Censorship and Freedom of Expression in the Age of Social Media

Authors

  • Dorina Gyetván

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54148/ELTELJ.2024.2.27

Keywords:

freedom of expression, censorship, Oversight Board, flooding, content moderation

Abstract

Although social media platforms have altered the structure of the public sphere, they have also inherited some of its issues, notably the problem of censorship. The phenomenon has remained, just its methods and practices have changed: censorship used to be strictly connected to states, but in the digital age, it is exercised by multiple actors, such as states, private companies and individuals (users), posing a unique and multilevel threat to freedom of expression. Social media service providers are motivated by their own economic interests and pressured by vague laws that impose liability for third-party user content; the combination of these factors steers service providers to ignore human rights standards, err on the side of caution, and tend to remove, block or restrict any questionable content in order to avoid liability. Therefore, online freedom of expression faces problems, just as it did in offline formats in analogue times, and often even more severe ones. However, technological advances mean that new censorship methods often remain unperceived by users and, therefore, often avoid the harsh criticism surrounding traditional censorship. In 2020, Facebook (Meta) set up the Oversight Board, a uniquely positioned semi-independent expert group as a sort of court-like body to deal with some of the more high-profile, influential and complex social-media-related decisions and offer a remedy against contract-based content moderation (censorship).

Author Biography

Dorina Gyetván

Dr Dorina Gyetván, PhD Candidate, ELTE Doctoral School of Law. ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5361-0011.

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Published

2025-01-20

Issue

Section

Symposium