How Much Freedom of Expression Do You Have On Social Media?

Gabrielle Zita
gz628315@ohio.edu

In today's society, social media is taking on all new forms of communication. Many people use their social media platforms to share their opinions, both the good and the bad. Everyone knows that the First Amendment allows Americans to have freedom of speech, but how much protection does one have when posting on certain social media platforms?


Most Freedom
According to an article called "Free Expression on Social Media," written by Lata Nott from the First Amendment Center, Reddit, Snapchat and Twitter users have the most freedom when it comes to hate speech. Reddit permits hate speech unless it "encourages or incites violence, threatens, harasses, or bullies, or encourages others to do so." According to Snapchat's Terms of Service, one may not use the service in a manner that "violates or infringes someone else's rights of publicity, privacy, copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights," " bullies, harasses, or intimidates," "defames," "spams or solicits our users." Lastly, Twitter has similar policies that include not posting anything that promotes violence against or threatens a specific race, ethnicity, gender, religious officiation, etc.

Some Freedom
According to Nott's article, Facebook and Instagram have some freedom when it comes to expression, but not a lot. Like the other social media platforms above, Facebook forbids posts that are harmful or threatening. In 2013, Facebook wrote a statement stating that they had received several complaints of hate speech towards many different ethnicities and genders. In the statement, they explained their philosophy and policies when it comes to harmful and threatening content. They said that they define harmful content as "anything organizing real-world violence, theft, or property destruction, or that directly inflicts emotional distress on a specific private individual." They shared that they have the ability to remove anything that violates their policy. They do, however, allow humor and satire of such topics. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, prohibits the use of hate speech unless it is shared to challenge it or raise awareness to it, and one must show clear proof of that.

Little Freedom
Out of all of the social media platforms, YouTube has the least amount of freedom when it comes to expression. According to YouTube's Hate Speech Policy, hate speech is not allowed. They will remove any content that they believe shows violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on the attributes of age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, sex/gender, etc. They encourage those that find anything that violates this policy to report it. After several counts of hate speech, YouTube will terminate one's account.

https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-bans-soph-far-right-channel-hate-speech-threatens-headquarters-2019-8

How We Can Stop It
If you are a social media user, it is important to know how you can stop hate speech from occurring. According to an article titled "5 Ways to Counter Hate Speech in the Media through Ethics and Self-regulation," by Poni Alice JameKolok, there are a few things you can do. The first is to be educated on media ethics. Realizing your First Amendment rights is important, but knowing how to use it in a way that isn't harmful or threatening to others is even more important. If you are educated in media ethics, it can help you to become aware of the issues and how to stop them. The second way one can counter hate speech is to encourage journalists to write conflict- sensitive reporting and multicultural awareness campaigns. This will help to show audiences that journalists are on the same team as them when it comes to the diversity of cultures.