There needs to be a space to be offended while protecting people from hate

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116736″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Platform or publisher?

Free speech versus hate speech?

Personal responsibility versus corporate responsibility?

What is social media for and who is responsible for what?

This week Donald Trump, the former American President, once again made international headlines. This time not for something he had said that day – but rather on whether he has the right to have a public platform on social media, and Facebook in particular.

Many of us undoubtedly have a significant problem with many of the tweets that the former President posted during his tenure. My personal politics are well known, and no one would be surprised for a second that I found Trump to be abhorrent. He does have the right however, as a citizen in a free society to be offensive and abusive (although not to incite violence – which I believe he did).

But the question at hand isn’t actually about his free speech or whether he has the right to be on social media or not. Rather the question is – what is social media?  Is it a publisher of content that is legally responsible for the words and deeds of their users or is it a platform which facilitates debate (and in too many cases hate)?

Social media is a core part of many of our lives. At times of crisis, both personal and national, it can be a blessing, letting you know friends and family are safe. At its best it can and should inspire thoughtful debate and challenge the status-quo. But at its worst it can bring out the very worst in every one of us. It can incite hate, racism, misogyny, harassment, bullying and violence. It can radicalise. But is can also entertain and inform. In other words, social media and its impact is as complex as the people who use it.

Given how we all use it, it is easy to consider social media a free public space, one that we all have access to without restriction. But social media companies are exactly that – private companies – who get to decide who uses their services and how they get to use them. That doesn’t make them inherently bad, but it does mean that they have their own rationale for operation. It also means we don’t have either an intrinsic right to use or and complete free speech on them – unless they allow it.

In the months ahead I’m going to be speaking a lot about the Online Safety Bill, the legislation progressing through the British parliament regarding our online access and future regulation. There is clearly a cultural problem on social media – it can all too often be a grim place to spend time; we need to recognise that and help fix it. But not at the cost of protections for free speech, our right to debate and engage.

There needs to be space to be offended – while at the same time protecting people from hate and violence. We also need to remember that personal responsibility is relevant in this debate and no one acts with impunity.

So the challenge for all of us – is helping to make social media a better place while protecting our core rights – a balance that we must find.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

UK football social media blackout raises free speech issues

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

The Premier League and a coalition of football governing bodies from across the United Kingdom are set to commence a social media blackout from 30 April to 3 May to raise awareness of online racist abuse, but the initiative has raised questions over its end goal.

Clubs, players and governing bodies have called for implementation of the contentious Online Harms Bill (also known as the Online Safety Bill), which will impose regulation on social media companies in order to ensure they remove hateful speech online. They hope the blackout will draw awareness and support of the issue.

The legislation has been criticised as the bill will introduce several key points that a number of free expression groups, including Index, believe to be regressive and will impact on people’s free speech online.

This includes the definition of terms such as “legal but harmful”, which will classify some speech as legal offline but illegal online, meaning there would be inconsistency within the UK system of law.

The Professional Footballers Association (PFA), however, are in strong support of the bill. In a statement they said they hoped social media companies would be held “more accountable”.

“While football takes a stand, we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms, as discussed at the DCMS Online Abuse roundtable earlier this week,” they said. “We will not stop talking about this issue and will continue to work with the government in ensuring that the Online Safety Bill gives sufficient regulatory and supervisory powers to Ofcom. Social media companies need to be held accountable if they continue to fall short of their moral and social responsibilities to address this endemic problem.”

Index’s CEO Ruth Smeeth has questioned using the bill as a solution to targeting racism, as well as the use of a blackout.

“No one who has spent any time on social media could deny the fact that there is a real problem, with abuse, racism and misogyny,” she said. “The nature of social media platforms seems to bring out the worst in too many people and empower hate from every corner. The question is, though, how to fix it.”

“This is more than about what platforms allow on their sites, it’s about the culture that has been allowed to thrive online. We are all responsible for it, so we all need to work together to fix it as we can’t legislate for cultural change.  I understand why the PFA wants to boycott social media platforms – but we saw only last year when others did the same because of antisemitism, boycotts deliver only temporary respite, the haters are still hating. We all deserve better.”

The blackout will see a period of silence on social media to symbolise clubs and governing bodies coming together against the serious issue of racism in football, though some believe the action to be counter-productive and may discourage those affected from speaking out, or removing a place for discourse where people can debate such issues.

Editor of football website These Football Times, Omar Saleem, released a statement explaining why they won’t be joining the blackout over the weekend saying clubs need to take “genuine action”, “not the weekend off”, but also called for social media companies to be held accountable.

“Silence is not the answer. I truly believe that. As a minority in football, that’s my opinion,” he said. “Racism cannot be fought by white-led social media teams suggesting we go silent for the weekend during some of the quietest times on those platforms.”

“Instead of silence, we need action. We need voices to speak louder than ever, programmes that educate and organise. We needed that societally post-George Floyd and we need it in football, too. We need clubs to take genuine action – not the weekend off.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

China: A century of silencing dissent

FEATURING

The week that tested the boundaries of free speech

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116027″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Irony – a situation in which something which was intended to have a particular result has the opposite or a very different one

Censored – suppressed, altered or deleted as objectionable

Words are important and while language is ever evolving some words have had the same meaning for decades, even centuries, and there are simply no excuses for misrepresenting them to try and fit your political worldview. Words have status, they have legal bearing and they are also a thing of beauty enabling us to communicate with each other.

This week we saw the ultimate unintentionally ironic political statement during the debate in the House of Representatives concerning Donald Trump’s second impeachment. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican congresswoman from Georgia, stood up to defend the rhetoric of the president, speaking from the US Capitol, from the chamber of Congress, the home of US democracy, on live television and while being live streamed around the world, with a face mask which read “CENSORED”.

Perhaps it was a veiled reference to Trump’s removal from Twitter? But at that very moment, the congresswoman herself, with her words and her world view being heard by literally millions of people and recorded for posterity in both the media and the Congressional Record, was not being censored. Her voice wasn’t being limited, she wasn’t being forced to restrict her language or caveat her political position. She is fortunate to live in a country where free speech is still both protected and valued. And to suggest otherwise undermines the global fight for the right to free speech in repressive regimes.

Senator Josh Hawley has had his book contract cancelled by Simon & Schuster. They said “[a]fter witnessing the disturbing, deadly insurrection that took place on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. We did not come to this decision lightly. As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints; at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”

Hawley is claiming that he is being cancelled, that his constitutional right to free speech is being attacked and that he is suing. We know that because Hawley was featured in nearly every news outlet which covers the USA, both foreign and domestic. Hawley remains a senator, he has the right to speak to his nation in every sitting outlining his priorities and world view. His words were published this week in an op-ed in his local media. He hasn’t been silenced or cancelled, his lucrative book deal has. And even if that sets a bad precedent – a debate we will explore further at Index over the coming months – it is not the same thing.

Our right to free speech is precious. It is something that we need to cherish. Not abuse. And we need to be honest about when it is and is not being threatened. It is being threatened in Belarus, where our own correspondent Andrei Aliaksandrau has just been arrested by the regime. It is under threat in Egypt where according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights 60,000 political prisoners are incarcerated. It is nonexistent in Xinjiang province, China, where millions of Uighurs have been sent to re-education camps. It is not being threatened in the USA – it may be being challenged but these words mean different things.

I believe passionately about our right to free speech. I think everybody has the right to speak, to argue their position, to tell their stories. But there is a difference from having the right to speak and the right to be heard. Simply put you don’t have the latter, it is not a universal right, which can be unjust and for some incredibly damaging but it’s the reality we live in.

This brings me to the other controversy of the week, which warrants a great deal of debate and conversation. Something Index is going to launch in the coming weeks – the suspension of Trump from his social media accounts. Most online platforms are corporate entities, who balance responsibilities to defend free speech and to protect their users. They have a duty of care to their customers as well as to their corporate reputations. They also facilitate a great deal of our national and personal conversations. And they have made the remarkable decision to remove the President of the United States from their sites. They had the right to do this, but the question is should they have removed him and more importantly who decided he shouldn’t be there?

It was not a decision that was taken lightly. “I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?” wrote CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey.

In his thoughtful thread on the action he wrote: “Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.”

As Dorsey himself acknowledges we need to explore what role these companies really play in our society. Are they merely platforms enabling us to engage within a framework they determine? Are they publishers responsible for every word on their sites? Do they govern the public space or merely facilitate it? And do we know what they are doing? Their actions can determine who speaks and who is heard. We need a really robust conversation about where the red lines should be on online content and what is or isn’t acceptable. These questions have been circulating for a while but have never felt more crucial to be addressed than this week. These are the questions that will define our online presence in the years ahead, so we need answers now.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]