OPINION - Has freedom of expression become hostage to tech giants?

By Iftikhar Gilani

ANKARA (AA) - The issues of digital privacy, data protection, and more so freedom of expression have once again come to the fore -- first by the decision of social media companies blocking US President Donald Trump and then by WhatsApp’s brazen move to force users to agree to new privacy rules that allow sharing of personal data with Facebook.

While many hailed Twitter, Facebook, Amazon for shutting down Trump’s account and Google for blocking his access to YouTube for allegedly instigating rioters in Washington on Jan. 6, these companies in the past have blocked genuine protesters as well.

Be that in Kashmir or activists speaking against India’s citizenship law or Palestinians’ agitating against Israeli occupation have in past faced the ire of these four big tech companies.

Palestinian journalist Hani al-Shaer’s Facebook account was deleted for the 10th time in October last year over the period of three years.

Working in Gaza Strip, al-Shaer said banning posts and deleting accounts of Palestinian journalists undermines their efforts to highlight and threatens their future career; especially that they lose their followers.

In August 2019, social media platforms Twitter and Facebook suspended dozens of pro-Kashmir accounts protesting against the revocation of special status by Indian government.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fakebook’s top policy official in India, Ankhi Das, had prevented the removal of hate speech and anti-Muslim posts by politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to maintain a good relationship with the government.

During the Indian election in 2019, Facebook announced it had taken down 687 pages for “inauthentic behavior” linked to the opposition Congress party. Only 15 pro-BJP pages were removed.

In the case of mainstream media, which is subjected to national media regulations and where an affected person has an outlet for an appeal, there is no such mechanism associated with social media platforms.

“Earlier while we had to fight with the governments only to seek a space for freedom of expression, now big tech companies are also posing a threat to this right,” said Anand Kishore Sahay, a senior journalist and president of Press Club of India.

He referred to an incident where Facebook had allegedly blocked an interview of Kuldeep Nayyar, a noted Indian author, and politician who passed away in 2018.

- Big question

Keeping aside the ban on Trump, the big question confronting over the past few years has been whether the world’s four multibillionaires have made freedom of expression a hostage.

Sahay believed that if these companies can have the gumption to silence the microphone of the world’s most powerful politician, who presides a 200-year-old constitution that revers free speech, the action on other movements cannot be far away.

European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton even drew parallels between responses to the storming of the US Capitol and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 that led to a global crackdown on terrorism.

“Just as 9/11 marked a paradigm shift for global security, 20 years later we are witnessing a before-and-after in the role of digital platforms in our democracy,” Breton, commissioner for the Internal Market wrote in a column for Politico.

Participating in an online discussion organized by the Atlantic Council – an American thinktank -- Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center, said that worries about public values and democratic rights coming under increasing pressure because of the commercialization of the online sphere have been there for over a long time.

She questioned whether these tech companies should be allowed to have such unchecked power, and said the freedom of expression is linked to the state duty of protecting the lives of people.

While expressing happiness at the personal level at Twitter’s decision of blocking Trump, Fran Burwell, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, said in longer-term, she had hesitation to the idea of power these companies yield.

“Power of these platforms has grown quite huge. This is not traditional media. It allows ideas to spread much swiftly and broadly and that is what we have not yet been able to grapple,” she said.

Further, as Joe Biden will take over as the president, the debate to amend Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996, may become louder. The provision provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content.

In the run-up to the presidential campaign, Biden had expressed concern at the concentration of power in tech companies.

“We should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you’re not exempt. [The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he [Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg] can,” said Biden in an interview published in The New York Times.

- Turkish president’s concern

Echoing concerns, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that digitalization has triggered some challenges and risks.

"We surely cannot tolerate violent events targeting democracy and democratic institutions; however, we cannot also accept the closure of people's communication channels without any legal basis," he said at a media awards ceremony held at the presidential complex in the capital Ankara on Jan. 13.

Since social media transcends barriers, the issues need to have global responses.

There is ample need for the UN to deliberate on the issue and frame uniform guidelines and also set up an independent regulator, who can be an appellate authority to adjudicate on the blocking of contents.

The regulator must differentiate between a hate message and genuine peaceful protests to allow an online democratic space. Otherwise, leaving such decisions to the board rooms of four giant global corporations will only lead towards “digital fascism”, where lesser mortals and the developing world will suffer the most.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.​​​​​​​