Social Media and Freedom of Speech Debate: Pros and Cons

Abstract

This paper examines the current issue of social media and freedom of speech debate.  Social media is a huge phenomenon in the digital age, but there are pros and cons associated with its usage.  This paper provides a list of possible topics that could serve as focal points for a paper.  It also gives a range of titles and an outline for how to bring a paper together.  Finally, it offers up a sample paper with an introduction, essay hook, thesis statement, body paragraphs and a conclusion.  So if you’re looking for a possible sample essay on social media and its relationship to the 1st Amendment in the US, this paper will give you all you need.

Essay Topics

1.  Should free speech be muzzled online or does the 1st Amendment protect a person’s views—even if they are offensive to others on the platform one is using?

2.  What are the rules of using social media in the age of political correctness—and were those rules made to be broken?

3.  What are the pros and cons of freedom of speech in the 21st century, particularly when it comes to free speech?

4.  Should a coordinated attack by Big Tech on Parler be permitted in a free society?

Essay Titles

1.  Limits to Free Speech?  What Fact Checkers, Shadow Banning and Permanent Removals Reveal about the 1st Amendment in the Age of Big Tech

2.  Why YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are Cracking Down on Conservative Voices and Removing Them from the Public Discourse

3.  When Ideologies Clash:  The War between Left-Leaning Politics of Silicon Valley Social Media Platforms and Their Right-Leaning Users

4.  Who Wins When Free Speech is Blocked:  1984-Style Censorship in 2020

Essay Outline

I. Introduction

a. Social media is where most people go for news and information (Vorhaus, 2020)

b. Yet some voices are being excluded from these platforms

c. Big Tech is censoring views from the alternative or right-leaning end of the socio-political and cultural spectrum.

II. Body

a. Background

b. Social media censoring political figures

c. The closing down of Parler

d. The power of Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Bezos compared to that of the US President—who has more?

III. Conclusion

a. Big Tech is not just out of control—it is running the show

b. Suppression of freedom of speech is a sign that the left-leaning ideologues of Silicon Valley have usurped the reins of political power and are now driving the world towards a terrifying real-world Orwellian nightmare.

Introduction

As Vorhaus (2020) notes, more and more people turn to social media every year to get their news and information on what is going on in the world.  Old media no longer are as relevant, especially for younger generations who have cut the cord.  Today’s younger generations want information from peers and names they can trust—influencers, bloggers, vloggers, podcasts, and YouTubers.  Social media is the playground where everyone connects.  The problem, however, is that more and more people with certain voices and points of view are being barred from that playground.  Their views and talking points are deemed offensive by one clique—typically the Left, which people on the Right accuse of being intolerant even though their banner is one of tolerance.  The reality is that Big Tech—firms like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter—have publicly censored conservative voices in an attempt to control the public discourse and permit only a one-sided “fact-checked” narrative that is to their liking.  But in a free society these actions have big ramifications, particularly when it comes to the 1st Amendment protection to the right of freedom of speech and who can exercise that right.

Essay Hook

When Big Tech starts acting like Big Brother, you know there is a problem.

Thesis Statement

If Big Tech companies want to offer social media platforms to the public, they should be obliged to abide by the rules of the Constitution—the same way anything offered to the public is obliged to do.

Background

Jordan Peterson, Sargon of Akkad, Rubin Report, Ryan Dawson—these are just a few of the many names silenced by Patreon, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms (Nash, 2018).  Their offense?  They dared to offer a viewpoint on current, political, social, cultural and historical events that goes against the grain of the mainstream “politically correct” point of view.  The pros of censorship on the one hand are that it prevents certain perspectives from gaining publicity and exposure; the cons of censorship of this kind are that it means only a certain perspective is allowed in the public forum and no one is permitted to question that perspective.

How Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube Can Censor Political Figures

The cabal behind Big Tech is real.  Google owns YouTube and can suppress websites using its search engine.  It can also de-platform YouTubers whose content offends the left-leaning sensibilities of the politically correct regime.  Big Tech has been promoting cancel culture for years.  Twitter is notorious for giving a platform to the cancel culture mob (Brown, 2020).  Facebook, Snapchat and several others have also de-platformed users—including President Donald Trump (Mastrangelo, 2021).  How can these companies get away with doing this?  They ostensibly argue that they have the right to determine their own rules of engagement on their platforms and that if their community guidelines are violated they are free to ban users.  However, if those community guidelines are vague, opaque, and implemented with obvious discrimination then it stands to reason that Big Tech is deliberately trying to silence alternative voices and viewpoints.  They are permitted to do so because they are part of what George Carlin used to call the “big club”—a club that includes all the powers that be:  politicians, judges, businessmen, and investors.  The pros of this type of situation are, of course, that it facilitates the consolidation of power—total control; the cons are that it means the risk of totalitarianism is higher than ever.

Closure of a Social Network (Parler)

When Twitter permanently banned President Trump, millions of users flocked to the right-leaning rival to the social media giant, Parler.  Parler’s CEO promised to be a platform where free speech was protected.  Parler is not part of the Big Tech cabal, in other words.  So the cabal had to act fast before it lost control of the narrative.  It acted to close Parler by kicking it off its host server, which was Amazon Web Services (AWS).  AWS colluded with Twitter, Google and Facebook to crack down not just on the right-leaning voices of “dissent” that were countering its “fact-checked” narratives but also to crack down on the one social media platform allows these voices to continue to have a place at the table of public discourse.  Parler went offline.  Parler sued for discrimination.  Unsurprisingly, the court tossed the suit saying there was no evidence of discrimination—even though AWS was singling out Parler because of its CEO’s views on free speech.  That alone shows the extent to which Big Tech and the judicial system work together to suppress alternative viewpoints in the public space.  Parler has had to turn to a Russian hosting service in order to get back online—and that right there should tell everyone about the extent to which America has stopped acting like the land of the free.

How Some Say Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Bezos Have More Power Than the President of the U.S.

Clearly when Big Tech can silence the President of the United States by banning him from their platforms and no one can do anything about it, it shows who has the real power.  Zuckerberg of Facebook, Doresey of Twitter, and Bezos of Amazon (and The Washington Post) have worked together to paint Trump and his supporters as white supremacists, bigots, racist, xenophobes, and extreme radicals akin to terrorists.  They have sought to influence the public discourse in a way that marginalizes what people think about conservatives and liberals.  They have been far more lenient with radical movements on the left, such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, than they have with radical movements on the right, such as Proud Boys or people who like to wave the Confederate flag.  More than that, however, they have barred President Trump from having a voice in the public.  The mainstream media hardly gives him a fair showing; Twitter was his platform of choice because he felt it allowed him to communicate directly to the public without any interference.  When Dorsey finally banned the president from using the platform it was a clear signal that only certain types of speech would be tolerated by Big Tech.  Populist speech is not that type.