- Position‹2 of 3›
- Social media outrage is bad
- Argument‹6 of 6
Social media outrage obstructs free speech
Social media users self-censor to avoid becoming the target of social media outrage.
The argument
The argument turns on what social media outrage costs the person on the receiving end. Natasha Tynes lost her book deal because of a social media backlash to a Tweet she posted complaining about a Metro worker eating on a train, and the novelist then left the US fearing for the safety of her family after suffering a torrent of abuse online. The details are what give the case its force: the original post was a minor complaint about an everyday incident, and the consequences reached her livelihood and her sense of her family's physical safety. The disproportion between the two is the mechanism. If a remark of that scale can end a book deal and drive someone out of the country, then no one can reliably judge in advance which of their opinions is safe to express in public. The risk cannot be managed by being careful, because the outcome does not track the seriousness of what was said. What follows is that out of fear of drawing media attention, people are self-censoring online, withholding not only the views they suspect are controversial but anything that might be read badly by an audience they cannot see. This is why the argument treats outrage as a free speech problem rather than merely an unpleasant feature of the internet. No authority is banning anything, and the restriction is produced by users themselves, which makes it both invisible and difficult to contest. The place that was once heralded as a platform of free debate has been stifled, and the stifling happens before anyone speaks, in the private calculation about whether to post at all. Self-censorship prevails as users fear a public backlash for expressing their opinion, and a forum in which the cautious stay silent is no longer performing the function that made it valuable.
Context
Before social media, debates might have taken place between friends in a café or bar. They would have played out face to face in a safe environment where each person could express their opinion away from the glare of the international media free from the fear of repercussion. Facebook and Twitter have destroyed that safety. Now, the wrong choice of word can turn an innocuous comment into a global Twitterstorm.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Free speech by definition affords citizens the right to speak their mind. However, it does not mean they can do so without consequences. If someone wants to express themselves online, they are free to do so without the threat of government censorship. However, if those opinions are inflammatory and spark social outrage, the users that are outraged by the statement are entitled to express that outrage. Self-censorship out of fear of generating a negative public response is not an erosion of free speech. It is the public sphere setting social boundaries on what is acceptable and unacceptable. For it to be an erosion of free speech, the state or another entity would have to restrict the expression of certain beliefs. Because people are free to express whatever opinions they choose online, including anger, free speech remains intact, even in a climate when publicly abhorrent views are challenged through social media outrage.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] There is no erosion of free speech as people are still able to express whatever opinions they choose. [Rejecting P4] Social media outrage is also protected under free speech principles.