As the US Capitol Falls, Politicians Use Freedom of Speech to Posture
Op-Ed by Matt Nguyen, Policy Lead @ Reset Australia
In the final throes of the dystopian-reality TV miniseries that was the Trump presidency, a last ditch attempt (or more accurately a coup) was made to hold onto power. In Washington DC on January 6, after weeks and weeks of false comments on social media contesting the results of the US election, the #StoptheSteal rally stormed the US Capitol — incited to do so by Trump’s comments to protest the certification of the election results.
As QAnon conspirators and white nationalists gathered outside America’s temple of democracy, her lawmakers inside continued to debate the same unfounded, baseless allegations of voter fraud that had drawn this mob towards them, like moths to a flame. The breach of the US Capitol was the first in over 200 years. The donning of MAGA hats on the bust of George Washington was likely the first ever. The events on January 6 represented the culmination of all the questions (and predictions) we have been asking since 2016-
Who is this guy? Why do so many people support him? How was this allowed to happen?
Whilst the Sisyphean attempt to psycho-politically analyse Trump and the broader American populace has no doubt been (and will be) conducted by anyone with 2 cents — I am much more interested in the systems which have facilitated this demise, and how we might put in appropriate safeguards to protect democracy moving forward.
We are living in the neo-gilded age, where industrial titans have been replaced by Big Tech billionaires. The digital platforms — Facebook, Google, Twitter — and their services have become integral to the way we obtain information, communicate, protest and entertain ourselves. Unfortunately, the early idealism of the tech revolution has been corrupted and the platforms which promised to connect us have pushed us to the brink of societal collapse.
The attack on the US Capitol didn’t just materialise. The fervour which resulted in a direct assault on democracy has been brewing for a long time. Radicalised on Youtube, galvanised on Facebook and incited on Twitter, the digital platforms have been facilitating the deterioration of democratic discourse since before Brexit. Dictated by algorithms which prioritise engagement above all else, the platforms are optimised to capture your attention as this directly translates to increased profits from advertising. Innocent clickbait has now evolved into reinforced ideological bubbles, wherein users are fed more and more of the same ‘engaging’ commentary that both keeps us on Facebook whilst reinforcing our worldview.
A few days after the flames on the National Mall had died down, the social media companies led by Twitter started restricting Trump’s accounts. A patchwork of responses including;
- deleting associated channels (such as subreddits and Twitch streams),
- indefinite bans of his accounts on Twitter and Facebook and
- removing Parler — a far right-wing social networking platform — from Apple and Google app stores and Amazon Web Service’s hosting services
stoked reactionary response from politicians around the world and here at home. Josh Frydenberg stated his uncomfortability at Twitter’s ban whilst Michael McCormack (our Deputy PM) ‘condemned Twtitter’s censorship’. Core to their comments is a fanatical belief in freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is arguably the fundamental right in which others (such as association, press and religion) are built off and is essential to a functioning liberal democracy. But the implications of inalienable rights are complex, and this complexity is often capitalised for political posturing. In order to have a productive conversation, let’s move beyond comments politicians know to be polarising and clear up 3 misconceptions:
1 | Twitter’s decision to ban Trump does not go against the US First Amendment
The First Amendment of the US Constitution, prevents the US Government on making laws that might limit freedom of speech amongst other rights. The decision by Twitter and Facebook to close Trump’s accounts, a decision made by private companies, is well within their rights to do so. This is an important distinction, if politicians suddenly decide what companies can and cannot publish, this represents a greater assault on freedom of speech than what Twitter did.
2 | It also doesn’t go against Australian freedom of speech laws
Here at home, we don’t enshrine the right to freedom of speech in the same way as the Americans, but it is implicitly protected through common law protections and High Court decisions. Indeed it has been referred by the Court as ‘the ultimate constitutional foundation in Australia’. However a wide range of Commonwealth laws impose limits to freedom of speech, including speech that encourages sedition or incites violence — both of which Trump’s tweets did on January 6 and have done in the past. These limits are essential to defining this freedom rather than encroaching on it, ensuring proportionality of response and enabling a functioning society.
3 | The digital platforms are finally following their own internal policies
Incitement of violence is both illegal in the US, and against the internal terms and services of these companies.To be clear, the digital platforms have previously inconsistently applied their own corporate policies towards Trump. These recent actions are just steps to align with their own internal standards and legal obligations.
When politicians bring up freedom of speech, it is always in absolute and never in nuance. I am, however, empathetic towards their larger concerns even if I disagree with their justifications — that these digital platforms have an outsized and unchecked influence on the way we live our lives.
These concerns, concerns that we all feel, centre on the outsized market power of the digital platforms. No other media company in the world, at no other point in history has been able to (and in such intimate ways) reach the audiences as the digital platforms of the 21st century. A larger conversation about the power, influence and ability to facilitate harm must be had. We must open up their algorithmic black box, to fully understand how their systems facilitate radicalisation without betraying their trade secrets. We must impose common obligations and responsibilities on these platforms, ensuring that they work towards the public interest. And we must determine if their practices tip the balance between anti-competitive monopoly and innovative multi-national.
Does this mean that governments should create laws which would impose editorial decisions on these companies and prevent them from banning users? No. But we should have regulations for when these companies do decide to remove someone’s profile or content, they are forced to cite transparent processes, common criteria for the decisions and a mechanism for appeal and recourse. Such laws are already being proposed in the European Union, and Australia would do well to follow suit.
Five people died in the Capitol Riots. Following this, nearly 150 Republican legislators voted to overturn legitimate election results, rebuking democracy and affirming the lies which led to this catastrophe. Until we reign in Big Tech’s influence and work together to erect the necessary safeguards, our fragile democracies will never truly be safe.
