Social Media Companies Without Controls
Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes :
The United States of America enacted a special law to protect social media companies in the circulation and publication of various messages, whatever their content, across the cyberspace that covers the various countries of the world.
The American Communications Decency Act provides that social networks are in general not liable for the content published by their users, while they have the right to block for protective purposes, such as removing violent, pornographic or offensive content.
American law treated some electronic (social) communication platforms such as Twitter as forums and not as publishing houses, the aim being to provide the maximum degree of legal protection without any limits, controls or standards for the policies and powers of these sites, whose role has grown in international politics and in spreading chaos in many countries of the world, including Egypt, under the name of the Arab Spring.
However, the dispute that arose between Trump and these networks, and his signing of the executive order cancelling some aspects of the legal protection granted to social media companies, which opened the door to the right to sue them, revealed to the world the size, powers and influence of these companies in managing the media and world events after their takeover of cyberspace.
This raises the question of the truth and nature of the standards these networks follow? What are the harmful practices and violations not permitted on Facebook, for example? And who is responsible for setting and evaluating these sites and their ethics?
Some people’s messages are often blocked on the pretext that they violate the standards and values of the Facebook community, for example, without our knowing what these values are, or who is entrusted with setting and amending them and issuing the order to block the messages?
If we look at the role of the United Nations, we find that the sun set on it many years ago, and it has become a tool for marketing social media via the internet after its role weakened before the social media sites, some of which promote violent extremism, killing, ISIS and Iran.. and other conduct contrary to religious, humane and human values.
Social networks play a major role in mobilizing public opinion at the local and global levels, in addition to their role in managing ideological, doctrinal and sectarian conflicts, which became evident with violent extremist content under the umbrella of freedom of expression.
Accordingly, we reviewed the ethical values of the social networks published on these sites and found that they are standards, the most prominent of which is that misuse is dealt with according to community standards (the social media community, of course), and that they rely on the feedback received and on the findings of experts in fields such as technology, public safety and human rights to evaluate content.
These standards also include that, where some agree or object, and in some cases, content that may violate the Facebook community standards is allowed in order to raise public awareness.
The social networks announce the foundations on which they base expression of opinion, namely (authenticity – safety – privacy – dignity), and that these networks have the right to remove content that does not incite hatred because it violates another of their policies, without our knowing what these policies are?
It is not a contradiction or double standard, but something that shows the extent of the arrogance and dominance of these companies under an American legal cover to dominate the world media in a way that rises above the powers, authority and Charter of the world organization and above national laws.
Behind the coloured values of the social networks, we expect new networks to emerge that oppose the current networks and expose their unethical behaviour; perhaps a balance will come about in favour of mankind and humanity and not in favour of profits, control over the direction of public opinion and the execution of conspiracy plans....