Article 9 Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
- Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
From the US to the EU, one thing has become painfully clear to me in recent months: free speech and the freedom of conscience is under threat by big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter. Over the past six months, I have been witnessing the daily banning of primarily feminists from both these platforms for the infractions of “misgendering” and “deadnaming” (mentioning a trans-identified person’s previous name, also called their “dead name”) or for simply saying that women don’t have penises. I know, I know, silly me. Biology is changing all the time and we just need to STFU and accept women with penises in our intimate spaces. Or so the anti-science rhetoric of identitarians in recent years goes.
We are in the throes of a cultural revolution where big tech meets women and gay rights activists meets the First Amendment and the EU Charter of Human Rights. Over the past year in the UK, teachers have faced disciplinary actions for questioning gender ideology, a mother has been summoned by the police for an online Twitter discussion, and a mother has been threatened with the custody of her child for making a complaint that her child was being “encouraged” to transition by a therapist and school teachers. Today the “public square” is quickly becoming the various spaces of social media with Facebook accounting for over 2.23 billion monthly users and Twitter coming in at 328 million monthly active users. Both these companies have user numbers the size matching the population of large countries, yet these companies are immune from upholding Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 10 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, both which guarantee the freedom of conscience in addition to several other UN provisions preventing anti-democracy actions and totalitarianism. Then there is the UK’s own Human Rights Act, Article 9 (HRA) which also mirrors the EU legislation and in the US, there is the First Amendment which guarantees the freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition.
As Jonathan Best points out, Article 9 of the HRA “protects everyone’s right to believe that gender is a social construct and to reject the concept of gender identity,” and so too do the other pieces of legislation from the US to the EU. So why are Facebook and Twitter immune to upholding these laws as they manifestly are engaging in—and have been for some time—censorship through blocking or banning users of their platform? Users which are almost always female.
And in the US, the situation is more complex, especially since the passing of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (also known as Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996). This landmark legislation codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230(c)(1) which provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an “interactive computer service” which publishes information by third-party users. What this means is that if I post illegal information on WordPress or Friendster, these companies cannot be held accountable for my having used their platform for illegal ends. Tack onto this legislation the fact that as of April of this year the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,” H.R. 1865, 115th Congress (2018) actually provides websites immunity for content posted by third parties, with the exclusion of sex trafficking. Big tech companies fought back on this exclusion warning that the bill could compel them to block controversial political speech losing the legal battle. However, these big tech companies have been trying to reinvoke their immunity as previously held under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act through NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) renegotiations. And last month they were successful as NAFTA's substitute, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will now extend the immunity Congress had earlier provided with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) into neighboring North American countries. Not only is this is a gift to the tech industry, but it is a complete paradox. The tech industry lobbied heavily to get back Section 230 immunity by invoking “free expression” for its users while conterminously taking on the policing free speech on its platforms. In short, big tech’s request for absolute immunity, in light of its use of Section 230 to justify political bias and censorship, reveals a troubling present for free speech on the net.
What I have been wondering since June is this: how does freedom of expression translate to the freedoms guaranteed by various national and international laws in this era of hyper-censorship at the hands of social media giants?
Google has argued its right to restrict political content citing the “First Amendment protection for a publisher’s editorial judgments encompasses the choice of how to present, or even whether to present, particular content.” Twitter has also issued similar statements. So while these tech giants have secured the right to legal immunity under Section 230 which they cite regularly, yet none of these corporations are transparent in their censorship.
It’s not just conservatives being shadow banned, but it is leftist women today speaking out against gender ideology, such as Canadian feminist journalist and editor of Feminist Current, Meghan Murphy, whose Twitter account was permanently banned last week. There is an exercise of institutional misogyny across the board from Facebook, to Twitter, and many other social media platforms. And let’s be clear here: we are talking about thought and expression policing in full force where women are not allowed to call men “men” and for so doing are banished from the 21st century public square. And Murphy is one in a long line of feminists who have been kicked off social media for simply stating a scientific truism.
The question we face as users of these platforms around the world is if we might hold these tech giants accountable to respecting democratic norms and procedure by demanding that freedom of expression not be dominated by faceless tech giants. As it stands there has been a concerted focus by these social media companies to shut down the voices of leftist women who are pushing back on misogyny on the left. It's time we pay attention to how our freedoms have been sold to these corporations. We need to demand that the policing of free speech end today and that corporations are not turned into the surrogate for a police state none of us voted for.
