The need to restrict Freedom of Expression on Social Media

Human rights are based on the principle that every individual is entitled to respect. Their fundamental assumption is that each person is a moral and rational being who deserves to be treated with dignity. While these rights might be easier to uphold and enforce in the real world, increased human activity online has presented new problems in the protection of human rights in cyber space. The epitome of such interaction engendering new problems lies in social media.

Social media comes with potential problems, as well as gains. Free speech, and the debate about the extent to which it should be moderated, if at all, is one which continues to polarise opinion. Online, the argument surrounding the limits of free speech focusses primarily on social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter.

The interrelated freedoms of communication, expression and association are at the heart of any free, democratic society based on the rule of law. Freedom of expression, the free flow of information, and freedom and pluralism of the media have internationally been acknowledged as human rights. The foundation of these protections was laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR) and also the International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR).

Freedom of speech is a bellwether on social media as it informs us as to how the society tolerates those in minority, those who are disfavored, what popular views on a certain subject are and provides information on how all this furthers or hampers the human rights of those involved. The right of freedom of speech and expression is crucial in a democracy as information and ideas help to inform political debate and are essential to public accountability and transparency in government.

The power of opinion is revolutionary. The ability to share ideas and band together for a common cause and the greater good is a very unique facet of humanity and over the years this practice has grown exponentially. As the geographical gap between those in the world grows smaller, the voices grow louder. Social media can direct the attention of the world on a specific issue. The Syrian Conflict was a great example of this. Social media was used to document abuses and honor victims and activists. Similarly, for the human rights violations in Bahrain, Amnesty International used Twitter and Storify to get the attention of the US State Department. In 2009, the Supreme Court of California decided a case that discussed the rights to free speech in text messaging between employees. The employees of the city of Ontario, California filed a claim in the district court against the police department. They believed that their fourth amendment rights were violated when their text messages on city-issued pagers were reviewed without their permission and this claim was upheld by the court.

However, like every coin has two sides to it, so does every issue. Although there are many positive sides to freedom of speech, there are negative aspects as well. Many people exercise their freedom of expression via social networking websites to encroach upon the rights of others. There are different kinds of offences which can be committed online, such as a grossly offensive hate crime which includes disparaging statements or acts committed with regards to religion, race and sexual orientation (House of Lords, 2014). A recent case criminalizing this is that of Liam Stacey who was convicted of an offence according to Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Liam made racially inciteful comments on twitter about a footballer. For this he was convicted and sentenced to jail (Dominic Mcgoldrick, 2013).

Another popular offence committed behind the veil of the exercise of freedom of expression is that of defamation. This involves the delivery of a harmful statement that offends the reputation of a person. A statute protecting from this offence is the Defamation act 2013. In Bernal, 2014 BBC’s News-Night program aired a false accusation which referred to an individual as a child abuser, after which this statement was re-tweeted by thousands of people. This was contested by the accused as a defamatory statement in court after which the BBC settled the claim by compensating the individual monetarily.

Bullying online is another such offence, the product of little regulation of substance which can be relayed online. The lack of identity with which individuals can operate social media, make statements, interact with and impact the lives of others, has allowed people to have what can be termed to be ‘keyboard courage’. Since their identity is hidden and they are not interacting with the recipient of their comments in person, they can say just about anything, regardless of its content and escape, unscathed. The lack of consequences which follow usually, encourage such behavior and allow little measures which can induce any form of deterrence for hateful comments or bullying online. Not only does this impact the recipients of the hate and vitriol personally, it can also have some grave, life threatening consequence for them. Online bullying has been recorded to lead many to have psychological and emotional issues and even push them to commit suicide. The Tyler Clementi Case (New Jersey v Dharun Ravi) is a good example of this. Clemeti was ridiculed online for being gay which led to him killing himself in 2010.

While the use of social media is imperative and its benefits undeniable, it also cannot be ignored that since it has only recently been made use of, the dangers it poses have not been dealt with sufficiently. Any mechanism introduced to deal with these problems will inevitable require the restriction of the freedom of expression, a fundamental freedom. Pakistan does not have a comprehensive mechanism which implements the legislation promulgated to eliminate harassment and bullying online. This is something the country needs to look into, as the dangers of the abuse online cannot be kept at bay, by the mere enunciation of legislation, without a functional enforcement mechanism.