Virginia Hermosa- civil litigation and criminal defense attorney (Photo from Virginia Hermosa)
Censorship is to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Debate has circled over social media companies’ ability to censor users’ posts based on community guidelines, according to an article published in Forbes.
Virginia Hermosa, civil litigation, and criminal defense attorney, said people are simplifying the situation and getting “caught in the semantics of words and definitions.”
“Is it censorship as in government censorship? No. But is it censorship? Yes,” Hermosa said. “Is it something that affects us the citizens? Yes, it does.”
James Eppler, managing editor and lead anchor for ‘Good Day Lubbock’ on Fox 34 and journalism instructor at Texas Tech, said “censorship and freedom of speech are two totally different things.”
“I think when people use the term censorship, they tend to think First Amendment rights,” Eppler said. “People need to understand that censorship is not the same for your First Amendment rights as being on a social media platform.”
Eppler said people ask the question “What about my freedom of speech?” when talking about Big Tech’s regulation of their social media accounts.
James Eppler- managing editor and lead anchor for ‘Good Day Lubbock’ on Fox 34 and journalism instructor at Texas Tech (Photo from TTU website)
“You don’t have freedom of speech on Facebook and Twitter. It is a private company; they can make whatever rules they want. You don’t own your Facebook page. You don’t own your Twitter page. So, the freedom of speech argument doesn’t apply in that circumstance,” Eppler said.
Hermosa said people will most likely get caught up in litigation over this issue because it involves the private sectors that media conglomerates fall under.
“We’re used to having our freedom of speech protected, however, it’s usually protected from the government. Unfortunately, I think that people are going to get caught up in litigation,” Hermosa said. “It’s going to be, well whether a private sector actually can restrict speech.”
Dr. Kevin Banda, assistant professor of political science in the department of political science at Texas Tech, said people are not wrong that users are getting removed from these platforms however, elite role models have influenced people to believe Big Tech’s actions are censorship.
Kevin Banda- assistant professor of political science in the department of political science at Texas Tech (Photo from TTU website)
“They latch on to it because that’s what the role models say, opinion leaders, say,” Banda said. “Also, it turns out those people were violating those terms of services and it seems as if Twitter and Facebook, and those other platforms are worried about legal ramifications of allowing stuff like that to remain up.”
Eppler said in terms of rules for social media users, they should be applied to everyone rather than one specific group of users.
“I think you’ve had people on both the far-right and the far-left of the political spectrum have their content be censored or taken down on Facebook and Twitter,” Eppler said. “I think we can definitely agree if you have a set of rules, they need to apply to everybody.”
Banda said there are reasons to be “a little worried” about the influence that Big Tech companies and social media have.
“Those platforms are used by people to communicate with one another, and if you can remove people from the capacity to communicate with one another then that probably suggest that those companies have too much power,” Banda said. “It suggests that you want to think about it, whether they have too much power.”
According to the City Journal, dominant social media companies must choose: if they are neutral platforms, they should have immunity from litigation. If they are publishers making editorial choices, then they should relinquish this valuable exemption. They can’t claim that Section 230 immunity is necessary to protect free speech, while they shape, control, and censor the speech on their platforms. Either the courts or Congress should clarify the matter.
Hermosa said it does not make sense that media conglomerates can act as publishers and restrict people when they claim they are not publishers.
“If they’re a publisher, then yeah I can see them censoring people,” Hermosa said. “But they’re saying they are not a publisher, but then they have the protections of a publisher. So, which is it? Pick one.”
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