What a dissident Quaker, the Salem Witch Trials, and today’s disinformation debate have in common
by Stephen Kastner
A recent article by Dr. Ricardo Grinspun in Canadian Dimension, titled Regulating Social Media Is Climate Policy, argues that progressive movements should embrace stronger regulation of social media platforms to combat climate misinformation. While reading his essay over morning coffee, I found myself thinking not about climate policy, but about an event that occurred more than three centuries ago in colonial Massachusetts.
The connection may seem unusual at first.
Grinspun’s article was about social media algorithms, artificial intelligence, climate activism, and the dangers of misinformation. The story that came to my mind involved a Quaker merchant, a burned book, and the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials.
The man was Thomas Maule, one of my ancestors.
In 1695, Massachusetts authorities seized and burned his book.
Officials considered it dangerous, inflammatory, and harmful to public order. Maule had openly criticized the conduct of the Salem Witch Trials and challenged the religious and political authorities who had helped bring them about. Government leaders accused him of publishing slander, spreading falsehoods, and undermining confidence in authority.
To modern ears, the language sounds surprisingly familiar.
A Dangerous Book
One of the most revealing documents from Maule’s case was a statement by then Governor William Phips explaining why any further discussion of the witch trials was banned:
“I have also put a stop to the printing of any discourses one way or another, that may increase the needless disputes of people upon this occasion, because I saw a likelihood of kindling an inextinguishable flame.”
The issue was not private speech. People remained free to talk among themselves.
The issue was publication. The authorities wanted to prevent ideas from being distributed, discussed, and amplified.
Maule’s book, Truth Held Forth and Maintained, was printed in New York in an effort to evade Massachusetts restrictions. The books were shipped back to Salem, subsequently confiscated, and burned. Maule spent nearly a year in jail awaiting trial.
When Maule’s case finally came before a jury in 1696, the judges expected a conviction. There was little reason to expect anything else.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony had no meaningful separation between church and state. Religious leaders exercised enormous influence over public life, and the judges themselves operated within a system shaped by Puritan religious authority. Juries existed merely to confirm the judgments of those in power.
Instead, something remarkable happened.
The jury refused.
For the first time, jurors openly rejected the court’s expectation of a guilty verdict. Rather than accepting the authority of judges and clergy, they reached their own conclusion and found Maule not guilty.
The significance of that decision extended far beyond one Quaker merchant and one controversial book. It represented a growing recognition that government should not serve as the enforcement arm of religious orthodoxy and that citizens could challenge authority when conscience and law diverged.
In retrospect, the verdict stands as an early milestone on the long road toward freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, and the separation of church and state that would later become foundational American principles.
As I read Grinspun’s argument that social media regulation should become part of climate policy, I could not help noticing the similarity. The language has changed dramatically since 1696. The underlying impulse has not.
The Original Debate Over Amplification
One phrase in Grinspun’s article particularly caught my attention:
“Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to be amplified.”
It is a clever distinction and one that has become increasingly popular in discussions about content moderation. Yet the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to collide with the very history that shaped our understanding of free expression.
When Americans discuss the First Amendment, we often focus on freedom of speech. But the amendment protects two separate freedoms: freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
That distinction matters.
A printing press is not merely speech. A printing press is speech multiplied.
The founders did not merely protect the right to whisper opinions in private. They protected the right to distribute ideas widely. In many respects, freedom of the press was the eighteenth-century equivalent of what we now call amplification.
The technology has changed dramatically since Thomas Maule’s day. Pamphlets became newspapers. Newspapers became radio. Radio became television. Television eventually gave way to websites, podcasts, newsletters, YouTube channels, and social media platforms. Yet beneath those technological changes, the underlying question has remained remarkably constant:
Who gets to decide which ideas may be distributed, amplified, or suppressed?
The Modern Disinformation Debate
Grinspun argues that misinformation surrounding climate change threatens public understanding and undermines support for climate action. He is certainly not alone in that concern.
The internet contains false information. It also contains exaggeration, propaganda, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and outright lies.
So has every communication technology that came before it.
The challenge is not identifying bad information. The challenge is deciding if anyone should possess the authority to determine what qualifies as bad information and what should be done about it.
History offers plenty of reasons for caution.
Some religious authorities censor heresy and governments frequently try to suppress political dissent. Mainstream media organizations routinely overlook, ignore, or dismiss stories that challenge their prevailing narrative. Experts make mistakes. Politicians spin facts. Journalists often get things wrong. Scientists continually revise conclusions as new evidence emerges.
None of this is evidence of corruption. It is evidence of humanity.
The danger begins when any group convinces itself that it alone possesses sufficient wisdom to decide what everyone else should be allowed to hear.
That does not mean expertise has no value. It means expertise does not ensure infallibility. Authority is not synonymous with truth. Consensus is not certainty.
Lessons From COVID
The COVID years offer a powerful reminder of this reality.
Through reporting on the Twitter Files, the public learned of extensive collusion between government agencies and social media companies concerning the moderation of content related to the pandemic. Questions about the origins of the virus, school closures, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and alternative treatments became subjects of active intervention by platforms and government officials.
Whether one believes those actions were justified is beside the point.
The larger question is whether governments should play any role in determining which scientific debates may occur in public and which should be suppressed.
The lab-leak theory was once dismissed by many institutions as misinformation. Today it is widely discussed as a legitimate possibility.
Policies that were once presented as settled science are now openly debated.
The lesson is not that every dissenting opinion proved correct. The lesson is that authorities are often less certain than they appear at the time.
The Slippery Slope
Every generation believes its concerns are unique and its dangers are exceptional. And every generation is tempted to conclude that freedom must be restricted for the greater good.
The justifications change. The mechanism remains remarkably consistent.
Three centuries ago the concern was blasphemy. Later it was sedition. At other times it was obscenity, heresy, national security, public morality, public safety, or public health.
Today the preferred terms are misinformation, disinformation, harmful content, and dangerous narratives.
Some of those concerns are legitimate.
The danger emerges when the definition gradually expands.
What begins as a campaign against falsehood can easily become a campaign against disagreement. The question shifts from whether information is true to whether citizens should be permitted to encounter it at all.
That is where free societies enter dangerous territory.
Thomas Maule’s Warning
As I grow older, I find myself thinking more often about my ancestors and the stories they have left behind.
When I moved to Vermont a decade ago, I began exploring my New England roots and researching a family history I knew surprisingly little about. That search eventually led me to Thomas Maule. What began as simple genealogical curiosity grew into a much deeper investigation of court records, historical documents, and the remarkable story of a man I had never known.
The more I learned, the more fascinated I became.
Maule was not merely a wealthy merchant, a Quaker, or a critic of the Salem Witch Trials. He was a man willing to challenge accepted authority when doing so carried real personal consequences. He risked imprisonment, public condemnation, and financial ruin because he believed no government should possess the authority to suppress ideas simply because those in power considered them dangerous.
That discovery eventually led me to begin writing a book, The Life and Times of Thomas Maule. Part of the motivation is historical. Part of it is personal. Like many people as they grow older, I find myself wondering what stories are worth preserving and what lessons I might pass along to my own children.
Maule’s story is well worth preserving.
Perhaps that’s because his fight was never really about a book. It was about whether authority has the right to determine which ideas may be circulated and which must be silenced.
When he stood before the Puritan court in Salem, he was not defending a popular opinion. He was defending the right to publish an unpopular one.
That distinction remains as important today as it was in 1696.
The officials who burned Maule’s books believed they were protecting society from dangerous ideas. Every generation of censors has believed the same thing.
The real threat to a free society is not that people will encounter ideas that are wrong.
The greater danger is granting someone the power to decide which ideas may be heard at all.
The post Kastner: From Salem to social media: What has really changed? first appeared on Vermont Daily Chronicle.
The post Kastner: From Salem to social media: What has really changed? appeared first on Vermont Daily Chronicle.
