Has Social Media Killed Free Speech


Recently many big social media companies have started shutting down accounts that are radical or violent. This is a very good thing because most of the accounts shut down are sharing a message of violence and hatred. The accounts can also be inappropriate or in some cases affecting elections. USA Today has an article on this topic(Click Here).

However in some cases accounts can be shut down for no reason or for a political reason. It doesn’t matter what the banned person is saying but it does matter why they were banned An article by Forbes shows these biases (Click Here). These biases can hurt free speech, even though they break no laws.

What do you think, is banning accounts an infringement on free speech? What types of account should be banned? Should any accounts be banned?

Comments

  1. Mr. LawlerNovember 14, 2018 at 8:16 AM

    Great image, Henry. I also think your question is THE big question about free speech and social media. We'll be discussing this in more detail in the future . . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Evie LNovember 14, 2018 at 6:13 PM

    I think that it depends, if a person is being making very hurtful/harmful political comments or any bad comments in general, that person should be banned. However, if people are simply stating their opinion, they should not be banned because they have a right to freedom of speech. Also, if someone’s comment is seen as a threat to anyone they should be banned, but overall, it just depends on the comment made.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sender MNovember 14, 2018 at 10:15 PM

    Accounts should be banned based on the regulations of the social media company. To my knowledge, I don't think companies can publicly ban accounts based on their political spectrum or just for fun, but it's sad that it does happen from time to time. Only if their political agenda presents a clear and present danger or other violation to the company's code of conduct should it be banned.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nate DNovember 15, 2018 at 5:47 PM

    I know that many social media companies are private and therefore can do whatever they want with their cite. But I do believe that they should allow all speech rather than banning accounts they think are dangerous. What I believe can be a possible solution is to simply let all speech, which can possibly include hate speech, show itself in the world. By doing this, society will have the most opportunities to see it, recognize it, understand it, and reject it. This, of course, assumes that the most accepted values in society are more “enlightened” than those of the perpetrator. But that is what we need to determine first and foremost. I do admit that is not a good solution but this is because there is never going to be a good solution. This is because “hate speech” is completely subjective and that is why so many are getting banned for seemingly no reason.

    ReplyDelete
  5. EllieNovember 15, 2018 at 6:49 PM

    I believe that the banning of accounts and wheather it is an infringement is very situational. I completely agree that accounts should be banned if they are doing something harmful, or just outright spreading hate speech. But accounts shouldn’t be banned purely because of religion, political opinions and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jeremy WNovember 15, 2018 at 7:47 PM

    I think banning accounts should be decided by the social media platform. If the social media platform decides that they'll allow free speech, I think all the hate speech accounts will be rejected by most of the users on the platform, and it will be ignored. I can also see why a platform would want to ban accounts to keep the platform a safe and inclusive environment.

    ReplyDelete

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