Deplatforming US President: Are Tech Giants Waking Up?

The last week has been quite eventful, there have been two seemingly unrelated developments involving Facebook that deserve close attention. The bigger event, storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters is being discussed and written upon by nearly everyone who is capable of forming an opinion and is interested in US and World politics. So for now I would prefer to not wade into the politics except where it intersects tech ecosystem.

 So, by now everyone is aware that US President has been banned from major social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, Snapchat (disabled) and his video has been taken off YouTube. It is indeed a big deal for tech giants to deplatform a sitting US President (even if his term expires in less than two weeks). The larger question here is, are tech giants like Facebook and Twitter finally waking up to stop weaponization of information on their platforms or is it fear of repercussion ? 

Tech giants have for years allowed hate speech to dominate their platforms in the guise of ensuring freedom of speech even if they know the two are quite opposite. Every thing from weird conspiracy theories to outright calls for genocide have been given a freehand by these companies. When critics say the action against Trump is an insurance against possible action by the incoming government  of Joe Biden, the argument is not without merit. Any investigation into the attack on the Capitol is likely to go into the role of social media. The outrage against the incidence is so great that attempts by government to regulate online speech might not receive backlash from users as it would have done otherwise. 

But should governments be allowed to regulate social media platforms ? It's a slippery slope, it could actually lead to curbing dissent and online civil rights activism in autocratic regimes and illiberal democracies. Facebook in India has already been accused of giving free reign to hate speech and pro-government propaganda for increased revenue. Content on Facebook did play a role in the genocide in Myanmar carried out by government forces. Even in the US, government oversight over social media platforms, even by a liberal government may lead to social media being used for furtherance of its own foreign policy which hasn't exactly been beneficial to a lot of countries in the past. 

However, it does not mean that tech giants who now wield such enormous power can shirk their responsibilities or remain selective in ensuring their own community standards and policies are adhered to. They cannot turn a blind eye to hate speech and call to violence in their quest to acquire more ad revenue, user base and data. They cannot have one set of standards for the first world and another for the rest of the world. Siege of Capitol Hill was a glimpse of how abdication of responsibility by tech giants can lead to subversion of democracy and free society. For now the US seems to have overcome it but in a similar situation not every country can. 

* I kept this short because I have already written on tech giants' social responsibilities in my previous post two years back.