"On social networks, behave as if you are a guest on live television at all times", is the advice that the professor of online journalism and media business models, Paul Kaplan, gave me a year after the creation of Twitter. These days, Twitter and Facebook are in the spotlight, because they canceled the profile of the outgoing US President Donald Trump due to, as they say, the risk of further incitement to violence. Recall, Trump called his supporters to go from the meeting in the center of Washington to the Congress building, where the most radical ones then stormed. Five people died in the ensuing violence.
If Trump had called for violence, insulted and discriminated against Muslims, refugees, women, journalists, and presented false and unverified information in a live TV program, every professional presenter, producer and editor who is guided by the ethical code of their profession, would either have reacted, or would interrupt his hosting. The American president did all of the above years ago on several American TV channels, and mostly on his Twitter account. That's why the reaction of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others, according to many, justified, but belated.
"Trump's use of social media to spread propaganda has gone largely unchecked amid a legal vacuum in regulating government speech on social media," she told the British paper. The Guardian assistant professor at Syracuse University, Jennifer Grizzial. She believes that "what happened is the product of the president's four years of systematic propaganda."
Twitter's procedure, however, the founder Networks for ethical journalism and former Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists, Aiden White, sees as potentially dangerous, as it is arbitrary and time-bound. White wonders why Twitter didn't take action years ago while Trump was building and spreading hate politics.
"The power to take away freedom of speech can only be applied within a transparent framework, with the understanding of all parties. Also, the suspension of freedom of speech would have to have a limited duration. It should only aim to prevent and eliminate clear threats. In the case at hand, the danger has passed. This is like a massive padlock on the door after the horse has already bolted from the stable. The threat and danger caused by Trump's crazy tweeting is much less now,” says White.
He adds that Twitter's action is cynical and exclusive, and that it benefits the company. Namely, Twitter and other tech giants are facing a possible action by Congress that would break their unlimited power by adopting new antitrust laws, and thus Twitter and others are trying to show the political establishment that they are acting responsibly and applying some form of self-regulation. White believes that "this is Twitter's parading, taking a position of moral superiority, but also an effort to preserve an arbitrary, unreliable and irresponsible information control system."
Za Emily Bell of Columbia University, "removing social media profiles is the first step, while the second step is to implement a policy that would reflect the fact that powerful individuals need more restrictions and 'more' monitoring on platforms". She says that the idea that the powerful are paving the way for additional abuses is against ethical and democratic principles. Public figures who have more power and more responsibility are limited in most spheres of public activity. It shouldn't be any different on social media.
British public service BBC for example, it recently adopted a new rulebook on the behavior of its employees on social networks. These guidelines should limit abuse and possible mistakes by employees, many of whom are public figures, so they have more power, but also responsibility for the spoken word.
These are sporadic attempts at regulation and self-regulation on social networks. Big tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook didn't really have a strong reason to regulate their, above all, hugely profitable platforms. Pressure from the public, certain institutions, non-governmental and media organizations, has only here and there borne fruit for large companies to do something to suppress the spread of lies, conspiracy theories, racism and ultra-right ideologies.
Facebook is only in October last year banned Holocaust denial. If Facebook were a country, it would be the largest country in the world with over two and a half billion users. In that Facebook country for 16 years, many ultra-rightists found free space for organizing and discussion. According to internal Facebook research from 2016, 64% of those who became members of an extremist group on this network did so only because Facebook's algorithm recommended it to them.
Therefore, there are more and more extremists, right-wingers and conspiracy theorists. They undisturbed, as he found it The BBC's online disinformation research team, plan actions such as breaking into the US Congress weeks in advance and precisely on social networks. In order to fully understand what is happening, it is necessary to study, he advises Professor Zeynab Tufekci, "how the combination of social dynamics, ubiquitous digital connectivity and the business models of tech giants create an environment where misinformation thrives and where even true information can confuse and paralyze, rather than inform and enlighten."
The departure of Donald Trump from the White House and from social networks does not mean that the problem of a deeply polarized society and increasingly present nationalism, and in some cases, fascism, will disappear. Freedom of speech, just like the fight against hate speech, is the heritage of a democratic society. The problem arises when a few billionaire profiteers from Silicon Valley find themselves on the sidelines of freedom.
The author is a journalist, Network for Investigative Journalism London
(Media Institute of Montenegro)
This article is part of a project carried out by the Media Institute with the support of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through British Embassy in Podgorica i of the National Endowment for Democracy from the USA. The views expressed in this text are the sole responsibility of the Media Institute and the author and in no way reflect the views of the donors.
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