Censorship (Part 2): To Block or Not To Block
Between Twitter, Facebook, and now Google, the Internet has a lot to talk about since publishing Part One of my mini-series on censorship. My last article, Censorship: Not Just For Despots Anymore, explored some of the foreign examples of government sponsored blocking and information deprivation. India played a key role as a very current and very public example of a democracy that applies such anachronistic policies to its people. In recent days, news continues to filter out of Kashmir concerning a further crackdown by the Indian central government, disabling high speed internet access, and leveling state sponsored censorship against local news outlets online. Censorship is not solely used by foreign government against its citizens, however. In the United States, right at this very moment, a legal war is being waged against the titans of the Internet. A war not only bringing claims of censorship, but also manipulation of what their customers actually do get to see.
In the United States, we like to think of ourselves as the land of the free, home of the brave; you might have noticed, it’s totally a thing. But these and many other rights apply mainly to how we interact with our government, not necessarily with other people, or private businesses and enterprises. The government isn’t really supposed to tell me I can’t protest peacefully on public property, which is a charged statement to be sure, but that’s how our Constitution generally works when you’re obeying the rest of our laws, statutes, and regulations. The government, again, isn’t supposed to tell me what I’m allowed to say or not say, unless it’s to incite violence or cause general harm; the general example is you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater because people will get hurt.
A whole Bill of Rights is afforded to us by “our creator,” but the First Amendment to those rights tend to stop where others’ rights begin. I’m not generally allowed to go into someone else's home, uninvited, and speak to the occupants against their will. I have the right to free speech, but that right is not absolute, especially in such a private setting. I can’t do this to a business either, they can have me removed because the business is considered private property. Twitter, Facebook, and Google, though publicly traded, are all still private entities. They represent a platform, not unlike a soapbox. We can get up on our soapbox, and proclaim to the world what it is we’d like to say. In Times Square, a public place, the government doesn’t stop you from saying what you want to say, so you can get up on your soapbox and proclaim the end of the world, or the next showing of Frozen.
Private platforms, however, have terms and conditions. We as users effectively sign a contract to use these platforms, often ignoring their rules of common decency. We storm in demanding our Constitutional rights, as if these platforms were public property or run by the government, but they are neither. The government, in an amazingly bipartisan fashion, has decided recently that they may reshape the protections that private platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, are afforded under a regulation called “Section 230” that separates the platform from the content, and with it, relegates the responsibility for the content to the user or users who created it. Legislators and executives claim that platforms blocking users’ content amounts to editorializing content; and if an editor can decline to publish certain content, that must mean all the content that is not blocked is editorially sanctioned. This shifts the onus of responsibility squarely onto the platform, they say, and thus opens them to legal claims of libel, slander, and defamation, among others.
Platforms and many users who want to retain ownership of their work believe that the First Amendment covers their freedom of speech. Most users posting a status, or comments, on Twitter or Facebook don’t consider themselves members of the press. Searching on Google doesn't make what we're doing journalistic research either. Twitter, Facebook, and Google could also argue that they are not news sources or publications to be regulated like Fox News or The New York Times. Nonetheless, the government is invading a space usually left to private negotiations. In our private spaces, even though they have public features, are still private, and may tolerate things we do not normally tolerate outside the house, and vice-versa. Likewise Twitter and Facebook welcome us onto their platform, which has private and public features but are still private platforms. They may tolerate things that are privately posted, which they wouldn’t if it were posted publicly. They get to make the rules because we’re invited into their house. Our legislators, our executives, and soon possibly our courts, may be looking to change this fundamental relationship we have with social media platforms, and in turn, alter our First Amendment Rights.
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