In general I try to keep out of politics but the issue of what is currently occurring on the most popular social media platforms is a critical one to consider, for everyone. I've briefly touched on this subject in an earlier article.
The internet has grown from its humble beginnings as a platform to share academic papers to a worldwide society comprising individuals from all cultures, creeds and beliefs spanning all types of political thought. It could also be said that a lot of society itself now occurs on the internet, as groups and individuals. It includes varying forms of behaviour and treatment of others ranging from polite to abusive, from informal to formal. Some people are still struggling with the concept of a social network, while others who have never known a life without it are fully plugged in. For the latter, it has even become their whole life and even their primary source of income.
At the heart of this, in a 480km² location, sit the major social network applications like YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and so on. What should make any or all of these platforms interesting, is the diversity of opinions they carry and contain. In theory it is the stated policy of any social media product that all opinions are encouraged and supported -- a free and open platform on which to operate. The original aim was to attract as many people as possible because numbers translate to revenues. While the latter still holds true, instead of the original promise they are now starting to impose their limited belief sets on everyone else on the planet, billions of people.
It has only been in very recent times this has changed. If you've ever given a speech or sung in front of more than a dozen people then there is an understanding that there will be some people who like what you are doing and others who won't. It is the nature of humanity. The same goes for something like the now nebulously defined concept of "hate speech". For some a statement is hate speech. For others it is a positive, factual thing.
There is a class of netizens known as the Social Justice Warrior who opposes anything they don't agree with and work actively to get anyone disagreeing with them banned. This is of course the very definition of censorship and tyranny. Unfortunately, many social media platforms and strangely in one recent example, financial institutions like Master Card, would now rather cancel any services that support the basic rights of free speech and expression based on some skewed set of rules and faux morality of a minority.
Events of the past couple of years indicate that the major social media platforms have transformed into moral cartels that have decided to enforce their very narrow view of politics and what is acceptable on the rest of humanity. This has come with self-appointed legislative and executive powers for which there are no legal means of recourse available.
The trigger for putting this analysis in this article was the recent banning of Alex Jones, a conspiracy theory persona that is part outrageous, part entertaining and part just plain unbelievable. In the space of a day he was banned by a range of social media platforms on the basis of "hate speech" including, for no reason I can think of, LinkedIn. It was like they all got together one day and decided that they would commit the social and financial execution of an individual because they didn't happen to like his politics. As I write this the question is, if it hasn't already occurred, who will be next? In the time since I wrote that last sentence a number of others have been banned or similar.
It is becoming more obvious that what we need is an international Bill of Digital Rights along the line of the US First Amendment, and the social media cartels need to be regulated as global public utilities. This will protect freedom of expression while at the same time allowing for the handling of true hate speech rather than the "I don't agree with what you say" category that has adopted that label. The only other solution is a series of tribal social media platforms that individually cater to different groups and opinions. This would seem to be the least preferable option as it takes away the whole concept of debate, discussion and diversity of opinions, or all the things that make social media even remotely interesting.
All it takes now is a single community complaint that could be a lie, and often is, to close someone down. It is very difficult to communicate or defend yourself if the accusations are not valid or based on reality.
There are other options becoming available if your ideas don't fit into the Silicon Valley mindset. If you are feeling disillusioned, then check out sites like the following for an alternative social media experience. www.BitChute.com, gab.ai, Minds.com. As a final observation it is worth noting that even Patreon has stared banning people with the "wrong" views, something I thought I'd never see.
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.
