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Ch.1
Introduction
The present era is the era of technology, the effective use of social
media as a tool has become a part of human life and compulsion. Like
other spheres of life, the importance of social media in the field of politics
is obvious.
Politicians use social media to achieve their goals. Whether it is
campaigning for elections, projecting their work, protesting or criticizing,
social media platforms are used.
Facebook is a popular social media platform for general peoples and
Twitter is a popular social media platform for class community.
What is the experience and method of politicians using these
platforms? How they express their political views is intended to compare
the rules and regulations of political expression on Twitter and Facebook.
Freedom of expression is a complex right. This is because freedom
of expression is not absolute and carries with it special duties and
responsibilities therefore it may be subject to certain restrictions provided
by law.The term freedom of expression itself had existed since ancient
times, dating back at least to the Greek Athenian era more than 2400 years
ago. The following are some of the most commonly agreed upon
definitions of freedom of expression that are considered as valid
international standards.

1.1 Freedom of Expression

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are used for the same
concept. Freedom of expression has different meanings in different periods and
in different societies because the rules, social and religious restrictions of each
society affect and limit its definition. In dictionaries “Freedom of expression”
used as noun. In oxford learners dictionaries wrote meaning of freedom of
expression is:
“the right to express any opinions in public”
[oxford learners dictionaries, under the noun: freedom of
Expression”]
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This is a general and comprehensive definition that does not define its
boundaries. For a detailed definition, we consult to the Wikipedia. It says about
freedom of expression:
“Freedom of speech is a principle that supports
the freedom of an individual or a community to
articulate their opinions and ideas without fear
of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech]

The Constitution of Pakistan is based on Islamic law. Therefore, freedom

of expression in Pakistan is viewed from an Islamic perspective. However, as
a member of the United Nations, Pakistan also adheres to the rules of the
United Nations. States are required to respect human rights when state laws
and human rights are in conflict, but Muslims claim that Islam is the claimant
of human rights, so Pakistan does not consider the concept of absolute liberties
to be valid.
Article 19 & 19A of The Constitution of Pakistan is about to Freedom of
speech.
“Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of
speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of
the press, subject to any reasonable restrictions
imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or
the integrity, security or defense of Pakistan or any
part thereof friendly relations with foreign States,
public order, decency or morality, or in relation to
contempt of court, [commission of] or incitement to an
offence.”
[Constitution of Pakistan: Article 19: Freedom of Expression]

1.2 Political freedom of Expression

In the previous pages, definitions of freedom of expression were
given and their meanings were explained in different contexts. This part
of the thesis will explain what is meant by freedom of political expression
in different systems and regions of the world. What are its limits?
There are many political systems in the world today. Western
democracy is prevalent in most countries. Similarly, some countries have
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monarchies while Pakistan has an Islamic democracy.The United Nations

is the advocate of a democratic political system, so the United Nations,
Western democracies, monarchies and Islamic democracies have different
meanings and limits to freedom of political expression. First of all, we
need to know what political expression is.
Political speech means speech related to state,
government, body politic, or public administration as
it relates to governmental policymaking. Provides the
term includes speech by the government or candidates
for office and any discussion of social issues. Provides
the term does not include speech that concerns the
administration, law, or civil aspects of government.
) https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/political-speech(

The United Nations considers freedom of political expression to be

a human right. Western human rights transcend religious restrictions and
transcend state law. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers.
)Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNO(

After summarizing the definitions and laws of freedom of political

expression, the conclusion is that everyone, regardless of religion, nation,
region or ethnicity, can be part of the political system for their own
political well-being, seeking their political rights. Can, and can, speak out
against the non-provision of political rights and oppression.

The UN Constitution classifies these political rights as human rights

because they relate to the political, social and collective welfare of human
beings. The advantage of including freedom of political expression in
human rights is that:
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 States have to respect these rights.

 Human rights are above state rights.
 No government can deprive human rights of expression.
 The international community is able to take action against
restrictions on expression.
 Problems arising out of freedom of political expression are
restricted, and measures are taken against oppression.
As we previously explained, freedom of speech is a universal human
right, but different countries interpret it differently in their laws. We can
get an idea about different attitudes to free speech by looking at the
citizens of different countries.
In this study, the researchers surveyed respondents from 38 different
countries about their attitudes towards freedom of expression. While the
U.S. unsurprisingly came out as the most supportive of free speech, other
countries with a high level of support included Mexico, Venezuela,
Canada and Australia.
Some examples of countries with low levels of support for freedom
of expression included Senegal, Burkina Faso, Jordan, Pakistan, and
Ukraine. This research demonstrates that the principle of free speech is
not a ‘one size fits all’ concept, and depends a lot on the constitution and
culture of the country in question.

Today, freedom of political expression is an indisputable fact of

human rights. In every country connected to the international community,
this freedom has been given legal status. In countries where there are no
democracies or where political expression is restricted, the international
community deals with countries according to their attitudes and protects
the existing political figures.
Political expression has become easier and more globalized through the
media these days. That is why social media is considered to be the two
most effective means of political expression. These include Twitter and
Facebook, the rules and regulations of which will be reviewed in the
following pages.
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1.3 Social media and political freedom of expression

Social media is an internet-based form of communication. Social
media platforms allow users to have conversations, share information and
create web content. There are many forms of social media, including
blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, social networking sites, photo-sharing sites,
instant messaging, video-sharing sites, podcasts, widgets, virtual worlds,
and more.
There are more than 4.5 billion social media users around the
world. The largest social media networks include Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.
The 2016 American presidential election has well-documented
accounts of the impact of the ability to spread false information through
the platform.Such a phenomenon leverages the power of social media,
allowing anyone to reach an audience of millions with content
that lacks oversight or fact-checking.

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with

a clear advantage over other social media, though it has similar
audiences to others like Twitter and Instagram.
The figures for the most popular social media websites as of January
2021 are as follows:
 Facebook (2.74 billion users)
 YouTube (2.29 billion users)
 WhatsApp (2 billion users)
 Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion users)
 Instagram (1.22 billion users)
 Whatsapp (1.21 billion users)
 TikTok (689 million users)
 QQ (617 million users)
 Douyin (600 million users)
 Sino Weibo (511 million users)1
(https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.asp )
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Needless to say, in the near future, when countries around the world
are using technology, human life will continue to be digital and print
media may disappear. Human communication and activities depend
entirely on social media. This underscores the power and importance of
social media. Social media is already working as a basic and important
tool for political expression.

1.4 Use of Social media for political purpose.

Just as social media is important for other social issues, so is its use
for political purposes. As Wikipedia Explanation:
Social media use in politics refers to the use of
online social media platforms in political processes
and activities. Political processes and activities include
all activities that pertain to the governance of a country
or area. This includes political organization, global
politics, political corruption, political parties, and
political values.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_use_in_politics)
Social Media has rapidly grown in importance as a forum for
political activism in its different forms. Social media platforms, such as
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube provide new ways to stimulate citizen
engagement in political life, where elections and electoral campaigns have
a central role.
From election campaigns to elections, from parliamentary politics
to the opposition, from abolitionists to protests, for their political
demands, to keep in touch with supporters and to show their
performances, social media is being used nowadays.
Personal communication via social media
brings politicians and parties closer to their potential
voters. It allows politicians to communicate faster and
reach citizens in a more targeted manner and vice
versa, without the intermediate role of mass media.
Reactions, feedback, conversations and debates are
generated online as well as support and participation
for offline events. Messages posted to personal
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networks are multiplied when shared, which allow

new audiences to be reached.
(https://epthinktank.eu/2014/02/12/the-role-played-by-social-
media-in-political-participation-and-electoral-campaigns/)

1.5 Comparison between Facebook and twitter for political

freedom of Expression.
The fundamental principles of free speech have been debated for
millennia. In today’s divisive political environment both sides of the
spectrum can generally agree that free speech is a positive thing. But are
there limits to free speech, particularly in political advertising? Are
politicians exempt from fact-checking or should social media platforms
better police the spread of political misinformation? Is the easiest solution
to simply ban political advertising altogether?
Facebook, on the other hand, decided to make a strident stand for
what it claimed was free speech. It explicitly refused to remove the
political ad from its platform, or limit its paid spread. Katie Harbath,
Facebook’s head of global elections policy, claimed the platform does not
fact-check ads or statements delivered by politicians.

On October 17th Mark Zuckerberg struck back at his political critics,

delivering an expansive speech at Georgetown University. Zuckerberg’s
speech amounted to a manifesto on free speech, presenting a
philosophical argument to explain Facebook’s current policies.

“We don’t fact-check political ads,” Zuckerberg announced in the

speech. “We don’t do this to help politicians, but because we think
people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying.”
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Zuckerberg believes tech companies should not be the arbiters of what is

or isn’t credible, and he ultimately advocates for a hands-off approach to
political advertisements. He suggests the benefits of absolute free
expression outweigh any potential damage that expression could cause.
“Even if we wanted to ban political ads, it’s not clear where we’d
draw the line,” Zuckerberg said. “There are many more ads about issues
than there are directly about elections. Would we ban all ads about
healthcare or immigration or women’s empowerment? If we banned
candidates’ ads but not these, would that really make sense to give
everyone else a voice in political debates except the candidates
themselves? There are issues any way you cut this, and when it’s not
absolutely clear what to do, I believe we should err on the side of greater
expression.”
Facebook Rules

With approximately 2.7 billion active users, Facebook's reach as the

world’s largest social network made it a prime target for those pushing
fake news for profit and propaganda campaigns by Russia, Iran and
other countries.

One of the initial efforts to prevent the spread of fake news on

Facebook started in December 2016 when the platform made it easier
to flag potentially false stories and attempted to disrupt financial
incentives for those who made a profit sharing such stories.

That, however, was just the beginning, as the company came under
increased scrutiny from regulators.

Facebook has also made it a point to remove what it describes as

“inauthentic behaviour” on the platform around the world.

“We’ve removed multiple pages, groups and accounts for misleading

people about who they are and what they’re doing,” read a 2019 news
release.
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Most recently, Facebook, like Twitter, has also decided to delete

content from President Trump, after his campaign published untrue
posts that claimed children were “almost immune” to Covid-19.

The overall changes have not come without criticism, with many
suggesting that the company had been slow to remove altered and
deceptive videos, and in some instances, deciding to simply flag the
videos with a warning to users.

Facebook has also faced criticism for deciding to allow political ads,
although founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced a
small change to the company’s policy.

“We’re going to: block new political and issue ads during the final
week of the campaign,” he posted on Facebook. “It's important that
campaigns can run get-out-the-vote campaigns, and I generally believe
the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of
an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims.”

The social media platform also recently removed a Trump

advertisement which many said contained a symbol used by Nazis, a
clear violation of the company’s hate speech policies.
Twitter Rules

"It's always an election year at Twitter," read a statement, in part,

provided to The National. "We prioritise the removal of content when
it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm and will always
take enforcement action when tweets violate the Twitter Rules."

In that same statement, Twitter also emphasised that the company’s

approach was not unique to the US elections.

“Twitter is a global service and our decisions reflect that … We take

the learnings from every recent election around the world and use them
to improve our election integrity work.”
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In 2019, Twitter announced it would no longer allow political ads,

differentiating itself from its much larger rival, Facebook.

Even before his 2016 White House bid, Mr Trump was known for his
prolific and controversial use of Twitter.

Although Twitter founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey originally

defended his company against accusations that it was misused to
spread fake news around the world, Twitter, like Facebook, has since
taken several steps to protect users and the platform.

In recent months, Twitter made it a point to flag several of Mr Trump’s

tweets for containing unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting and
potentially abusive rhetoric toward protesters.

Some have critiqued the company’s decision to do so, but Twitter has
continued to explain in detail its approach in trying to maintain the
integrity of the service.

“In March, we broadened our policy guidance to address content that

goes directly against guidance on Covid-19 from authoritative sources
of global and local public health information,” read a news release.

The company has also consistently sought to identify and remove

hundreds of thousands of accounts around the world that it says were
linked to various governments attempting to spread misinformation
and “geopolitical narratives”.

Mr Ingram warned that although social media companies may have

been late to act on their platforms being misused in the run-up to the
2016 election, there were and still are a lot of variables at play in terms
of whether or not those efforts to spread fake news were effective.

“It's like predicting the weather,” he said, before cautioning against

social media companies taking a hands-off approach.
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“You have to find a middle ground, but what is that middle ground? Is
it that you put warning notices on tweets; is it that you remove them
but only if they talk about specific acts of violence against specific
people? These are things that have taken centuries to be established in
law, and now we have private corporations effectively trying to re-
engineer free speech questions.”

1.6 Objectives
The main purpose of the research is to compare Facebook and
Twitter rules regarding political freedom of expression, which has several
sub-objectives:
 To Compare Facebook and Twitter rules regarding political
freedom of expression.

 To Reviewing Facebook and Twitter's Freedom of Expression

Laws in the Context of Human Rights

 Awareness of Politicians, Journalists, Human Rights Activists

and Social Media Activists.

 Freedom of political expression and effective use of rules.

 Making recommendations for the prevention of undemocratic,

dictatorial and immoral ideas in the context of freedom of
political expression.