How Social Media "Stifles" Free Speech (Facebook)

[floridanow]

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-13/how-social-media-stifles-free-speech

We all know the stories of Facebook censoring speech "according to their own rules". The Zerohedge article goes to the point of how important free speech is and that these social media platforms should not be allowed to determine.

The suggestion is that "new laws" need to be created against these Corporations that may have a vested interest in not truly allowing freed speech as protected in the Constitution.

I get a little bit suspicious when anyone suggests "new laws" regarding speech.

Some thoughts on this:

• Don't we have laws that can be enforced? Much like on college campuses the issue and thought of "not allowing" certain people to speak. Why can't we just enforce the laws?

• Secondly -- this is a golden opportunity for Steemit to stand out as a "free speech zone"

Questions for Steemit?
As in the example above, is there a Steemit PR committee that can publicly bring awareness of these issues and at the same time maybe this will encourage new users. Or maybe the Steemit shirts and logos really stress "freedom of speech".

Comments

[norvares]

In Germany a new law has been proposed and is currently in checking which commits private companies to delete "hate speech" during 24 hours if they don't want to be sued. Officially it's against "fake news" but as it doesn't have a concrete definition of "hate speech" it can be used for censorship.

Hopefully the law will be disregarded by the constitutional court but regardless of the decision I'll try to shift my social media activities to steemit or other free social media platforms.

[n3bul4]

Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction.[1][2][3][4] The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.
Wiki: Freedom of Speech

It should actually be clear what freedom of speech is and means. How far we are away from our own definitions is scary. It actually turns out to be the total opposite. Georg Orwell is greeting...

[ozmaga]

They're becoming communist. It's so sad to see that telling the true can become a crime in Germany and other places in Europe.

[floridanow]

Thank you....but then again you are putting that in "a persons hand". Free speech is free speech. As you say...time will tell.

[norvares]

With our current democratic system we weren't able to influence the development till now. The decision was properly hidden as the attractive topic "marriage for all" had been all over the news.
The current development in Germany shows that the better part of our population turns away from individualism and prefer an allmighty state which is a terrifying development in my point of view.

[supporter-of-fbd]

and why you did downvote me ?

[n3bul4]

@norvares

Artikel 5 Grundgesetz

(1) Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden gewährleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt.
(2) Diese Rechte finden ihre Schranken in den Vorschriften der allgemeinen Gesetze, den gesetzlichen Bestimmungen zum Schutze der Jugend und in dem Recht der persönlichen Ehre.

Eigentlich wird Nummer 1 schon mit Nummer 2 ausgehebelt, was die Freiheit anbelangt :-)