The Censorship vs. Terrorism Debate
It’s been less than a week since the Haska Meyna mosque bombing in Afghanistan killing 73 and only five months since the merciless Christchurch mosque shooting claiming 51 lives.
I sadly remember hearing about this Christchurch terrorist attack just like yesterday, when the terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s live streamed his ruthless attacks on Facebook and shared his manifesto to Twitter, Facebook and 8chan before later being removed by the social media platforms.
Understandably, these live-streamed graphic scenes and the subsequent re-sharing of clips across social media platforms, was deeply disturbing for victims’ families, local residents and audiences watching safely from afar like me.
This mass horror brought to fruition for many of us, the realisation, we all deserve the right to feel safe.
But, if I am being honest, I personally find it’s hard to feel this way, when there have been 92 confirmed terrorist attacks across the world this year claiming 2,064 fatalities.
With terrorists now sharing more and more of their violent acts on social media networking platforms like Facebook, the global heated debate has intensified on social media platforms duty of care to censor extremism and violent terrorist acts.
However, I know I like many participating in the global debate have questioned if censoring terrorist attacks and extremism will actually prevent it? Or, if it will just make terrorism even more of an issue if we can’t spot the early warning signs?
In the search for answers, we need to investigate the issue of social media censoring terrorism and why it’s so important.
So, what is terrorism?
With no clear-cut definition of ‘terrorism’, many of us struggle to know when we see reports of extreme violent acts on our Facebook News-Feed if these constitute an act of terrorism.
The United Nations General Assembly have offered one definition of terrorism, “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes.”
Whilst, terrorism is far from new, practiced throughout history, it has recently taken on new frightening characteristics with the rise of social media platforms participatory culture between active prod-users and media outlets.
Scholar Brian Jenkins, has described this evolution, “terrorism is a product of freedom, particularly freedom of the press.”
With the rise of social media platforms networking effects placing more freedom into the hands of terrorists seeking the attention of mass media, the public and decision makers, many critics have argued the buck needs to stop with stricter social media censorship.
As according to academic Walter Laqueur, “the terrorists’ act by itself is nothing, publicity is all.”
In the wake of the Christchurch streamed shootings remaining live for 17 minutes, Australian Federal Government leaders have voiced concerned social media platform giants have become ‘enablers’ for users’ extreme violent acts and terrorist ideologies.
Government imposed restrictions and freedom of express concerns …
This catalyst event has led to Australian Government leaders considering new proposed laws, whose far-reaching powers could find social media executives in jail and their companies fined billions of dollars if they fail to proactively remove online terrorist material.
With Prime Minister Scott Morrison declaring, “big social media companies have a responsibility to take every possible action to ensure their technology products are not exploited by murderous terrorists.”
However, many critics have argued imposing criminal penalties on social media executives should be considered as a last option, due to extreme censorship risking important content from the likes of racially disempowered and marginalised communities.
Across the world, democratic nation leaders have echoed this war on the spread of terrorism on social media platforms, with UK ex-Prime Minister Theresa May highly criticised push for companies to stop offering encrypted communication tools, which currently makes it impossible for Governments to eavesdrop on conversations.
Whilst, these Australian and UK Government proposals aim to reduce the spread of terrorism related content, there is little proven evidence on the success of these measures in preventing terrorist attacks.
I know, I like many active social media users and journalists have questioned if these measures are really masking a hidden agenda to limit our rights to freedom of expression.
This exploitation has long been documented, with Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic publication finding, “the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation as one of the greatest threats to freedom of expression in Europe.”
Take for example, the Turkey 2016 coup attempt, which resulted in an approximate 175 journalists jailed for affiliation with terrorist organisations.
Social Media Platforms Censorship
In response to the looming Government threats of criminal sanctions and legal penalties in Australia, the UK and across the European Union, social media platform giants Facebook, Google and YouTube have had to increase measures to monitor and filter terrorist activity on their platforms.
With Facebook employing counter-intelligence experts and deploying artificial intelligence technology to report and remove extremism and terrorist speech.
Whilst Google’s Jigsaw Redirect Method connects at-risk individuals with online anti-terrorist information to try and combat terrorism.
In addition, YouTube algorithm strictly polices video content, blocking advertisers’ ads from running alongside offensive content.
With the social media platform giants primarily relying on automated technology to monitor and report terrorist activity, this general monitoring of online speech can often result in oversights and banned content continuing to linger online, as evidenced in the Christchurch shootings livestreaming for 17 minutes.
Therefore, it can’t be denied that a further level of human intervention is required by social media giants to understand the context of online speech and remove extremist content.
As according to Robyn Caplan, a researcher at Data & Society and a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University, “The automation is just not as advanced as these governments hope they are, it’s a mistake to call these things ‘artificial intelligence,’ because it makes us think they are a lot smarter than they are.”
Although, social media giants inherently have a duty of care to monitor, police and censor the spread of online terrorist speech, Government’s across the worlds have a duty to enforce real change to address the prevalent human rights issues leading to terrorism.
Whilst, the Government imposed restrictions on social media giants are meant to give us all a sense of security and safety, they are really threatening our right to freedom of expression.
