Censorship by Facebook and Twitter Must Stop

Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, one thing we should agree upon is that in the epicenter of democracy is the freedom of political expression. Political expression isn’t always truthful or accurate, but the right to express it, no matter how outrageous, has always existed in the United States. Until now.

Censorship by the two world’s largest social media companies, Facebook and Twitter, are a threat to democracy. These two social media giants assert that they are attempting to prevent the dissemination of misinformation, use “fact checkers,” and are trying to avert election meddling, but the irony is that they themselves become the biggest obstacles to freedom of speech and by their conduct are the biggest culprits of the very election meddling they say they are preventing.

According to Statista, Facebook has over 223 million US users. The US population, per the US Census website, is currently about 330 million. A person must be at least 13 years old to be allowed to use Facebook. If we remove everyone under 13 from the US population figure, it nets 277 million. That equates to almost 81% of the US population, 13 and over, is on Facebook. But since only 2.8% of Facebook users are between age 13 and 17, that means Facebook has nearly 217 million adult users in the United States. The voting adult population, 18 and over, is nearly 257 million. In conclusion, Facebook reaches a colossal amount of adults in the United States – over 84%!

Twitter’s numbers are less impressive, but significant nonetheless. It is said that 22% of all US adults in the United States use Twitter.

On July 8, 1776, the bells of the State House Yard rang to call the citizens of Philadelphia to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. Since then, public announcements and political discourse has occurred throughout the United States on the public spaces of government buildings and courthouses. With the invention of the Internet and the growth of social media, the public forum for social discourse, debate and political dialogue has shifted to the social media platforms.

Politics and lies are practically synonyms. From George Washington all the way down the line, it would be quite a challenge to find a fully honest politician. The public is quite aware of politicians’ exaggerations and often view much of what is said with an air of skepticism. And “fake news” stories and others attempts to manipulate the electorate has been happening for hundreds of years. In fact, President John Adams, once addressing whether the advent of the free press would result in a more informed public, said, “There has been more new error propagated by the press in the last ten years than in a hundred years before 1798.”

These issues are nothing new. What is new is the censorship that is taking place in the public medium. While Facebook and Twitter hide behind the facade that they are protecting the public from the public themselves, by filtering what they judge as “real” and “inaccurate” news, they become the judges of communication, freedom and liberty. These social media companies cite “fact checkers” for their censorship, but who is fact checking the “fact checkers”?

The First Amendment safeguards freedom of speech and prohibits the government from infringing on that right. Although Facebook and Twitter are not government entities, their role as the principal disseminators of information gives them tremendous power and obligations. There is little doubt that the controllers of information have a huge influence on society and the sustainability of democracy itself. That is why the Communists in the Soviet Union controlled the news content and how that information was provided to the public. And today the Chinese Communist Party maintains that same control over their news outlets.

Although the media has had editorial discretion as to what to publish, there has never been such a large megaphone reaching 84% of all adults in the United States. By comparison, the nation’s most popular newspaper, USA Today, has a circulation of 1.6 million. Facebook’s “circulation” is 139 times that of USA Today. The countries top 10 newspapers together, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and more, collectively have a circulation of about 5 million. Facebook’s reach is almost 45 times greater than all the top 10 American newspapers combined.

The American mainstream media also comes in various styles and political philosophies. Some lean left, others lean right. They compete for news stories, and check the validity of each other. Facebook’s reach is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Facebook has no viable competitor to provide people an alternate similar medium to make their statements. This means that Facebook must err on the side of permitting free speech.

The censorship from Facebook and Twitter has little difference to the dangerous censorship of the Communists’ regimes. With certainly some exceptions for court vented barred speech, people need to be allowed to share their political opinions and statements, and share each other’s comments, as they deem fit. The users of the social media communities need to have the option and right to have political discourse and debate, no matter how outrageous the topic may be or likely untruthful. To rely on a “fact checker” is dangerous and inappropriate. Facts have historically changed based on circumstances too many times. And even “facts” are often subject to discretionary interpretation.

Americans have been making outlandish statements about their favored political candidates since the beginning of America. And they have managed successfully to filter through the political nonsense and lies. They have exchanged view, ideas and differences. Americans have expressed their political view on courthouse steps, newspapers, TV, and now social media. The unprecedented growth and role that Facebook and Twitter have in society, and their unique position in the massive reach of the masses, must require that they be uncensored venues of political expression and free speech.

About the Author

Filipe Pedroso is the founder and CEO of Giftapart. Giftapart is the world’s first social ecommerce supermall featuring hundreds of America’s most well-known and trusted stores selling over 50,000,000 products. Giftapart provides the world’s first and only gift registry with control of how gifts are funded and received. Giftapart also has a full-featured event planner and its own social media integrating all the features of the platform into a socially connective, fun and unique shopping, gifting and planning experience.

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