The problem is not censorship but the lack of transparency, the lack of competition and the fact that for years they have been putting on improvised pieces instead of assuming their responsibilities
It is useless to go around it: for Facebook and Twitter , blocking Donald Trump’s account was not only a necessary choice, but also a fully legitimate one. In the frame of the First Amendment of the United States – which protects freedom of speech – “Trump has the right to rant, but technology companies have the right guaranteed by the Constitution to remove that content” , he wrote on the MIT Tech Review Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation . It is the government that cannot limit the freedom of speech of others, while companies, precisely to protect their own freedom of speech, have every right todecide who can say what on their platforms.
It’s a bit like someone coming to your house and yelling racist slurs: would you have the right to throw him out or not? On the other hand, as pointed out by several parties, every month Facebook and Twitter delete posts and suspend accounts of users who have violated the terms of service . You can criticize the terms and conditions (especially when the algorithm censors works of art containing a nude or cannot distinguish a racist comment from a mockery of a racist comment), but the right of a platform cannot be denied to have basic rules of conduct that lead to expulsion if seriously violated.
“But Facebook and Twitter have long stuck to the idea that content posted by elected politicians deserved more protection than those of ordinary individuals , thus giving politicians more power to freedom of expression than people,” continues Jillian York. “A position that clashes with a fact: the hate speech of public figures has a greater impact than those of normal users” . And this is why the logic used by the platforms should be reversed: a public figure must be subject to even stricter rules of conduct than normal users, precisely because they have greater power.
The overwhelming power of Facebook & co.
Those who criticized the move by Facebook and Twitter have nevertheless grasped an important point. As Shira Ovid wrote in the New York Times , “I may think these companies have made the correct decision in the last few days, but still be uncomfortable with the thought that they are in a position to behave as if they are a Supreme Court , able to decide for billions of people which expressions and behaviors are appropriate “.
That leaving all this power to the Silicon Valley giants has inherent problems is also demonstrated by other aspects. First of all, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey (CEOs of Facebook and Twitter respectively) did not block Trump until the US Congress certified Joe Biden’s victory. Considering the timing – reports Yaël Eisenstat, former head of electoral integrity at Facebook, in the Harvard Business Review – “this decision seems to be more an attempt to be liked by the new administration than a shift towards accountability” .
To this accusation of opportunism is added another element: the endless list of late, incomprehensible, wrong or simply absent decisions. Among the examples, just think of how Zuckerberg has long ignored the fact that the platforms he owns were the vehicle through which hate speech spread that led to inter-religious clashes (with dozens of deaths) in India, Myanmar and somewhere else. “The germs of this violence are ours, but WhatsApp and Facebook are the wind that spreads them , “ said an advisor to the President of Sri Lanka in 2018.
The same goes for Donald Trump’s ban : to be effective, and to try to prevent the incendiary speeches from leading to the undemocratic violence we have witnessed, the president of the United States would have had to be stopped much earlier; probably when it was instead decided, especially on Twitter, to apply timid labels to his posts that contested his statements (an aesthetic choice that signaled more than anything else the desire to “show that you are trying to do something”).
The platforms are not neutral
Donald Trump, unlike what is generally thought, is not the first political authority to be kicked out of Facebook : the highest-ranking general of Myanmar has suffered the same fate (again too late) for fomenting hatred , while the entire Lebanese party / armed organization of Hezbollah is banned from the social network despite having seats in parliament. The suspension of Donald Trump was simply the first such action to be taken by the leaders of the Western world. There is a risk of using two weights and two measures: not to protest in any way for the expulsion from social networks of a Myanmar general who incited hatred by causing violence; protest and shout at censorship for the expulsion from social networks of a US politician who incited hatred by causing violence. The hypocrisy is evident .
How then, from here on out? One possibility is to leave things as they are : social networks will be able to retain their discretion but accept, much more than before, their role as a social police towards users, contents and groups that violate the terms of service, regardless of the their importance. In a nutshell, platforms take a much more active role in monitoring what goes on inside them and take steps to prevent undesirable content from appearing.
It is a viable path, but not without risks. “What if Facebook lawyers decide hosting anti-fascist material is too risky in light of the Trump administration’s attacks on Antifa?” , still reads in the Tech Review . “The platforms are already removing any content that could be even minimally traced back to foreign terrorist organizations (…). Some important evidence of war crimes in Syria and vital speeches against terrorist organizations have been removed for this very reason. Likewise, the platforms have come under fire for blocking any content connected in any way to nations that are under US sanctions ” .
Leaving all this discretion in the hands of Silicon Valley companies risks reducing the diversity of speeches on Facebook , of and exclusively reinforcing a precise narrative of the world, failing to what should be the most important function of the internet: allowing information. to circulate freely globally. The fact that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have the right to decide who says what within their platforms, in short, does not mean that this discretion is without serious downsides.
To clarify this complex matter, perhaps it is appropriate to clear up some misunderstandings. First of all, the idea that platforms are neutral places : “Continuing to categorize social media companies – who curate content, whose algorithms decide which discourses to amplify, which push users to the materials that can most engage them , who connect users to hate groups , who recommend following conspiracy theorists – like ‘internet intermediaries’ who should be completely immune to the consequences of their actions is absurd “, continues Yaël Eisenstat. Not even an internet provider is neutral, because it can decide who to host on the network and who not. All the more reason this adjective cannot be applied to a social network. “Perhaps we should create a more accurate category that reflects what these companies really are, such as that of ‘digital curators’ , whose algorithms decide which content to amplify or silence . “
At the very moment in which rules of conduct – even minimal ones – are decided, one is no longer neutral, while having no rules is impracticable. “If social media become more active to classify algorithmically content that users upload, and moderating the unwanted ones, then you are becoming more and more similar to the editors “ , writes the ‘ Economist , indicating how the amount of removed content in the last two years from Facebook has increased tenfold and that of Twitter has doubled in 2019 alone.
Undoing the monopolies
Having overcome this obstacle, another must be faced: the lack of competition . “If Facebook wants to eliminate Trump – or even photos of breastfeeding mothers – this is its corporate prerogative,” reads the Tech Review . “The problem is not that Facebook doesn’t have the right to do so, but rather that – due to its acquisitions and unstoppable growth – users have almost no alternative place to go . “
The enormous decision-making power of the platforms is the prerogative of a very limited number of giants . Encouraging more competition also means forcing each platform to choose whether to be mainstream or niche, more or less permissive, if politically aligned and in which direction (while now they are all at the same time). And it would also mean giving users the ability to choose which social media to attend as they choose which newspaper to read. The platforms are currently an oligopoly that occupies any possible space and that does not leave users the freedom to decide where to go. And which inevitably lead to screaming at censorship when their choices are too fraught with consequences.
Zuckerberg some time ago compared Facebook to a public square where anyone can then say what they want. This is not the case: the more time passes, the more evident it is that social networks partly resemble mass media, with the consequent responsibilities. For its part, politics must instead encourage competition to increase the number of actors involved and thus take away from Twitter and others a part of the excessive power they possess today. Another aspect that needs to change is that of discretion: “That the most important decisions are made on time within the office of a CEO is a mistake” , he explained David Kaye, the UN rapporteur on freedom of expression .“There must be clear rules for everyone and applied transparently, without this process being undermined by political pressure” .
A greater transparency would be good platforms to shelter part of the dispute. It was having tolerated Trump’s hate speech for so long that it made the sudden decision to suspend him open to criticism. If the same decision had been taken much earlier – in a less incandescent moment from a political point of view, following clear and common rules – the criticisms would certainly have been less heated and perhaps we would never have come to experience such a critical political moment.
In the absence of this transparency, the ball inevitably passes to the nations. And that’s what is already partly happening: the United States’ decision to hold platforms accountable for content that fosters sex trafficking led Tumblr – with an excess of scruple – to remove explicitly sexual content from its site. In France, Facebook was ordered to delete a photoshopped image of Macron in pink underwear for violating an 1881 law. Anti-fake news police have been launched in Italy .
The chaotic and inconsistent way nations are moving on this front can have an unexpected side effect: “Authoritarian governments take their cue from these rough regulations of democratic nations,” continues David Kaye. And so, to give just one example, Singapore’s “partially free” democracy introduced a law against fake news in 2019 that looks more like discretionary censorship of unwelcome information.
To prevent every nation from sewing a tailor-made Facebook , explains Jillian York, platforms must adhere to the principles ” for the protection of freedom of expression and privacy ” set out in transnational initiatives such as the Global Network Initiative , which involve companies, institutions and even politics. A broader framework would provide protection from some illegitimate requests and would make it possible to avoid improvised decisions made with an often incomprehensible, opportunistic and opaque discretion.
So who decides what can be said online? No one in particular. But if the platforms abandon the alleged neutrality that has always been only of convenience, if politics will be able to break the current oligopoly and if both, together, will be able to provide themselves with a clear framework, the chaotic and intricate skein in which we find ourselves at the moment will be able to start getting unraveled.
