On January 14, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying circulated a fake propaganda piece on human rights in Xinjiang on social media Twitter, denying the Communist Party’s forced labor policy against the Uighur people and accusing the U.S. government of disinformation. The following day, a Twitter spokesperson said that the CCP’s Foreign Ministry tweets did not violate their corporate rules.
According to widespread evidence that has come to light, however, the CCP has imprisoned approximately one million Uighurs on a massive scale, with forced re-education programs, highly invasive surveillance, suppression of religion, forced sterilization of women, and forced labor.
Twitter has restricted the platform’s speech content for years, but recently its censorship has raised concerns of double standards. In particular, Twitter shut down President Trump‘s personal account following the violence at the Capitol on January 6, sparking criticism for suppressing free speech and exacerbating partisan divisions.
On January 14, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey issued a public statement acknowledging that deleting the president’s account “sets a dangerous precedent” and “deepens the divide in America. But he stressed, “I believe this is the right decision for Twitter. Twitter’s censorship of posts will be ‘much longer’ and much bigger.
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) criticized Twitter’s decision to shut down President Trump’s account as hypocritical. “Twitter refuses to ban, suspend or delete tweets posted by the Chinese Communist Party despite its apparent ethnic cleansing and violence against Uyghurs.” Gingrich questioned the questionable approach of Twitter in its treatment of the CCP’s speech standards. He said, “The First Amendment right to free speech is at stake.”
Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said the social media platform Twitter, the online video platform YouTube and other technology companies have become “partisan political tools” and should not be protected by Section 230. He noted that these companies are waging a dangerous war on “free speech” by selectively using their own censorship policies. “These companies undoubtedly pose a threat to the culture, the climate of ideas, the freedom of choice of Americans that the First Amendment protects,” he said.
So far, President Trump has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit and Instagram, and the blocking or cancellation of his accounts by the tech giants has sparked condemnation from political elites around the world. The European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Mexican President Manuel López Obrador, among other dignitaries, have spoken out, saying that these companies have become a threat to global political freedom and need to be more strictly regulated.
Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, the main party in the European Parliament, called for regulation of big tech companies. “We can’t let big tech companies in the U.S. decide how we can or can’t discuss online.” Norwegian Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Støre said Big Tech censorship threatens political freedom around the world.
The French thinker Voltaire said, “I may not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to speak.” Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of central importance, and its restriction must be based on a legal framework and not left to the unilateral discretion of the media’s management. Freedom of expression is also the foundation of a democratic society, i.e., the “measure of freedom of expression” should be determined by all citizens and the letter of the law, not just by a chief executive officer (CEO).
In particular, the media is the “uncrowned king” with the fourth power and should adhere to the code of “objectivity and impartiality”. However, these big technology media companies have repeatedly overstepped their role as “platforms” and turned into “judges” and “referees”, censoring speech, taking seriously biased positions, and suppressing the truth. They even dance with the red devil, making people lament that high-end technology has been abused.
These media platforms have now formed a joint monopoly and become the mouthpiece of a specific ideology and the Chinese Communist regime; they have used their “power of speech” to block user accounts that expose the election fraud, but they have openly endorsed the fake videos of the Chinese Communist Party. accomplices and co-conspirators. The double standard of the tech giants is even more disgraceful.
These tech giants are part of a digital oligarchy that has turned into a monster that dominates speech and poses a serious threat to universal values. Today’s international community must address the need for public regulation of large online platforms, and Senator Alex Antic, a member of the Australian Liberal Party, has said he will set up a select committee in the Australian Senate to investigate the influence and censorship of big tech companies on political thought.
This is a good start to prevent everyone’s right to speak from being taken away for no good reason, and to prevent freedom of speech from falling into the technological abyss. Justice is in the eye of the beholder, and Twitter’s share price has plummeted nearly 15% in the past ten days.
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