Democracy in America | Twitter, terror and free speech

Should Twitter block Islamic snuff videos?

Censorship is no way to stop horrible ideas

By E.W. | WASHINGTON, DC

SOCIAL MEDIA erupted this week with footage of James Foley, an American journalist, brutally beheaded at the hands of ISIS. YouTube removed one version of the video, citing a violation of their policy on violent content. On Tuesday, Twitter announced a new policy that it would remove images and video of the deceased at the request of family members. Accounts that featured the graphic imagery started disappearing from the site. Though Twitter can now remove certain images only at the request of family members, Twitter users started urging friends not to share the content anyway. In less than two hours, the hashtag #ISISMediaBlackout had more than 3,800 tweets.

Should platforms like YouTube and Twitter really have the power to censor what content we can or cannot see? At least in America, the suppression of disturbing or offensive content, if it does not incite violence, is a direct violation of our principles of free speech. Especially in this instance, it seems deeply inappropriate to respond to authoritarianism with authoritarian action.

Censorship proponents are of the mind that the ISIS video constitutes propaganda and that its dissemination furthers ISIS’s aims. It is true that extremist groups have been known to use social media as a means to circumvent the checks media organisations employ to stop the spread of propaganda. But the video isn’t only propaganda. And since when has that label been sufficient grounds for censorship anyway? The amount of online content that could be wiped from social media if this reasoning was applied uniformly would be staggering.

“I do not believe in censorship,” insisted a representative Tweeter, “but I believe those who promote #ISIS filth must be stopped, and that gives sufficient grounds for censorship.” The logical incoherence of this statement aside, is disseminating offensive material the same thing as promoting it? It is conceivable that the video could incite potential terrorists and others harboring anti-American sentiments to copycat acts of violence. But it is equally true that content of this kind wakes people up to the barbarity of Islamist extremism and galvanises the public against its continuation.

Others have argued that the video shouldn’t be shared because that’s what ISIS wants. “Don’t give it to them,” reads a tweet. Does it matter what ISIS wants? Would the video be okay to view if it had been leaked by a Western source? Part of ISIS’s aim is presumably to terrorise us remotely, but most people are just getting angry. Beyond that, the intention of the video is unclear. Should we take it at face value, as an attempt to coerce America into backing down? Or is ISIS trying to provoke America to further military action in order to win more local supporters to their camp? It’s hard for us to know their thinking with certainty, but intentionality does not factor into censorship decisions anyway.

Twitter is not television. No one is being forced to view the footage. Evening news shows can decline to show the video because not all their viewers might be comfortable seeing it. But people have to be able to access it on their own if they wish. It’s completely understandable that family members don’t want footage of a loved one’s death to spread, but it’s not clear that that’s their decision to make.

It’s really not Twitter’s decision either—unless we want to grant tech giants the power to control public knowledge and discourse, a dangerous precedent indeed. Twitter has become a global political force, conveying real-time information and coordinating action around conflicts like Egypt’s Arab Spring or protests in Ukraine. Its democratic power derives from the fact that it’s unedited; for better or for worse, it’s the voice of the people. If Twitter wants to have political import, if it wants to be more than a platform for Kim Kardashian’s vanity, then it doesn’t get to choose which political events to participate in.

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