Social Due Process

About The Social Due Process Project

Our Mission

The Social Due Process Project provides a nonpartisan, ethical framework for news media, social media, and interpersonal communication.

Our Vision

The Social Due Process Project envisions a world with a shared dedication to truth, due process, and privacy across all levels of society.

Our goal is to cultivate a society with less gossiping, canceling, and bullying.

Our Plan

Fundamentally transforming the landscape of news media, social media, and interpersonal interactions is an ambitious and long-term commitment.

Our strategies include the following initiatives:

Raising awareness of the need for social due process using a robust digital footprint through our official website and social media channels.
Developing and implementing educational programs and curricula for academic institutions.
Advocating for improved anti-bullying measures in school and other social contexts.
Creating a better balance between free speech and social due process by updating policies, behaviors, and social attitudes about the negative practices of deepfakes, revenge porn, defamation, doxing, and news media conduct.

The Social Due Process Framework

Social Due Process framework is centered on three core principles:

Establishing Elevated Standards for Truth: Ensuring that written and spoken communications about others are fair, accurate, and truthful.
Advocating for Due Process: Promoting reasonable, adequate, and fair opportunities for individuals to explain or defend themselves, allowing for more comprehensive versions of allegations and stories across all communication platforms. News media, social media, and interpersonal talk deny the target a fair opportunity to explain their side or defend themselves. Because these channels lack procedural fairness, a targeted person can never fairly and adequately defend themselves.
Safeguarding Privacy: Committing to not engaging with or sharing other people’s private images, messages, or personal information.

Truth

Due Process

Communication, whether verbal or written, must be grounded in truth, fairness, and accuracy.

"Truth" denotes that the claims made about an individual are based on actual events.

"Fairness" dictates that statements regarding a person must be situated within the proper context of the matter.

"Accuracy" is determined by whether the complete narrative has been presented.

Too often, people intentionally or unintentionally take things out of context.

Ultimately, information and claims made about others necessitate an adequate understanding of all the facts and perspectives.

Due Process

Due process ensures that individuals are granted a reasonable, fair, and adequate opportunity to respond to and defend themselves from harassment, bullying, and accusations. This principle involves the right to present a comprehensive view of the situation, providing necessary context so that every perspective is sufficiently heard.

Typically, conversations regarding others—whether they occur through interpersonal gossip, news reports, or social media posts—take place in contexts where the subject is denied a legitimate and fair opportunity for such due process.

Privacy

Due Process

Privacy

Personal private lives are typically no one’s business, despite some people’s preference for self-righteous gossip, judgment of other people, and the desire to police other people’s lives.

Other people's personal matters—regardless of their veracity—do not need to be discussed on social media or in news outlets..

In instances where personal conduct may infringe upon laws or policies, such matters should be referred to the appropriate authorities to ensure the individual receives due process.

If no such violations exist, we should respect that these details are not ours to know, and unless consent is given, other people’s private communications, images, and actions should not be made public.

While shifting norms on gossip will be difficult, we should increasingly police the self-righteous judgement of others, rather than their personal details, relationships, and behaviors.

Ethical Shift

As described above, balancing free speech with Social Due Process poses considerable challenges. With the rise of social media and click-bait motivated news media, we increasingly see unethical violations of social due process. In addition to social, professional, and financial consequences, violations of social due process are also driving a crises in physical and mental health, which includes instances of suicide from elementary school children to adults.

Many will understandably feel the impulse to challenge this framework by looking for examples of flaws in its application to some circumstances.

While unique circumstances may lead some to argue for exceptions, we believe that the new ethical framework should be to prioritize Social Due Process. The burden should rest upon individuals to justify their actions when violating this framework, rather than on the victims to defend their right to it. However, subjective interpretations of justice and self-righteousness fail to justify breaches of Social Due Process. Without this updated framework, we are left with a culture where unethical violations of social due process are excused by personal claims of moral superiority, self-righteousness, and subjective claims of injustice.

This power to violate social due process is frequently misused against individuals and organizations, where those responsible act as judge and jury under the pretense of seeking justice. Such violations frequently culminate in profound injustice, functioning as modern-day social lynchings. In these instances, outraged mobs destroy the lives of individuals who were never granted a fair chance to explain or defend themselves against attacks.

We actively encourage and welcome constructive dialogue and critiques that can help refine this framework. Such conversations are necessary to shift public commitment to social due process, especially as social media and news media increasingly foster opportunities for individuals to perform their respective self-righteous judgement and outrage about others.

When principles of truth, due process, and privacy are ignored, it is imperative to address violations of Social Due Process and strive to eliminate such conduct.