Discussion #6 – Free Speech in The Middle East
Respond to two of
your classmates posts by … in order to achieve full
credit. Be sure that both initial
posts and responses follow APA
citation formatting.
first student
Moud
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been used by some Arab citizens from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen in order to communicate, interact, and express their anger of the situation in their countries. It is true that social networking sites have become the main driver of the events of the Arab Spring revolutions in these countries, so that some like to call that Egypt revolution with-Facebook revolution-. However, these social media, in the same time, have been used by their governments against the civil rights activists, because these governments have used these social media platforms to monitor their citizens all the time.
It is fact that tech companies, like any profit-making company, always follow the way that earns them financial profits regardless of the interests of the communities. For example, “My Yahoo! and other “personalized” portals, Cyber Patrol, etc. – are driven largely by market forces rather than institutional traditions or group norms. Furthermore, there is no umbrella “defense mechanism” at the top, equivalent to the “time, place, manner” regulation of the government in public forums, in cyberspace” (Kim, n.d.).
Although these companies have the right to filter content based on their policies, “You can make whatever statements you want on social media sites, but the owners of those sites have the freedom to censor or delete your content if they find it offensive” (Nilsson, 2017), tech companies should not serve specific organizations or governments, and their content should not be regulated according to any political state.
In my view, companies have to be neutral, since they have been developed essentially as a way of social communication.
Kim, T. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cyber.harvard.edu/fallsem98/final_papers/Kim.html.
Nilsson, J. (2017, March 21). 6 Surprising Exceptions to Freedom of Speech: The Saturday Evening Post. Retrieved from https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/03/6-exceptions-to-freedom-of-speech/.
\second student
Abd
The Internet provides speakers extraordinary, widely defined possibilities. Political applicants, cultural critics, corporate gadflies can make their ideas accessible to a global crowd much easier than ever before to anyone who wishes to convey an opinion on anything.
There are severe concerns about the future of free speech, including efforts to censor public actors critical of remarks on social media, the changing norms of private platforms to censor internet expression, and the increase in the digital globe of hate and extremism. The main issue among many is that social media companies will censor content based on the demands of those countries that censor most, nations that definitely do not safeguard the liberty of expression like the United States because they operate on a worldwide scale. Much of the censorship on social media does not emanate straight from the state. Often, censorship arises from social media firms that police content in accordance with their own terms of service.
Freedom of expression is supported both instrumentally, helping people to make better choices and benefiting intrinsically from being able to convey their opinions. The consensus is that expression activity is essential and must be shielded. These values are sacrificed by any breach of liberty of expression, whether by government or private organizations. Social media has the authority to build and break political leaders, link protest movements, and alter societal attitudes on equality problems. Social media often offers a distinctive room for speech in countries where traditional media is more limited, under the control of governments or corporate agendas, if not always as free as it should. So, I don’t think that companies should limit free speech for any reason.
DAVID L. HUDSON JR. April (2019) Free speech or censorship? Social media litigation is a hot legal battleground http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/social-…
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Discussion #6 – Free Speech in The Middle East
Moud
Hello Moud, I support your proposition that social media in the Arabic countries has been used as a communication tool, and in other instances, it has been used against the will of the people (Chidiac& El Hajj, 2019).
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