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Essay / Free Speech and Social Media Censorship
One of our rights in the United States is freedom of speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution “…prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there shall be no prohibition against the free exercise of religion, abridgement of the liberty expression, infringe upon the freedom of the press, interfere with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibit seeking governmental redress of grievances” (US Const. Amend. I). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The case I identified in which the principles of free speech and censorship were called into question was on the social media platform Twitter. There is a video that was posted via Twitter, brutally recounting the beating of a mentally disabled girl in Chicago in July 2019. The video of this 15-year-old is horrific to watch, and within minutes of the incident, the video was released and it went viral. Discussions of speaker's rights versus listener's rights were called into question in this case. Views differ on both sides. Bystanders posted the beating of the 15-year-old and, before Twitter could respond, millions of users saw the video sparking controversy. A study by Duggan and Smith (2013) found that more than half of Twitter followers use this platform to obtain information, and Twitter currently has 271 million active users tweeting in more than 35 languages. Comparing this to the print version of a newspaper, Hadley Malcom (2014) reports that USA Today averages about 1.8 million print copies and 1.4 million digital copies. Since Twitter has millions of users, they constantly have to navigate the social norms of completely different cultures around the world and what may be considered hostile or offensive by one government may not be invasive in another. This makes it difficult for Twitter to attempt to censor what a speaker wants to post. Freedom of expression applies, even in the most difficult and unpleasant circumstances. Many believe that the journalists who covered this video provided the facts and attempted to help the listener gain accurate knowledge of what was happening without breaking any rules. It could be argued that among the millions of tweets posted each day, there are a fairly small number of tweets that can create great anxiety. Keith Loria (2014) interviewed an attorney named Eric Chad, arguing that "social media sites are not required to remove anything and have no responsibility to protect users from potentially disturbing or offensive content." Private entities like Twitter ultimately have the final say when it comes to what users can and cannot post based on their terms of service (TOS). In the case of this mentally disabled 15-year-old, many sources supported the publication of the video, defending the rights of the speaker. On the other hand, many listeners may argue that Twitter removing coverage of this video was a righteous act because people want and deserve it. respect and privacy. Many listeners subscribe to the free use of Twitter; however, they believe that privacy should be respected in the event of the death of a loved one, to the best of Twitter's abilities. However, the difficulty of completely banning coverage is simply impossible and we have given, 121(8), 2012-2094.