that the Chatham House rule specifically permits sharing the information shared in the meeting as long as it is not attributed to any specific attendee.
It pairs really well with free speech
How does it pair well with free speech? If I think that you might be recording me without telling me, I'll stop talking.
IANAL but it would seem to me that one party consent just means you can record it. It does not automatically mean you can divulge.
And since you agreed to the chatham rules not to (i.e. you entered into a contract) you can still be liable for breach of contract in a civil court, with potential penalties and damages if those were part of the contract.
Of course anything you record can still be used in criminal or civil proceedings (e.g. if your interlocutor admits to a crime or utters illegal or tortuous speech, such as fraud, harassment, or verbal abuse).
The easy solution to what? I’m saying lack of like individual line-item attribution is a feature.
It feels incompatible with how the rest of the legal framework works.
You can be recorded in public.
In most of the US states you can be recorded in private so long as the one recording is a party to the conversation.
Why does California do this separate weird thing? It doesn't feel like my rights should go away when I cross into your state. It feels like a glitch.
The Chatham House Rule is not a legal principle. If you violate it by recording a meeting in a one-party consent state, the most likely consequence is that you wouldn’t be invited back. (Someone else posited legal consequences under contract law, but I’m not a lawyer.)
And for the record, California is not the only two-party consent state. There are twelve others.
It is code of honour - those that break it have no honour and lose any standing in these places.
It’s not a legal thing at all. It’s a social agreement that people opt into at an event.
Legally you can go to an event and act in bad faith without breaking the law. That’s not cool, but you’re not getting arrested for it.
If (or when) word gets out that you’re breaking the rules, or worse, secretly recording people against their wishes then you’d find yourself excluded from those groups and private events.
how is state law differing a glitch? privacy law is under developed federally considering the changes in scale distribution, storage, and capture tech. recording people without their awareness is a lie of omission that many would consider rude and manipulative.
A glitch that can be fixed by inserting a clause into the other solution mentioned: an NDA contract
This rule isn't a problem to be solved. It is a voluntary contract among many people. Why break it if you just don't have to associate with them.
Seems pretty obvious why in a world where if you misspeak or say something ill considered it can be all over twitter and have serious personal and professional ramifications.
Regardless of how well meaning people are in their desire to hold people to account for bad views, it does have a chilling effect, and you can't learn if you don't have a safe place to make mistakes.
The only times I've seen Chatham House rules used explicitly is when multiple companies have come together to discuss serious security concerns that affect all of them urgently (e.g. widespread 0-days, etc).
It makes sense that you want to have candid and open discussions, and those discussions will have to leak back to the respective companies for any concerted action to be taken, but you don't want your company's security specifics to be identifiable.
There are a number of different situations where I can see this being useful, but:
> “In corporate culture, there’s a liberating and freeing quality to the idea that this is a safe space for me to say unpopular things and not get labeled as a conservative or racist”
is really not one of them. I fully agree with Ocean's take that "maybe it’s just a bad solution to a worse problem," and I think there we can tease out two separate social problems:
1. People looking for safe spaces to say racist or other discriminatory things (generally identified as a politically-right problem)
2. The 0-strikes political climate we now (believe we) live in (generally identified as a politically-left problem)
(Both feel like symptoms of High Conflict: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55711592-high-conflic...)
I think these are actually the same problem: they are both about convincing yourself that "others" are "bad" and "we" are good, and looking for every conceivable way to do so. Not just in the specific instance, but permanently and unchangeably.
Somewhere along the way (my belief is that it was around the time social media took off, but I don't have proof for that), we forgot that we're more alike than we are different, and that people can grow and learn and change, and that both of those things are good, actually. It's not like there's some fictional past where we all agreed more than we do now, but it's how we relate to or exclude others that has changed.
> Somewhere along the way (my belief is that it was around the time social media took off, but I don't have proof for that), we forgot that we're more alike than we are different, and that people can grow and learn and change, and that both of those things are good, actually.
The difference between The Before Times and now is that it was historically hard to curate and communicate with a group of people who exclusively agreed with you. This had two primary consequences:
(1) You were constantly exposed to nice people who nonetheless disagreed with you about something / everything.
(2) It made you realize that you're the asshole, if you couldn't at least be polite to someone with different views than you.
Now, living in a bubble is trivial. It's also the subtle default on a lot of social platforms.
> Now, living in a bubble is trivial. It's also the subtle default on a lot of social platforms.
Indeed. IMO, social media should have very limited facilities for blocking/muting (e.g., maximum number of accounts to block, no blocking accounts that have never previously interacted with you, and no import functionality), so that it could only be used to stop true harassment, and not to intentionally live in such a bubble. That's one of my biggest criticisms of Bluesky: the whole design of their blocklist system seems to be to intentionally encourage this sort of thing.
This assumes that mass social media is some kind of idealized “meeting of the minds” rather than like…the digital equivalent of a loud and raucous bar.
The ability to block obnoxious and hateful people is fundamentally far, far less of causative factor of information bubbles than the pervasive engagement-driven algorithmic feeds are.
Yes. I've noticed a similar pattern online that I fucking hate. It goes "Group X is bad, so anyone who shares any belief with Group X is bad."
Like you, I believe that we're more alike than we are different, but that mindset focuses on the small differences over the many similarities.
The context in this article is far more corporate and far less personal than what you describe. It's corporations and wealthy people within them hoping to not have their feet held to the fire for decisions that they know might not be appreciated by, or may actually negatively impact, the broader populace.
That's my cynical take.
Alternatively, it’s a way for bad faith actors to spread their beliefs while not having to worry about their reputation. Many people with power are only hurt through public opinion, so this is the way they try to gain control over that.
This is not what I observed in the last 8 years. People with power (both D and R) get away with anything while individuals suffer for the slightest infractions.
Any given senate hearing or political speech would lead to dozens of expulsions in a standard censored software company.
It is the small people who need protection.
Yup. The most obvious example is Donald Trump himself. Instead of suffering consequences for any of the things he's said, he has been elected to president of the United States. Twice! Meanwhile if you repeated what he says verbatim in your workplace you might find yourself gone by next week.
You are probably getting downvoted for being too recently-political, but I noticed the same paradox.
Speech that can get one elected to presidency with a comfortable margin in the Electoral College can get another fired.
We truly live in a polarized world.
Isn’t there a danger that if the rule is selectively enforced, for whatever reasons, that it will actually decrease the credibility of the participants/organizers?
If you really believe something, say it loudly and proudly and sign your name to it. If you're not willing to have it attributed to you because it will make you look bad, then maybe you should take a moment to think about where those beliefs come from.
Well, there is a matter of safety, and not wanting to be harassed for your opinions. Some debates are so heated that an opinion stated either way is going to expose you to potential violence if not, just verbal abuse through various channels. I think even though you should be honest about your opinion, it’s obviously better to avoid that harm so why not be anonymous?
Personally, I’ve also found that stating your opinion, and having it recorded and known to everyone, makes it very hard for you to change your mind. We’re very harsh to people who do change their mind in such circumstances because the first thing we see is a record of them saying the opposite, and then we ask them to explain themselves and judge them like it’s some kind of fault in their character. There are opinions I had when I was 18 years old that I think abhorrent. I don’t want to be associated with them. I’m very happy there’s no record of me having these opinions. I don’t want to have to explain my past like that just to hold the opinions I have in the present. I have found that process never really ends — i’m regularly changing my opinions on beliefs overtime . I wonder what opinions I have now I will look back on with shame. so I try to make sure that I don’t have anything recorded for the end of times under my name just in case I want to distance myself.
Yea. The "What's going to be taboo in 30 years" question is a good one. I don't know and I don't have a good answer to that. I personally don't worry about it because it's never occurred to me to walk up close to the line of what's acceptable. I have pretty vanilla opinions.
But, for today, I always wonder when someone says they are going to be harassed for their opinions. Just what opinions are we talking about, here? That's what these discussions always seem to lack: Specific examples of what opinions you want to share that you are afraid to share.
I've always liked Stephen Fry's retort to the old "You can't say anything anymore!" line. If a friend tells you that, pull them aside in private and ask them "What exactly are these things you'd like to say but can't? We're in private now, and I'll give you a judgment-free chance to say what you think you're being prevented from saying. Go ahead!" Nine times out of ten, they still won't say it, because they know it's terrible. They just want to complain that they're somehow the victim of censorship.
If you’re an Ivy League college professor, it is extremely risky to say that Palestine has a legitimate grievance against Israel. If you’re a small town high school coach, it would be smart to be careful about advocating for trans girls to be able to play on the girls team. You can be punished for opinions on various sides of the political spectrum.
> Yea. The "What's going to be taboo in 30 years" question is a good one. I don't know and I don't have a good answer to that. I personally don't worry about it because it's never occurred to me to walk up close to the line of what's acceptable. I have pretty vanilla opinions.
30 years is a long time. Even the most vanilla of opinions can become entirely taboo in less time than that. Take gay marriage as an example. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act became law. Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and Chuck Schumer were among the Congressmen who voted in favor of it, and Bill Clinton signed it. In 2008, Barack Obama said "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage." Even Obama's statement would be taboo today, let alone passing such a bill.
Not that taboo —- the Speaker of the House declined to apologize for saying same sex marriage would destroy the Republic.
Lots of conflation of verbal response versus physical violence here despite the massive gulf of difference.
You should expect verbal pushback on your shitty ideas. You should expect physical safety nonetheless.
> You should expect verbal pushback on your shitty ideas
There is also shitty pushback to decent, or inchoate, ideas. I strongly push back against the notion that there shouldn’t be spaces where one can say something dumb and not be crucified for it.
Again: “crucified.” Say what you actually want, I don’t know how to interpret this idea. I haven’t heard of a crucifixion in recent times if I’m being honest.
crucify /ˈkruːsɪfʌɪ/ verb past tense: crucified; past participle: crucified
1. put (someone) to death by nailing or binding them to a cross, especially as an ancient punishment. "two thieves were crucified with Jesus"
2. INFORMAL criticize (someone) severely and unrelentingly. "our fans would crucify us if we lost"
ISIS crucified a number of people as recently as 2014.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/isis-crucifies-11-christi...
See, what an excellent contrast between actual crucifixion and simply someone saying your ideas are bad and socially ostracizing you.
It’s less a real problem than you think. For example lots of politicians including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were on the record as not supporting gay marriage and later said that their position on the matter had evolved.
If you really believe something, say it loudly and proudly and sign your name to it.
And then wait for the lynch mob to come round because they disagree that {people shouldn't be property / women should be allowed to own property / etc }.
> If you really believe something, say it loudly and proudly and sign your name to it
Sure. Not every discussion involves something I really believe in.
Also, I think it’s reasonable to believe that not all of one’s deeply-held beliefs are the public’s to know.
How do you make progress on beliefs if you have to be 100% on board with every view you express?
You can post opinion A and opinion ^A and be vilified for either, right now. To say nothing of how popular belief has changed over time and place.
Whether something “looks bad” is a basis for whether to discuss it, where to discuss it, and with whom, but not a basis for determining truth.
You might have no compunction about your beliefs, but fear being misinterpreted en masse and forever. That's what the internet does regularly.
> If you really believe something, say it loudly and proudly and sign your name to it.
Anonymity should be lauded and protected, BUT if you're expecting to benefit from the use of your subject matter authority or credentials, then it needs to have your name attached.
Without an identity, there is no authority.
Who is this Publius guy anyway?
"There are two genders." The belief comes from watching birds and bees.
Now, say that in 2020 in a woke software organization.
Saying that repeatedly in most settings gets tedious for the audience who'd wonder whether you're alright.
Saying that any relevant technical setting as a newcomer would likely be received politely although many would then point out the ground truth behind that simplification:
Nature has many examples of physical gender not being straightforward; egg tempreture determining development in crocadiles and other reptiles for one.
Even in humans it's less that straightforward for a little over 1% of births and decidedly undecided even by experts with all the machines that beep for about a fiftieth of 1%.
Banging on about it in online forums using throwaway accounts is simply being a sad wannabe edge lord type.
"I will put every person in precisely one out of two boxes at my discretion, and they will be happy about it".
Example: "I believe there are two kinds of people in the world, the righteous and the despicable. You belong with the despicable, I decided. If you disagree, you are woke".
The amount of inferences and insinuations you draw is a perfect example of why the Chatham House Rule is needed. I wonder how biologists discuss the issue if one hypothesis is outright forbidden. Note also that Ketanji Brown Jackson evaded the question when asked in a hearing.
They do it just fine. People who show up with crank hypotheses that are repeatedly rejected by evidence are not outright forbidden but generally not super popular.
I think it’s just a way to stop the reporting of an event turning the event into an opportunity for people to gain media coverage and propel their careers, or their interests that may not be related to the discussion at hand.
Public debates are swamped with characters who want to make a name for themselves by holding views, having a particular style, or catering to certain demographics. At this point, the debate ceases to ne a way of discussing ideas and opinions. It’s just a way to sell the participants. Likewise, there are many people who want the opposite. They hold opinions but really don’t want to be part of the wider social debate . They don’t want to be public figures defending a particular point. They just want to contribute in some way.
It can be so very valuable. I was at a conference in the last quarter discussing the effects of the Houthis on shipping in the Red Sea. There has long been rumour that it's possible to pay a few hundred thousand dollars, funneled to the Houthis, for which your ship will be granted safe passage through the Red Sea without being shot at with anti-ship missiles, or attacked by drones. There was rumour that some of the insurers in the Lloyds shipping insurance markets were open to these negotiations. Not long ago the UN pushed out a report discussing this sort of payment.
A bod there whose situation in life made him one of the most likely people in the world to know if anyone in the Lloyds markets was engaging (except anyone actually doing it), and has a long reputation of saying truthful things under the Chatham House rules in such conferences, said he'd not seen any of that and not heard of anyone doing it. It's not the same as fact, but with his long-term reputation and his position in life, it signficantly changed my working calculus on the subject. He didn't want to be professionally quoted on it, hence the CH rule.
Nothing at all to do with having the freedom to be a dickhead or anything like that. Nothing to do with wanting to lie to people without consequence.
Modern human life is built upon millenia of mistakes, not to mention natural selection, which is eons of mistakes. A huge differentiator for humans is vastly more powerful communication which let's us share and influence instead of having everyone make the same mistakes. Despite the vitriol that has plagued online forums and social media for decades, I find the opportunity to see others make mistakes hugely valuable to me. That includes saying stupid or wrong things.
Are Chatham House Rules just a way for people to hedge their bets? If they say something controversial, rude, offensive, or downright dodgy, they can hide behind anonymity. But if it’s a hit or something clever, insightful, or widely praised—they’re quick to claim credit. Convenient, isn’t it?
It is indeed convenient, not just for individuals, but for society at large. People keep their most "controversial, rude, offensive, or downright dodgy" only to be said amongst friends whom they trust to not "out" them, while keeping their utterances in the public sphere more self-censored, in order to avoid offending people and being rebuked. I'm pretty sure that this is how it's always been, and I'm quite happy with it.
> there’s a liberating and freeing quality to the idea that this is a safe space for me to say unpopular things and not get labeled as a conservative or racist,” Lederer said.
Tantalizing, now I really wonder what he said.
I think Lederer (who, by the way, is a she) isn't saying that she herself wants to say those things, she's describing one reason why something like the Chatham House rule might be popular. It's not perfectly clear from the article, which may be because Lederer wasn't clear or because the reporter didn't pass on all the details of what Lederer said and how she said it.
If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places that aren't gutter racism (they're eating the dogs etc) are going to be eugenics-adjacent, "enlightened" scientific racism instead. At least, that's what I've noticed among rationalists online.
There are plenty of things you can say that are career limiting moves if attributed to an individual at a particular company. Eg. if an OpenAI employee says that ChatGPT is negatively impacting the education of children, it gets recorded, and then used in a hit piece against the company, that could go poorly. Or a Facebook employee speaking frankly about the negative impacts of social media, as another example.
With Chatham House Rules you don't have to worry about a gotcha quote getting pulled out of context or used as a statement against interest.
Negatively impacting is a bit of an understatement. It has completely and utterly ruined education of the middle, finishing what COVID started. The real question is when, not if, someone at OpenAI goes on the record to stop the madness.
Sounds like the definition of "good intentions" with no mechanisms to back them up.
All of these people seem a little bit too high on their own supply
Don't forget farming the normies for profit and other forms of enlightened classism.
> If I were to guess, the types of conversations that happen in these places that aren't gutter racism (they're eating the dogs etc) are going to be eugenics-adjacent, "enlightened" scientific racism instead. At least, that's what I've noticed among rationalists online.
This statement is proof for the need of this rule. Everyone who disagrees with the "one truth" is obviously a racist who is aligned with the worst of the other side. There can be no deviation or nuance. No debate, or benefit of doubt.
That is a deeply toxic view that in the past I only saw in the right. Maybe it was my own blindness. But now I see it all over the left as well.
As a person that would be considered dysgenic, yes, I think eugenics is bad, I guess you got me there.
> As a person that would be considered dysgenic, yes, I think eugenics is bad, I guess you got me there.
Implying that I support Eugenics because I want to listen to people and not pre-judge them is pretty much the exact thing I'm complaining about.
Given that we now have tools that can fix some serious genetic errors, and enable even people who were dealt very bad cards in life, to live a healthy life - and given that this sector of biology is constantly evolving towards more capabilities, I would argue that it makes more sense to study genetic diseases and disorders than ever.
100 years ago, when genetics was unchangeable, the only solution to any genetic problem was heavy-handed: stop that individual from procreating. I agree that this is basically fascist (though even social democrats weren't immune to this).
But in 2050, we might be able to fix terrible things like Huntington's Chorea with a single shot. Which is fascinating, but it also needs some honesty. In the late 20th century, there was a lot of activism that tried to pass off seriously debilitating diseases as "being differentially abled" etc. While I can understand them wanting to stop eugenic thinking from seeping in, this attitude becomes counterproductive when tools are being developed to actually help the sick people. Similar to anti-vaxxerism, in fact.
People like Charles Murray think people like me are subhuman for having low IQ and being non-white, the conversations I'm hearing aren't about curing disabilities they're about the "wrong type" of people procreating.
Weird that you got "curing disabilities" from my comment on "scientific racism" though. That reaction kinda concerns me.
I thought conservatives were against safe spaces?
I'm guessing this definition of a safe space (e.g. able to say what you want, with possible racism included) isn't what nonconservatives would label a safe space.
Conservatives have been known to be a wee bit hypocritical from time to time.
(To be fair, liberals can too, but IMHO conservatives are more adept at it.)
looks like he just told us
Lederer is the woman presented as an expert to criticize the practice...
> Jenny Lederer, a linguistics professor at San Francisco State University, argued that the Chatham House Rule has intrinsic flaws.
Exactly. "I really want to say conservative or racist things but don't want to be considered conservative or racist by the public!"
Do you think people on social media should be required to disclose their names?
I would love a real-names only network. There should be other networks as well, but this should be an option.
A lot of people on Facebook use their real names, and back before I quit it, I was pretty shocked at the kinds of horrible things people would say under their real name and under a picture of their face, also, knowing full well their friends and family could easily see it. I don't think real names would help that much.
We already have a few: LinkedIn and the real world.
LinkedIn is a professional network. It's not designed to facilitate the same types of conversations that happen e.g. on Twitter (and no, I don't think the presence of anon accounts make Twitter what it is, at least not in the circles I care about).
"Real world" is umm... okay. Thanks for the contribution.
I use mine. It keeps me honest.
> this is a safe space for me to say unpopular things and not get labeled as a conservative
The first one is confusing. The US is a very conservative country. It just elected a very conservative president. Statistically like 40% of voters call themselves conservative.
If you look at voting maps for the 2024 USA Presidential Election, you can see that there is a blue band of Democratic voters right down the coast, including the Bay Area. The Bay Area in particular appears to have a very different culture to most of the USA, although I have never been there so cannot confirm that statement personally. I don't think that many Democratic party members consider themselves conservative, whereas a large proportion of Republican party members do.
Mainstream Democrats are conservative, mainstream Republicans are regressive. There is no actual liberal-centric major political party in the US, let alone one that's genuinely leftist.
> let alone one that's genuinely leftist
There are plenty of elected leftists in America. We don’t have a major leftist party because we don’t have a major leftist voting bloc.
What do you consider liberal-centric policies? Or leftist?
As far as I'm aware, Democrats are still rather strong proponents of liberalism. Even most Republicans are proponents, though generally more for classical liberalism than modern liberalism.
Liberalism, arguably, isn't really on the left-right axis at all.
The “blue bands” is deceiving. Cities are mostly blue, rural areas are mostly red.
Voting patterns in the US follow population density. The higher the density, the more Democratic voters there tend to be. It’s only if you look at geography that the US appears conservative; unfortunately, due to the Electoral College, “land” can effectively vote.
Trump is not conservative.
I‘ve recently joined a group of professionals in a compliance role that operates under Chatham House Rules.
The idea is that you can sound off ideas and your understanding of legal issues without people from other companies turning around and blabbing about publically how you are wrong.
There was a period when I was having fairly regular luncheon meetings in New York and the purpose was really so that people could talk openly about various tech issues and not have their name appear in a blog post (which I probably wouldn't have done anyway). It wasn't so people could spill dirt or say things that could get them in trouble with HR if they appeared in pront.
Maybe overused today but there are some times when you hold back on things if you know they may appear in print. Certainly, over the years, I've been quite careful about what I say to journalists--even those I generally trust.
Memetic contagion meets cargo cult when someone or a group is trying to:
a. "lead" and hide attribution of a nefarious or unpopular thoughtspace or particular idea.
b. control other people through coercion with arbitrary rules like a literal cult.
> Last year, Stanford University floated the rule as a policy to protect students from harassment, with violators facing penalties like lower grades.
Won't that enable harassment - enable people to do it without consequence?
People are not bound to follow this rule, correct? As in, there's no legal consequence?
> Instead, his groups have moved to signing NDAs or explicitly stating that conversations are not to be shared externally.
This seems a bit better, albeit with more work.
> seems a bit better, albeit with more work
Are the NDAs signed between attendees and the host? That puts the host in the awkward position of having to enforce the NDAs, even if the injured party is one of the guests.
Don't you mean, the offending party?
No. If you, me and Bob sign an NDA and I leak your secrets, you’re the injured party.
So I'm still confused - why would the host feel awkward protecting the injured party? Am I missing some implication of enforcing the NDA?
> why would the host feel awkward protecting the injured party?
Suing is time-consuming and expensive.
Not everything has to be legal. The consequence is you don't get invited back and some people might think less of you.
Legally enforcing every social norm is dystopian.
> Legally enforcing every social norm is dystopian.
But I didn't say that? I was genuinely unsure of whether this was something that could be taken to court if someone violated it. If it's socially bound, and the purpose is to increase free speech, I find that less compelling in today's culture.
Anything can be taken to court. I expect, in general, people get mad at the person who broke the rule, they don't get invited back to future iterations, and they suffer reputational damage. When I've been in that sort of situation, the rule is made clear and no one breaks it--at least publicly.
Only if they associate their name with the disclosure ?
anonymous sources to media is pretty common way to share information.
Given the chatham house rules specificly allow that, its kind of a moot point.
I should have been clearer.
Anonymous source in the meeting leaking to news media that person X said something controversial in this summit .
Since nobody would know the anonymous source itself , social norms like being shamed or not being invited in the future will not work is the point
> Legally enforcing every social norm is dystopian
Persecuting people for their beliefs by exploiting loopholes (e.g. blast on social media, bully their employer, etc) is also pretty dystopian, don't you think?
And it's not like the persecutors ever give you the full story. For example, the reporting on Meta ending DEI didn't want you to know their rather logical view of the situation (discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics is wrong). What fraction of people actually believe in giving a boost to certain candidates purely on the basis of race? Certainly not enough for the persecutors to allow that argument to be broadcast widely.
> Persecuting people for their beliefs by exploiting loopholes (e.g. blast on social media, bully their employer, etc) is also pretty dystopian, don't you think?
Sometimes it can be. More than one thing can be dystopian.
What do you think “the marketplace of ideas” actually is, if not talking shit about people with shitty ideas?
Such a ridiculously overloaded use of the word “persecution.”
If the rule is given as a condition of attendance, then it could reasonably be considered a contractual obligation. The event organizer could then sue for damages on the basis of breach of contact. The extent of those damages would be related to how much reputational damage the venue or event organizer suffered, and the potential loss of future attendance caused by that.
In addition, both the subject of a secret conversation and the participants of that conversation could sue someone for disclosing the discussion on the basis of libel. My understanding of USA law is that libel has a very high threshold and is therefore rarely litigated, but in other jurisdictions, such as the UK, libel can be as simple as saying something true with the intent to hurt the subject's reputation.
Many people try to put as much as possible into bespoke, written contracts, but usually a mixture of common law and implicit contracts is adequate to litigate almost anything considered harmful by society. I doubt the NDA is actually needed as long as the Chatham House rule is made clear.
> [At] an intimate dinner party in Los Altos Hills, Brex Supper Club salons, [...] the rules of the house are increasingly Chatham.
What a strange comment.
If after attending a dinner party people are repeating everything they heard, in public, with attribution - then that dinner party absolutely was not intimate.
> If after attending a dinner party people are repeating everything they heard, in public, with attribution - then that dinner party absolutely was not intimate
It's still helpful if you're bringing together groups of people who don't know (and thus may surprise) each other to lay the ground rules. I'd be quite upset if I held a birthday party, which may go to 30 or 40 people, and learned that something (possibly quite inappropriate) that had been said was being tweeted or whatever.
Right, but if these groups of people don't know one another - that's basically the definition of not intimate.
> if these groups of people don't know one another - that's basically the definition of not intimate
Different definitions of intimate [1]. Webster's gives an intimate club as an example. I'd also suggest an intimate dinner over which e.g. in-laws meet.
I agree with you. I've never lived in SV, and after interacting with a lot of folks in the bay, I'd prefer to never live there. It's seems like a weird Twilight Zone place where everyone is a business contact and nobody is just a friend. Even the concept of "intimacy" can be tacitly warped around that social framework.
Nothing wrong with Chatham house rules, stated up front. What's an embuggerance? Remembering to stick to them.
More like stupid is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area.
The one fine piece of good journalism in there is that SFSU professor: humans have a hard time separating the ideas from the speaker. Done.
Now, I might be wrong, but it sure does sound like tech folks in the Bay are getting ready to take advantage of MAGA madness, and paranoid about AI / surveillance.
If anything, it’s this orange website that’s closer to untangling identity from the content, but that’s nothing new and Web 1.0 news.
> but it sure does sound like tech folks in the Bay are getting ready to take advantage of MAGA madness, and paranoid about AI / surveillance.
Congress is the one that regulates most of commerce and they are always slow and inept. I don’t expect much meaningful stuff to change. If anything it will be some sort of AI regulation that will benefit the top companies under the guise of ‘safety’ and probably get bipartisan support.
Zuckerberg also said he was planning his moves for a long time and waited until the elections were over so it didn’t seem like he was trying to influence it and any time he announced it he’d have been be accused of doing it under political pressure. That’s also how fact checking started in the first place, with extreme pressure during COVID and federal gov employees calling meta employees, yelling at them when they declined to delete things. So technically it’s a reversion of a system created under political pressure.
I woildn’t trust a damn thing Zuckerberg says about his thought process.
I wonder what the people against anonymity would make of the Federalist Papers, if they even remember them. Many of the "founding fathers" of the United States wrote under pseudonyms or other such distractions. Probably a dismissal of the "that was then, this is now" variety, which they only haul out as a defense they do not hold in any great breadth, as those same folks will gladly go on about generational trauma, reparations, and so on. Convenient only.
It's nothing impressive. It's secrecy and corruption; it's the modern trend of power grabs and exclusivity (withholding information) over efficiency, productivity, intelligence, and all the benefits of an open, free society. It just has a fancy British name to give it legitimacy.
You want liquidity and lots of exposure in any marketplace, including the one of ideas. Ideas without sunshine tend to rot and fester. That might be why there are so many obviously stupid ones these days.
> Ideas without sunshine tend to rot and fester. That might be why there are so many obviously stupid ones these days.
This was the thesis behind e.g. Twitter. I’m not sure it’s panned out. Ideas need sunshine, but a seedling also does better in a nursery.
Interesting point. While I agree that the outcome has been bad or really catastrophic, I'm not sure it's the same cause.
Certainly ideas from positions of power need openeness and sunshine, speaking very generally. The problem on social media is the flood of crap that buries everything else, and nobody can keep up - the sunshine effect is overwhelmed.
> ideas from positions of power need openeness and sunshine, speaking very generally
Very generally. Transparency also incentivises grandstanding; you're always speaking to the audience, never to your counterpart.
So people feel free to speak candidly?
Or irresponsibly, ignorantly, stupidly, recklessly ...
As social animals, we think, learn and grow by interacting with others. It's absolutely ok to say stupid things you aren't sure about, and I think it's generally better that people do so in smaller personal settings rather than broadcasting to the internet at large.
This isn't about people speaking candidly. It's about not hurting the feelings of people who do and work on bad things and allowing them to still get invited to events without fearing any consequences for their actions.
It's the same reason Kissinger still got invites to Manhattan social events (and, bizarrely, Clinton campaign events) long after it was known that he was a traitor and a war criminal.
No, I think it’s about not having to fear being retweeted publicly for what you intended to be private discussions.
No. The Chatham House Rule only bars the attribution of the statements, not the sharing of the statements or the things they contain.
It’s not simply for privacy or nondisclosure. You are free to disclose, the discussions are not private.
That's what I said: it's to prevent people from being quoted publicly.
People can still be quoted verbatim publicly.
Maybe I'm confused then. So one would be permitted to post on Twitter:
"khazhoux said yesterday: 'Megalopolis is the greatest film of the 21st century'"?
I thought the point was you can't attribute -- no names. And without a name, it's not actually a public quoting...
> not hurting the feelings of people who do and work on bad things
Yes, the Chatham House Rule is practically designed to exclude people who have an immutable black-and-white worldview.
How so? It would seem to encourage people to say thoughtless, shallow things, among more open things.
> would seem to encourage people to say thoughtless, shallow things, among more open things
Based on what? If anything, baseless grandstanding is incentivised by an audience.
Having attended conferences under Chatham House Rule: It's invaluable if the event includes speakers that must maintain a specific public stance - politicians, people in highly visible roles/organizations, etc.
There's no top secret lore handed out, it's not a secret society taking over the world. It addresses the issue that any public statement will be cut up into sound bites, and the public discussion will only focus on one or two sentences, drowning out any nuance. And, if you misspoke, the public discussion will portray you as "not being aligned with your organizations values".
This allows people to set aside speechifying and talk about the actual problems. With lots of nuance. Acknowledging shared ground. Hashing out what the _actual_ disagreements are. We need more opportunities like that, not less.
And the rule only works if you're running the iterated version, and it's a high-value meeting. Because losing access to that forum is the penalty for violating the social compact.
It means don't front, slander, or gossip about the people who welcomed you, and especially on social media. not sure why it's hard to act like they're going to be invited back. just try not to be the one who has to be told.
I've seen the existence of chatham house rules events abused pretty heavily by bullshitters as an excuse for asserting things but then refusing to substantiate them.
Well duh.
Are all the contrarian lemmings having self-imposed nightmares of being cancelled for eagerly sucking on the DoD teat by backing/creating AI killer drone tech because they can no longer create alpha? Say it ain't so! Or maybe it's just another hyped trend, like reading Sapiens or calling oneself a "pattern matcher".
Odds are they're not talking about saving the world in these spaces.
I have no idea whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but this is not freedom of speech, for the obvious reason that its based entirely on the limitation of speech, in this case, the freedom to truthfully state who said something.
I’m not a free speech absolutist, so that’s not a negative for me, but it’s extremely annoying to see a lot of people pretend to be pro free speech by policing what others might say about them.
"Free speech" is normally about a government restriction on speech. Most people don't take it to mean temporary restrictions during specific private events.
For example, at a funeral, the norm is not to speak ill of the dead (or any other time, for that matter), and if you break that rule, you might find yourself socially excluded. But that has nothing to do with the concept of "free speech".
The same goes for some kind of proceeding where you are not permitted to speak, or some situation where you are given information in confidence, or your signing of an NDA.
In the usa context yes, but i think its wrong to hold that the concept in general is soley about governments.
E.g. if someone beats you up due to a view you expressed, i consider that a free speech issue.
> E.g. if someone beats you up due to a view you expressed, i consider that a free speech issue.
If the police beat you up, then that's a freedom of speech issue (as well as police abuse, etc), since one might argue that the government is suppressing your speech.
If a private citizen beats you up, then I disagree; it's merely a matter of assault. That's illegal anyway and your speech had little to do with it. If someone beats me up for looking at them the wrong way, I'd hardly argue that it's a "looking the wrong way" issue.
I appreciate that you consider otherwise, and of course it's subjective so your view is as valid as mine. I'm just identifying that I think your concept is "creep" that has occurred over time for some subset of people, spawned by a principle that never originally included what you now include in the concept.
If you come to my house and express a view I disagree with, and I ask you to stop talking, I'm abridging your freedom of speech. (I'm not violating your First Amendment rights.)
> I think your concept is "creep" that has occurred over time for some subset of people, spawned by a principle that never originally included what you now include in the concept
You've got it backwards. The Athenians believed in both "isēgoriā, or equality of public speech, which was associated with formal political institutions and democratic deliberation; and parrhēsiā, the license to say anything, even (or especially) if it went against the current" [1].
The First Amendment is based on the freedom of speech in the English Parliament [2]. Millenia older. It isn't until the Warren Court, after WWII, that the modern interpretation that the First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech comes into focus [3].
[1] https://antigonejournal.com/2021/04/two-concepts-of-free-spe...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Right,_1689#The...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
> If you come to my house and express a view I disagree with, and I ask you to stop talking, I'm abridging your freedom of speech.
To what extent are you able to abridge someone's freedom, though? The only legally permitted thing you can do is to compel that person to leave. If you are hosting that person commercially, say by running a lodging house, even that option may be restricted by other laws.
Legal restrictions on speech are a little different, because of the unlimited sovereign power of the law (what Max Weber called the state's monopoly on violence). The USA has a special limitation on its own sovereignty by means of a written constitution, but I do believe that only applies to government restrictions as parent said.
Also, it is worth noting that the freedom of speech in Britain that you link to applies only to Members of Parliament. Nobody else is afforded freedom of speech by the Bill of Rights; other people have to look to different laws to defend themselves.
> To what extent are you able to abridge someone's freedom, though
I could ask them to leave, I could threaten to not invite them back, I could withhold something they want or might want in the future. Social sanctions are vast.
> it is worth noting that the freedom of speech in Britain that you link to applies only to Members of Parliament
Yes. That is the first time a First Amendment-style protection was passed into law. The modern view of freedom of speech being constrained to what the state can and cannot do starts from around then.
> I'm just identifying that I think your concept is "creep" that has occurred over time for some subset of people, spawned by a principle that never originally included what you now include in the concept.
Fair, but I think the creep is in the other direction. I think that this notion that only the government counts is extremely new (and somewhat limited to the cultural context of the USA) and the broader version is the traditional definition of what freedom of speech means.
In your example, speech has everything to do with it. It is the motivation for the crime of assault, correct? And its intention is to suppress speech by deterring others through violence.
Free speech only means you are not prevented from expressing yourself. It does not mean freedom from consequences.
While I don’t condone violence that is not the only possible consequence. If you call me an asshole that is your right, but if I disinvite you from the party I was planning as a result that is not a ‘free speech issue’.
> Free speech only means you are not prevented from expressing yourself. It does not mean freedom from consequences.
People say this a lot but i doubt anyone actually literally believes this.
If the state executes you as a consequence of your speech, it is an unambigious free speech violation no matter how you interpret that term.
What people really mean is its not a blanket protection against every consequence, but they hide that part because then you have to explain which consequences are reasonable and which are not which is complicated and requires nuance.
> "Free speech" is normally about a government restriction on speech
No, this is the First Amendment. Free speech as a value is much broader [1].
I don’t think it is just about government restriction. Free speech and censorship are general principles that apply to everything. But personally, I don’t think asking for confidentiality at a private event is a violation of free speech principles. On the other hand, large privately owned tech platforms that practice censorship disguised as moderation, should be criticized because they are effectively the new public square.
The Chatham House Rule is about
\0 in the context of a specific meeting or gathering ..
\1 the freedom to speak one's mind and say whatever it is you wish to say,
\2 the constraint that no third party shall repeat your words without your permission, quote you out of context, report what you said and the company in which you said it, etc.
There's no legal binding or specific prosecution in the original context, simply a literal "Gentleman's Agreement" and the general social implication that should you make and then violate such an agreement then you will likely be excluded from similar events and such company in future.
It arose from diplomatic ranks and is a polite form of the parallel convention Snitches get Stitches.
In the UK Foreign Affairs sphere the rule is often exercised to advance a piece of policy via rumour and backtalk, nobody officially directly states that (for example) the military may be bought into play in some region, none the less word gets out that such a thing is being considered by those that can make it happen, subsequently someone folds their position and trade resumes (maybe).
Being able to chose who you associate with and who you do not associate is usually part and parcel with free speech.
I'd agree with you about the NDA bit. Using courts to enforce seems anti-free speech
However the milder version of it, where if someone violates the rule they aren't invited back, hardly seems like a free speech issue. Free speech doesn't mean you have to stay friends with someone who told your secrets to a third party. Free speech means you can say whatever you want, but it also means you can not talk to whomever you want.
Freedom includes the ability to voluntarily subject oneself to obligations and enter binding contracts.