By: Ellie McCartney
As the reach of social media expands and grows, laws and restrictions have to grow with them. Although the U.S. citizens enjoy their freedom of speech in all facets of life, social media can break rules that other forms of speech can’t.
Because of the reach of each platform, opinions, comments and other content are constantly being sifted through filters for unprotected speech, such as hate speech, obscenity, fighting words and defamation. As one of the most sacred amendments in our constitution, the First Amendment is one form of freedom Americans are not ready to live without.
As S.G. Tallentyre, the author of the book “The Friends of Voltaire”, once said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
However, certain platforms have begun to crack down on content that that does not necessarily fall under the unprotected speech umbrella. So, where do we draw the line?
For example, when Marcia Belsky, a comedian, commented on her friends Facebook posts the words, “men are scum” she was banned from the platform for 30 days, according to the article, Facebook is Banning Women for Calling Men Scum.
It is clear that Facebook overreacted to this post by not taking into consideration this persons line of work and the tone in which she wrote her response they made the wrong call. In fact, the use of the phrase, “Men are scum” was being used as a statement and not a sign of hate speech or a call-to-action for violence against them. Therefore, in this case the platform should’ve kept their distance.
Whereas other examples, such as the censorship of a White Nationalist group promoting violence against other races of people, found in the article, Here’s Why You Don’t Have the Right to Freedom of Speech on Social Media, is a more clear use of hate speech and fighting words.
The biggest difference between these two cases of censorship are that one should be taken seriously. Whereas the other should of been ignored like any other noise filling social media platforms every day.
Where do we draw the line?
Because social media is such a broad form of speech it can be hard to know where to draw the line at censorship. For platforms like Facebook or Twitter it makes sense that they should have some control over what is posted on their platform.
According to the article, Where do we Draw the Line When it Comes to Free Speech Online, states that private entities like Facebook say that yes their users have the right to free speech, but they also have the right to who can publish on their site.
However, privately owned companies like Facebook must be careful of how much they are censoring their content. By censoring your content too much, users on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms will stray away from social media.
“People have the right to believe whatever they want, but these more extreme views on politics, racism, sexism, and homosexuality can start verbal sparring matches that help no one,” according to the article Freedom of Speech and Social Media.
So, in other words if you going to censor speech let’s make sure it is the type of speech that is not protected under the laws of the constitution.
Also, before action is taken research needs to be done to determine what the messages are saying, why they are being sent to and who is going to be seeing the post.
Without clear guidelines for judging the intent of speech on social media, how can platforms begin to censor social media without a consistent framework for protecting other users rights on social media?
Overall, to fully protect users freedom of speech on social media, users need to know what they can say and not say on these platforms. Therefore, government officials and social media platforms need to put together clear guidelines for the usage of their media.
