Lucy Dunn
2021 got off to a demoralising start. After Covid-19 made 2020 the year of a global standstill, we all hoped for better. Yet only six days in, the chaotic invasion of America’s Capitol building by frenzied, frothy-mouthed right-wing rioters was broadcast live across all news channels, leaving the world reeling, jaws on the floor. It was a whole two days later, after Trump took, unsurprisingly, to his favourite form of communication, to send “love” to his rioters, berate Joe Biden and announce his absence from the inauguration, that, finally, action was taken. With the click of a button, Trump’s Twitter presence, as well as all of his intellectual, considered tweets, disintegrated into nothing.
Following the ban, Trump Jnr took to Twitter to vent his father’s frustration. Referencing George Orwell’s dystopian 1984, which many right-wingers ironically refer to in their denouncing of “cancel culture”, he stated that “free speech no longer exists in America ”.
“Despite the permanent Twitter ban remaining, Trump somehow managed to get his name into the headlines again…”
More recently, despite the permanent Twitter ban remaining, Trump somehow managed to get his name into the headlines again, with Facebook declaring that the site planned to ban the former US President for two years. And just last week, the site stayed true to its word, with an interview featuring Trump removed from his daughter-in-law’s Facebook.
With social media sites becoming slowly more proactive in their removal of accounts that incite violence, for example, Facebook’s ban of the Myanmar military, the conversation around the controversial moves has been ramping up over the last six months. Whilst many on the opposite side of the political spectrum initially applauded the move to de-platform Trump, the fallout began to separate into distinct groups of thought, each raising a myriad of questions that fall to us, as up-and-coming generations, to answer…
“Should we be frightened that this power in the wrong hands could head us straight in the direction of a police state?”
Why had Twitter taken so long to take this step? Why should this decision be Twitter’s to make? Should other people of Trump’s category be banned accordingly? How can we decide who will go and who will stay? And, perhaps most importantly, what are the true consequences of banning such a prominent figure from one of the world’s leading social media platforms? Is there truth in Trump Jnr’s tweet: if it becomes this easy to de-platform someone as significant as the President of the United States, should we be frightened that this power in the wrong hands could head us straight in the direction of a police state?
Firstly, there is the issue of censorship, which, in itself, is tied historically to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. It is true that hateful right-wing posting transmits a certain level of danger to vulnerable, impressionable social media users who perhaps feel lost in their own lives and see the community spirit of alt-right groups, tied to one another in their radical views, as some comforting beacon of hope. In this regard, censoring extremists from public social media platforms may temporarily abate this danger. However, it presents two problems. Firstly, the radical right groups will still exist, just not on that particular public platform, and secondly, the impressionable social media user is no less vulnerable, and may simply enlist in extremist groups via some alternative corner of the internet.
The issue with censorship is the subsequent fragmentation of social media. Extreme right speakers will simply find another place to air their views, somewhere less public and more secretive; someplace where it is harder to oversee, regulate and safeguard ourselves against harmful ideologies. The upside to alt-right groups being on Twitter and Facebook is their visibility to everyone, law enforcement included. Their accessibility on public forums means that police and law officials are more able to penetrate certain right-wing bubbles, keep updated on current ideological trends, foretell when the transition of virtual thought will become a physical reality and prevent actual harm from happening. The banning of extremists from universally-used social media sites doesn’t equate to the end of their harmful ideologies; they will simply migrate, as many have already done, to lesser-used and less responsible online sites and apps, like Parler, which is described as being a “non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights”.
“Leaving the power in the hands of CEOs is no longer acceptable.”
This ultimately leads to what has been described as the “splinternet” phenomenon. Usually discussed in relation to China’s rift from Western social media, the fragmentation of the internet into a myriad of separate, unregulated spaces is a frightening concept, considering the harm that can be done online. A selective extreme-right space simply creates an echo chamber that would serve as a means to further validate, ‘verify’ and expand already radical viewpoints, and with an area of the internet so discrete, any hope of regulation by external authorities would be a pipedream.
In arguing for extremists to remain under the watchful gaze of the public on widely-used social media sites, there needs to be acknowledgement of the urgent need for online regulation and education. Leaving the power in the hands of CEOs is no longer acceptable. Part of the controversy surrounding Twitter’s Trump ban was the timing: Twitter left it to the very last minute, almost literally. Biden’s inauguration was only two weeks later. This begs the question: even if we demand better self-regulation of social media platforms, how can we be sure whether they are acting out of morality, or politics? The issue of leaving the rules to the companies themselves is that their own motives may not necessarily align with the common good, or even the law. Democratic governments need to take more responsibility for the internet, considering how social media permeates into every walk of modern life.
A universal standard of regulation that aims to reduce the amount of untrue and hate-filled online posting would take us to a halfway-house situation: right-wingers would retain access to public platforms, so feeling their voices remain heard, whilst being simultaneously modulated and remaining very much under public scrutiny. But to ensure that there is compliance with increased social media regulation, it follows that there needs to be improved education.
“Banning people from social media will not stop their hateful messages from being spread, and it may even fuel the fire.”
We need to provide better definitions of phrases lovingly thrown around by right-wing groups, hijacked to evoke empathy and pity within potential supporters. By providing better, functional definitions of “freedom of speech” and “fake news”, we can help people better differentiate between what is moral and immoral online. The lack of understanding about what is and isn’t a breach of personal freedom, as well as the boundary between free speech and hate speech, plays a prominent role in an individual understanding of politics. Providing people with a stronger sense of what is and isn’t right is the provision of armour to withstand the cajoling of extreme right-wing groups online.
Censorship should be the last resort, but even then, perhaps it shouldn’t be. Cutting people out isn’t the answer: just as illegalising drugs and incarcerating criminals from society doesn’t stop drug use or crime from taking place, banning people from social media will not stop their hateful messages from being spread, and it may even fuel the fire. As a liberal, inclusive society, we need to disprove the Trump rhetoric that social media modulation and political correctness equates to Orwellian-type suppression. We shouldn’t sink to the same levels as extremists: being more open, discursive and forthcoming, whilst staying shrewd and aware of online threats to democracy, will only benefit us, online and offline, in the future.
Featured image courtesy of Ravi Sharma on Unsplash. Image licence found here. No changes have been made to this image.
