One of the largest tenants of the American constitution is the right to freedom of speech. This universal right spans much wider than America, as the tenant is stipulated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, that:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontier”
However, over the past years, we have seen pressure on major social media companies from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to simply outright ban and remove various individuals and channels. The burning question is what will be the ramifications blockchain technology on fringe movements and cults as well as bad political actors to be given a ‘voice’.
Let’s start by taking on perhaps the biggest ‘unplanned’ and ‘unforeseen’ political events of our lifetime which was Donald Trump winning the US election. It has been said that over an above the timely messages to middle-class America Trump skillfully crafted, Russia worked concurrently behind the scenes buying millions in Facebook advertising to promote more radical views that reached to the heart of many libertarians and middle America. It is hard to pinpoint how this additional spend influenced the outcome but it is clear there was certainly an impact that snowballed into a hostile undercurrent and eventual win for Trump. This political spend has absolutely blown up Silicon Valley and hit hard at Facebook and it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg for not being responsible around who can advertise and spread messages, good or bad on this platform.
Social media is not alone in the conversation of freedom of speech as a political tool, in fact, the propaganda theory as coined by Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky suggests, “the way in which news is structured (e.g. through advertising, the concentration of media ownership, government sourcing) creates an inherent conflict of interest that acts as propaganda for undemocratic forces”.
A different situation has been the removal of the social agitator Milo Yiannopoulos on the Twitter platform. Needless to say, Milo certainly has several viewpoints that by many are uncomfortable and some would consider wrong. Over time his commentary around fragile subjects such as being gay and feminism eventually has lead to Twitter removing him from the site in a complete ban. But is it right or virtuous? Where are the limits of uncomfortably around nonconformist viewpoints?
The above two cases are examples of where freedom of speech or expression has been restricted in the country that prides itself on being one of the least restricted in the world! But do not forget the many nations around the world that live under much stronger oppressive conditions. From political oppression as in China and religious oppression through many Arab nations. A clear drastic ramification of this in recent times were the attacks in France against the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. In this specific case, fringe radical moments took action against contributors of the publicationofr inflammatory and offensive, graphic cartoons lampooning religious figures such as the Prophet Muhammad. This is a clear case of where freedoms of speech slip over into bloodletting and actual crime.
The opening of pandora’s box may simply be a blockchain away!
Steemit is one of the first platforms offering such a decentralized service whereby there are no rules or controls. No matter your viewpoint, on this decentralized network you can propagate and postulate whatever ideals and ideas you may have without restriction or seemingly repercussion. The BIG unanswered question will be **can our society handle such openness and freedom!?’ **History would suggest it is highly unlikely.
Big questions have not been addressed or even explored yet in this space. How will countries contain the messaging and general discourse on subjects they obviously may not want to have ‘opened’. Further, will these platforms cause unintended flow-on issues by allowing fringe or radicalized groups to congregate and build momentum or ‘steam’ as its commonly referred.
We can see both huge positive and negative effects that will eventuate from this technology. As with most blockchain projects, we are yet to see even midterm effects of these systems.