Censorship and Social Media:

The battle between freedom of speech

and social media safety

Andrew Brown
Professor
Babcock
ENGL 138T Section
005
20 April 2022

Cover Image: Courtesy of Fronetics1

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Introduction:

On Friday, January 8th, 2021, Twitter made the following statement regarding former president

Donald Trump’s Twitter account, “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear

on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very

course of action… we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further

incitement of violence”2. The act of censorship was a response to the capital riots following the

2020 election results. Former President Donald Trump released several tweets before, during,

and after the riot that arguably fueled the illegal activities. Twitter's strong response to Trump’s

tweets caused serious controversy as some

deemed the actions a necessary justice while

others called foul play. Outside of the Trump

situation, the issue of social media censorship

and freedom of speech has been an ongoing

debate. To what extent should social media

outlets monitor posted content. Should anyone be

able to post whatever they want? Do large media

outlets have a civic responsibility to stay

unbiased in their censorship? The current state of social media censorship is not working as

reformations need to correct its shortcomings. 

What is “Free Speech”:

One of the founding ideologies of the United States of America is the premise of “Freedom of

Speech”. The first amendment guarantees free speech as the liberty of all US citizens. Since this

liberty's inception, people have continuously pushed the boundaries on its coverage. Complete
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freedom of speech should not always be the case as certain speech can have more implications

than just hurt feelings. Supreme court cases arise every five years or so that challenge this

construct. These cases have helped make necessary clarifications and changes to the amendment.

Morse Vs. Frederick challenged freedom of speech on school property in 2007. The case

was between a group of students and a school in Alaska. The students spurred controversy as

they displayed a sign reading “bong hits 4 Jesus” during an Olympic torch ceremony on school

property. The school punished the students, but

the students took the case to the supreme court.

The students argued that the school was seeking

to suppress their rights to free speech by

banning the sign. The school argued that the

incident took place during a school-sponsored

event. The school also argued that the message

was pro-illegal drug use. The Supreme Court

ruled in favor of the school in a 5-4 decision

after intense debate4. The Supreme Court ruled

in favor of the school since the students

promoted drug use at a school-sponsored event.

In the past, political demonstrations and other less harmful displays of opinion were allowed

during school events if they did not disrupt education. This movement was illegal strictly since it

promoted illicit drugs, not since it was at a school-sanctioned event.

With all this in consideration, where does social media stand with censorship? Twitter’s

current censorship policy bases its actions on three main criteria: Privacy, Authenticity, and
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Safety5. Privacy is focused on protecting personal information. You cannot leak others' personal

information online such as an address, social security, etc. without consent. Authenticity and

Safety are the two debated motives for censorship. Authenticity is the metric used to block false

or misleading information. Twitter has a specific policy on civic integrity which prohibits users

from interfering with election processes. Past Posts by popular politicians have been flagged,

blocked, or even shadow banned because of this policy. Since these incidents, Twitter has more

narrowly defined this guideline to prevent confusion, but past incidents have spurred

controversies over possible bias on twitters behalf. 

Twitter's policy of safety has also spurred an equal amount of outrage. Twitter's most

recent adjustment to the policy prioritizes hateful content and violence. Twitter narrows these

categories by specific instances they consider offending. These policies have been formed

around past controversies as Twitter works constantly works hard to improve its policies. In

2010, Anthony Elonis was arrested for threatening his ex-wife, co-workers, a kindergarten class,

the local police, and an FBI agent via Facebook posts. His trial advanced through all local courts

until it reached the Supreme Court. Elonis lost in an 8-1 decision that cost him 44 months in

prison6. The court made this decision since his threats seemed legitimate. It was reasoned that if

his threats seemed nonlegitimate or comical, he would not have been punished for his actions.

This policy was generally adopted by all major social media platforms until controversial events

appeared in the last few years. 

Who is Affected by censorship or lack thereof:

Despite having policies set in place, controversies still appear all the time over censorship.

Especially during election seasons, there is a great amount of distrust in social media.

Conservatives point fingers at social media tech giants for falsely applying their policies to favor
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left-leaning agendas. Despite social medias’ denial of such bias, celebrities’ promotion of

violence during the BLM protests in 2020 gives them a reason to doubt media sites. Whether the

overall bias is present or not, these claims have gained massive traction in the political sphere.

Studies performed by the Carly Evans a data analyst from the website Media Matters have found

these claims to be false for Facebook. The study claims right-winged media gets more beneficial

treatment than left-winged media. Despite this, there is a great deal of distrust in social media

platforms. 

This distrust has huge implications in terms of effects. According to a study done by the

Pew Research Center, over 50% of adults get their news off social media cites. Most people

agree that social media is not the most reliable news source,

however, news accounts and popular figures use these

platforms to spread vast quantities of information. When

content that is accurate gets censored, there is the liability of

biased claims and less informed audiences on the media

platform. The converse, which we see more often, is also

true. When content that should be censored is not, people

can be misled, manipulated, and misinformed in general. As

we have seen in previous cases like in the capital riots,

errors in censorship can be catastrophic for almost

everyone. 

Taking Steps in the Right Direction:

The solution to social media censorship is finding the line between all-out censorship and no

censorship. Most people can agree that media platforms need censorship to some extent. One of
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the steps social media platforms have been using is a fact-checking system. Major social media

platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have fact-checking systems in place.

Looking at Twitter, they have the most lenient misinformation policy among major social media

platforms. Twitter kicked off its site-wide misinformation policy during the COVID pandemic.

Twitter became a breeding ground for misinformation and inaccurate statistics in 2020.

Leadership at Twitter decided to implement a device to either remove, label, or ignore

misinformation. The basis for the fact checker is the already known information on the topic. If a

tweet claims an unverified topic, the fact-checker does not bother censoring it. For disputed

claims, the fact-checker places a warning label that claims the information is currently disputed.

For straight-up misinformation (especially during the COVID pandemic), Twitter removes the

content. 

This tool is a massive step in the right direction, however, it led to a lot of controversy in

the 2020 election. Republican candidates claimed their tweets were more subject to

misinformation policies than democratic candidates. Much of this censorship was due to the

misinformation spreading around the 2020 election results. Twitter lost public trust once again

from the right-winged population. Elon Musk recently made a bid to buy out Twitter in April

2022. Most investors, when granted a board position, want to make company decisions so they

can profit more. Musk admitted that he cares more about making the platform a freer place to

speak11. Musk wants to allow all misinformation that’s within the scope of legality. This would

only mean preventing misinformation about public health info or violent threats. 

Musk’s opinion presents social media platforms with another potential solution to their

censorship issues. Twitter currently has a tough policy on hate speech. Hate speech has a wide

definition as it covers race, sexuality, gender, age, etc. Twitter is constantly expanding this
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policy and cracking down on a lot more posts. Twitter removed 77% more tweets from July to

December in 2020 than from January to February of the same year12. This massive surge in

censorship sparked controversy over Twitter's guidelines. Is this too much? 

Along with the current tough censorship policies comes the new cultural trend of cancel

culture. Cancel culture essentially is a societal judgment system of condemning a person due to

past behavior or action. The implications of a canceled culture can result in the inability to find a

job, becoming a societal outcast, and being banned from gaining equal opportunities. Cancel

Culture is an indirect response to the lack of censorship on social media. For example, people

who make racist posts on Twitter are often reposted and notified to the employers by the public.

Cancel culture can be effective in solving extreme issues like this, but sometimes it is taken way

too far. In general, however, 62% of adults believe that people should be held accountable by

others for what they say online13. This does not necessarily mean that cancel culture is the

solution to censorship, but it does indicate that most adults believe people have the power and

responsibility to hold each other accountable online. 

This concept of online accountability presents another possible solution to social media

censorship. If social media sites placed some of the responsibility of censorship on the platform’s

users, there may be less controversy over what gets censored. This solution may also decrease

the infringement of free speech online. This method would not necessarily invoke cancel culture,

but it would result in content flagging and potential removal. If there was a massive disparity

between upset viewers and satisfied viewers, the post could be sent to the platform board for

further review. The main con of this issue would be the risk of bias. If a bunch of people from

the same background attacked certain content they did not like, it may be removed despite it not
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being potentially harmful. There must be a balance between the platforms’ advisory discretion

and the opinions of the platform’s users. 

Call to Action:

There is no one clear solution to the issue of censorship of major social media platforms. The

best course of action may be a combination of the previously suggested steps. To make social

media trustworthy and a free place to speak, it is crucial they flag dangerous misinformation in

some way. Twitter did a great job of this during COVID when they flagged fake claims about

vaccines and other harmful facts regarding the pandemic. However, flagging should be limited to

misinformation that could be harmful. If someone makes misinformed political claims, social

media sites should not flag them. Flagging should be reserved for dangerous misinformation. 

           In addition, social media platforms should work on defining their hate speech guidelines.

They should work above all to make sure these guidelines are evenly enforced for all types of

hate speech. Free speech sites like Twitter, must make a further decision on how to enforce this

policy. A great potential course of action is letting the users of the platform, in collaboration with

an advisory board, decide what content is acceptable or not. If the viewers disapprove of a topic,

they can ignore it, downvote it, or forward it to the media's advisory group to judge its

harmfulness. At the end of the day, the enforcement of this policy is subjective to each social

media platform and the degree that which they want to limit free speech.

      
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This change on social media sites can only be implemented by the company’s board of

directors. Elon Musk’s recent offer to purchase Twitter for changes is not feasible for any normal

human being. For regular people, the best course of action is to sign petitions and email social

medias boards. Although this issue may not be life or death, it is a heavily contested issue

surrounding the first amendment. This generation has the power to make social media a safer,

freer, and overall better place. 

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Endnotes:

1. Platow, Beth. “To Monitor or Not to Monitor: Censoring Employees' Social Media.”

Fronetics, 14 June 2016, https://www.fronetics.com/censoring-employees-social-media/.

2. “Permanent Suspension of @RealDonaldTrump.” Twitter, Twitter, 2021,

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.

3. “First Amendment.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute,

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment.

4. “Facts and Case Summary - Morse v. Frederick.” United States Courts, 2007,

https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-

summary-morse-v-frederick.

5. “The Twitter Rules: Safety, Privacy, Authenticity, and More.” Twitter, Twitter,

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules.

6. “Facts and Case Summary - Elonis v. U.S.” United States Courts, 2010,

https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-

summary-elonis-v-us.

7. Evans, Carly. “A New Study Finds That Facebook Is Not Censoring Conservatives

despite Their Repeated Attacks.” Media Matters for America,

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/new-study-finds-facebook-not-censoring-

conservatives-despite-their-repeated-attacks.

8. Shearer, Elisa, and Amy Mitchell. “News Use across Social Media Platforms in 2020.”

Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, Pew Research Center, 9 Feb. 2022,
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https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/01/12/news-use-across-social-media-

platforms-in-2020/.

9. Roth, Yoel, and Nick Pickles. “Updating Our Approach to Misleading Information.”

Twitter, Twitter, May 2020, https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/updating-

our-approach-to-misleading-information.

10. Dale, Daniel. “Twitter Says It Has Quit Taking Action against Lies about the 2020

Election.” CNN, Cable News Network, 29 Jan. 2022,

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/politics/twitter-lies-2020-election/index.html.

11. Bond, Shannon. “Elon Musk Wants to Change Twitter.” NPR, NPR, 16 Apr. 2022,

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/16/1093189684/elon-musk-wants-to-change-twitter

12. “An Update to the Twitter Transparency Center.” Twitter, Twitter,

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/an-update-to-the-twitter-

transparency-center.

13. Vogels, Emily A., et al. “Americans and 'Cancel Culture': Where Some See Calls For

Accountability, Others See Censorship, Punishment.” Pew Research Center: Internet,

Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 27 Sept. 2021,

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/05/19/americans-and-cancel-culture-where-

some-see-calls-for-accountability-others-see-censorship-punishment/.

14. Buchholz, Katharina, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: Two Thirds of Americans Blame

Trump for Capitol Riots.” Statista Infographics, 11 Jan. 2021,

https://www.statista.com/chart/23895/trump-blame-capitol-riots-survey/.

15. Morse Visual, https://flippedtips.com/plegal/scales/morsevis.html.

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16. Mitchell, Amy, et al. “Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less

Engaged, Less Knowledgeable.” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project, Pew

Research Center, 27 Aug. 2020,

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-get-their-

news-on-social-media-are-less-engaged-less-knowledgeable/.

17. Horowitz, Julie. “The First Amendment, Censorship, and Private Companies: What Does

‘Free Speech’ Really Mean?” Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 15 Mar. 2021,

https://www.carnegielibrary.org/the-first-amendment-and-censorship/.