Negative campaigning

In conversations about the FSF and some of its campaigns, I sometimes hear criticism "negative campaigning." For example, several people left comments on a blog post I once wrote speaking against, "negative campaigning of any sort, in any realm." It seems that some people in the free and open source software communities, drawing a analogy to political smear campaigns, have taken the position that negative campaigning in general is not useful and has no place in our advocacy.

First, I believe that there is a fundamental difference between speaking out against policies or actions and smear campaigns that employ untrue or suspect claims, ad hominem attacks, and that attempt to avoid a real conversation about issues. I have no reservations about categorically condemning the latter form of smear campaigning in campaigns for software freedom or for anything else.

That said, I believe that negative campaigning has a place in our community. I have supported and participated in "negative" campaigns against proprietary software, software patents, DRM, centralized network services, and the firms behind these practices. I've done so because I believe that if one is taking an ethical position, it is justified, and often necessary, to not only speak about the benefits of freedom but against acts of dispossession and disenfranchisement.

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of negative campaigning against injustice and unethical practices can be described through the example of other "negative" campaigns that most people seem to support intuitively. For example, should a campaign for abolishing child labor talk only about how great a value adult workers are to their employers or how happy kids are when they don't work? Should a campaign trying to abolish land mines talk only about the benefits of bomb-free fields and intact lower limbs? Should a free speech organization only speak out about the social welfare brought by a free press and never against acts of censorship?

These may seem like outlandish comparisons but you can find people writing, only a couple centuries ago, about how slavery should be abolished by arguing in favor of the benefits of paid labor. Even if the economic arguments in favor of paid work were strong, these arguments seems irrelevant and offensive today. Whether slavery is more or less efficient is a moot point. We reject it because it is wrong.

In the most effective social movements, unambiguously negative messages have been instrumental in success. We have made important strides toward eliminating child labor and slavery because activists waged decidedly negative campaigns against them.

In doing so, activists pointed to an ethical responsibility to find alternatives and to redfine what was "realistic." In all of these cases, we have efficiently worked to build a better world because we felt that the alternatives -- or the status quo -- was unconscionable. While I’m not trying suggest that these causes have equal ethical weight as the movement for software freedom, I believe that the free software mission is similar in kind, if not in importance.

Of course, If one does think that user control over technology is an ethica, you will probably disagree that negative campaigns are a good idea. We can argue about the appropriateness of negative campaigning forever and never make any progress if our real difference in opinion is how and why free software is important.

For those that do treat technological empowerment as an ethical ideal, it is both justified and essential to speak about both the benefits of software freedom and against the systematic disempowerment of others.