Social media is so intertwined in our societies that their providers can’t do right by everyone. Mark Zuckerberg once claimed that his Facebook companies are only platforms to communicate and express one’s views. He could not be held accountable for the content published, no matter what kind of political speech gets voiced nor that he was responsible for fact-checking anything. There was immediate backlash from the establishment, and Zuck has eventually resorted to message-control his channels.
We now seem to have arrived at the opposite end of the spectrum. Donald Trump’s continuous blunder of telling his supporters to fight the allegedly rigged election led to last week’s unique excesses, and subsequently to probably the biggest crackdown on the so far treasured social media liberties – be it the permanent suspension of, among many others’, the president’s Twitter and Facebook mouthpieces, or the ban of media outlet Parler, or the alleged demand by CNN to drop Fox from the cable networks.
Not that it is hugely relevant that Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron almost appeared to side with Trump and denounced the actions as a violation of basic rights, and other officials coined the terms “digital oligarchy” and “corporate autocracies”. But we are playing with fire here. The statement “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise…” may have falsely been attributed to French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, but the point being made is one to be taken seriously.
Whatever one may think of the sitting US president, he is still the elected leader of America, and the people have a right to hear from him, like they have a right to hear from any other citizen. Trump has to-date not been impeached or convicted of any crime. Again, it may be despicable of him to, even if only so indirectly, incite the mob to the probably unintended extent that we have witnessed, but have we embarked on a substance-over-form doctrine that is beginning to annul our individual rights?
To be sure, we had long been introduced to the concept of fake news, even before Trump called it out. The world has endured conspiracy theories for millennia I am sure, and the president has certainly done his bit fanning them, from the deep state to Russia to Covid and more. But the counter we are seeing now is equally dangerous. In the scheme of things, and whether we want to accept it or not, our treasured liberal democracies are at risk indulging in such tit-for-tat.
As I said yesterday, if the US election was rigged as Donald Trump keeps claiming, then there would be no point even talking about a US democracy. However, if the election wasn’t rigged and a good enough portion of Trump’s 72 million voters believe his claim, then we are running into a similar problem, as a democracy only works if the citizenry trusts in the integrity of the nation’s institutions. Now, no matter whether those believing Trump have got it right or wrong, that trust no longer seems to be in place.
This by itself is a lose-lose proposition as at a minimum the public trust in America has cracked, and belief in the sanctity of the democratic process is the precondition for democracy. Pour oil on the fire by demonstrating that you can and will take away from citizens and even the elected president the voice that has been granted and guaranteed by the Constitution, and you have a truly poisonous cocktail there that no one ever wants to touch again.
In the midst of all this, between a rock and a hard place so to speak, are the platform providers. Whether the Mark Zuckerbergs of this world have brought it on to themselves to be labelled new age oligarchs, they have undoubtedly added much value to our societies over the past 10-15 years. However, they are not in a position to really live up to a constructive role of theirs to protect our system, even if they wanted to, because by definition they can’t do right.
