Ironically, today, our liberal politicians and corporate media are often at the forefront of encouraging digital corporations to intervene actively and censor content. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) told Mark Zuckerberg when questioning Silicon Valley CEOs in October 2020: “The issue is not that the companies before us today is that they’re taking too many posts down. The issue is that they’re leaving too many dangerous posts up.” [By Tony Romm, Rachel Lerman, Cat Zakrzewski, Heather Kelly and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “Facebook, Google, Twitter CEOs clash with Congress in pre-election showdown,” The Washington Post, October 28, 2020].
Rather than protecting a people’s right to speak–a right enshrined in US law, regardless of the nature of the speech, a right repeatedly upheld by the US Supreme Court–our most passionate Left-liberal pundits, politicians, and journalists are at the front lines insisting that digital corporations engage in censorship of “inappropriate” and “dangerous” voices. In the wake of the 2021 Capital riot, Donald Trump was immediately banned from practically all social media platforms, resulting in celebrations and cheers from the liberal elite. [Emily Tannenbaum, “Every Social Media Platform Donald Trump Is Banned From Using (So Far),” MSN, January 10, 2021]. Greg Bensinger, a New York Times editorial board member, demanded that “Mr Zuckerberg and Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, must play a fundamental role in restoring truth and decency to our democracy (emphasis mine) and democracies around the world.” [Alex Hern, “Opinion divided over Trump’s ban from social media,” The Guardian, January 11, 2021]. Here, “restoring truth and decency” are rather apparent euphemisms for censorship of those the liberals find objectionable.
Mainstream journalists have started protesting that people have taken to having “conversations” away from the media. Creating a panic around “fake news” and “misinformation,” major news outlets and their writers have targeted chat rooms, podcasts, and alternative news sites like Substack as existential dangers to “free speech” and “democracy.” [Ariel Bogle, “Sinister sounds: podcasts are becoming the new medium of misinformation,” The Guardian, December 11, 2020; Clio Change, “The Substackerati,” Columbia Journalism Review, Winter, 2020; Brian X. Chang and Kevin Roose, “Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot?” New York Times, February 10, 2021]. Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, was “pleased to see social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube take long-belated steps to address the president’s sustained misuse of their platforms to sow discord and violence.” [Ariel Bogle, “Sinister sounds: podcasts are becoming the new medium of misinformation,” The Guardian, December 11, 2020; Clio Change, “The Substackerati,” Columbia Journalism Review, Winter, 2020; Brian X. Chang and Kevin Roose, “Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot?” New York Times, February 10, 2021].
People seem to conveniently forget that what is considered “decency,” “democratic,” “truth,” and “misuse” is, of course, a question of political power, historical context, and social privilege.
The forced closure of Parler’s popular social media platform directly resulted from actions taken by corporations like Apple, Amazon, and Google. These corporations used the specious excuse that Parler enabled the coordination of January 6, 2021, in Washington D. C., when a group of Trump supporters entered the corridors and chambers of the US Capitol. Liberal pundits and politicians alike celebrated the closure of the app. [Michell Goldberg, “The Scary Power of the Companies That Finally Shut Trump Up,” New York Times, January 11, 2021; Kevin Shalvey, “Parler’s CEO said Google’s decision to ban the app was a ‘horrible way to handle this.’ AOC has urged Apple to take similar action,” Business Insider, January 9, 2021].
The concentration of digital and social media power has finally drawn the attention of regulators. On December 9, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and forty-eight states and territories sued Facebook for its illegal social networking monopoly. They wanted to force Facebook to spin off both Instagram and WhatsApp as separate businesses. [Thomas M. Hanna and Michael Brennan, “There’s No Solution to Big Tech Without Public Ownership of Tech Companies,” Jacobin, December 21, 2020]. A House Judiciary Committee announced in June 2019 a bipartisan investigation into competition in digital markets, led by the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. [ Ibid.]. Several companies were part of the investigation–Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google—and the Subcommittee found that:
These firms have] captured control over critical distribution channels and have come to function as gatekeepers. Just a decade into the future, 30% of the world’s gross economic output may lie with these firms and just a handful of others.
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee of Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee of the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020
The investigation revealed essential insights based on a review of internal company communications and documents. It shows that corporations like Facebook have “tipped the social networking market toward a monopoly, and now considers competition within its own family of products to be more considerable than competition from any other firm.” [House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee of Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee of the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020]. They were astonished to learn how much influence and control corporate gatekeepers have over news distribution. As the Subcommittee findings revealed:
News publishers raised concerns about the “significant and growing asymmetry of power” between dominant platforms and news organisations and the effect of this dominance on the production and availability of trustworthy news sources. Other publishers said that they are “increasingly beholden” to these firms…[which]…have an outsized influence over the distribution and monetisation of trustworthy news sources online, undermining the quality and availability of high-quality journalism sources.
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee of Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee of the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020
Editors are already self-censoring (although we do not call it that) and making news and editorial decisions based on tracking Facebook metrics and analytics, pandering to the behaviour of not only Facebook’s users but equally to its algorithms. [Denise-Marie Ordway, “Facebook and the newsroom: 6 questions for Siva Vaidhyanathan,” Journalist Resource, September 12, 2018]. Not paying attention can cost the publication traffic and revenues. [Sean Burch, “Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Says Facebook’s Algorithm Change Decimated Site’s Traffic and Favors ‘Right-Wing’ Disinformation,” The Wrap, October 16, 2020]. “Editors and designers are constantly making decisions based on what works on Facebook,” a recent Reuters study found. “They choose images and write headlines to pander to Facebook’s algorithms and the behaviour of Facebook users…the more that journalists pander to Facebook…the more that Facebook becomes the governing mechanism to journalism.” [Denise-Marie Ordway, “Facebook and the newsroom: 6 questions for Siva Vaidhyanathan,” Journalist Resource, September 12, 2018].
The drive towards sensationalism, clickbait, and misleading storylines increases as editors provide journalists with real-time analytics and data dashboards, further encouraging a chase for “eyeballs” and “likes.” [Federica Cherubini and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, “Editorial Analytics: How News Media are Developing and Using Audience Data and Metrics.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2016]. This practice distorts priorities in the newsroom, as it panders to the worst popular whims and prejudices and becomes beholden to trends and fads.
It also raises questions about which institutions control the news or get to decide what is published and distributed. Nechushtai concluded that the “increasing dependence on third-party platforms exposes news organisations and journalists to corporate and government surveillance of their work, which could pose problems for them and their sources.” [Federica Cherubini and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, “Editorial Analytics: How News Media are Developing and Using Audience Data and Metrics.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2016]. Or, as Emily Bell summarised, “The largest of the platform and social media companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and even second order companies such as Twitter, Snapchat, and emerging messaging app companies, have become extremely powerful in terms of controlling who publishes what to whom, and how that publication is monetised.” [Emily Bell, “Facebook is eating the World,” Columbia Journalism Review, March 7, 2016].
Like other corporations and market-centric businesses, the “journalistic elite learned this new lesson: heightening political, especially cultural, divisions grows the audience, mobilises readers, and generates profit.” Corporate media thrives on market segmentation and specialisation, offering customised and narrowly targeted content to satisfy “individual” desires. It thrives on creating an echo chamber model learned from social media platforms and now extends to traditional media. The difference is that readers pay for news confirming their worldview. [Emily Bell, “Facebook is eating the World,” Columbia Journalism Review, March 7, 2016].
The arrival of social media corporation executives into the centres of government power suggests a further blurring of the lines between journalism, political power, and propaganda. As Kreiss and McGregor point out:
All are engaged in US electoral political processes for the direct revenue that it provides, to help market their products to wider audiences given the media and public attention that high-profile campaigns receive, and to facilitate relationship-building in the service of lobbying efforts. In addition, they pursue civic engagement efforts designed to promote democratic participation. To facilitate their work in electoral politics, these firms have all developed partisan organisational and staffing structures that accord with the two-party American system.
Daniel Kreiss & Shannon C. McGregor, “Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 US Presidential Cycle,” Political Communication, 35:2, 2018:155-177.
These corporations have become essential to political candidates and parties because they “help campaigns reach voters based on certain categorical data such as demographics, behaviour, interest, and measures of attention that represent the public in new ways and shape strategic campaign communications.” [Daniel Kreiss & Shannon C. McGregor, “Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 US Presidential Cycle,” Political Communication, 35:2, 2018:155-177]. They are fundamental to how political parties produce content, messaging, propaganda and strategies to get them out to the relevant public. The role of digital monopolies reveals the now apparent relationship between their profit-oriented interests and their centrality in disseminating and influencing the democratic and political agenda. They are increasingly the “key infrastructures for democracy, providing the spaces for public discussion and contestation of politics,” yet remain driven by market forces and the need to monetise content, making editorial decisions that further these goals, grow their customer base, and increase advertisement revenue. [Daniel Kreiss & Shannon C. McGregor, “Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 US Presidential Cycle,” Political Communication, 35:2, 2018:155-177].
Today, these corporations are central to political campaigns, working closely with candidates at all stages of the political planning, strategy, and execution process, and have set up organisational structures and staffing positions to encourage this deep engagement. They are “active agents in the [US] political process,” surprising even researchers who did not realise at the time of their research “how much collaboration…takes place behind the scenes between campaigns and technology firms, especially Facebook, Google, and Twitter.” [Daniel Kreiss & Shannon C. McGregor, “Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 US Presidential Cycle,” Political Communication, 35:2, 2018:155-177].
For example, Facebook and Twitter were at the forefront of blocking a New York Post story that purported to reveal Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, using his father’s position to garner favours and payments from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. [Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge, “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,” New York Post, October 14, 2020]. Within hours of publishing the story, and after a hostile reaction among the US liberal media and establishment, Facebook acted to curtail its distribution. It adjusted its algorithms so users would either not see it or share and discuss it. [Kari Paul, “Facebook and Twitter restrict controversial New York Post story on Joe Biden,” The Guardian, October 15, 2020].
Facebook’s Andy Stone–formerly communications operative for Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee–announced that the restrictions were “part of [Facebook’s] standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation.” [Kari Paul, “Facebook and Twitter restrict controversial New York Post story on Joe Biden,” The Guardian, October 15, 2020]. Twitter prevented users from posting links to the Post story, and those who attempted to share it saw a message that read: “We can’t complete this request because Twitter or our partners have identified this link as being potentially harmful.” [Kari Paul, “Facebook and Twitter restrict controversial New York Post story on Joe Biden,” The Guardian, October 15, 2020].
“Freedom of speech” in the digital age will have an entirely new meaning.