In a video on Oct. 13, Instagram influencer and photojournalist Motaz Azaiza shared footage of the rubble of an apartment, the site of an Israeli bombardment that killed 15 of his family members.
He turns the camera on himself first, visibly upset, and then shows the scene—the ruin of the building, a bloodstain, a neighbor carrying a child’s body draped with a shroud.
In response, Meta restricted access to his account.
This is the sort of thing that freedom of speech is supposed to protect, but that idea has become so completely destroyed by Western people that I don’t see any hope for people like that poor influencer.
He’ll have to make his own website, or move to PixelFed or something.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
No government censored him, capitalism did
At what point will you be considering big corps=government in the U.S.? We all know big oil has tremendous lobby, we all have evidence the military industry that works for profit more than anything else is responsible for most American wars in the last several decades. We all know what manchild is ruining everything he touches and shakes hands with government officials. We all know that Facebook and Cambridge Analytica manipulation machine.
Corporates and capitalism might not directly do legislation or have the executive power, but the U.S. government at least is a for-profit organization for a long while now, and evidently profits are not made with showing oppressed people suffering when you are gaining shitloads of money by selling weapons/investing in the oppressor.
If freedom of speech can’t protect you against corporate censorship then it’s meaningless.
So you’re all for the “marketplace of ideas” then eh? If corporations aren’t allowed to censor and edit as they please, that means that Nazis are going to be front and center on every social media platform.
If freedom of speech can’t protect you against corporate censorship then it’s meaningless.
That’s the biggest load of horse shit I’ve read today.
Any website owner has the right to decide if he wants to remove certain content on his website. That is not an infringement of free speech.
It falls into a place never envisioned by those writing the amendments. When you have defacto monopolization of the public media, or even a major portion of it under your control, then preventing commentary is functionally censorship equal to if the government outright banned it.
On the other end you have the desire to prevent harmful transmissions to the public space as well. Incitements to violence and propagation of blatant lies serves no good purpose.
Balancing the two has been the subject of countless lawsuits. The only justification I could see here, given the visual nature of Instagram, would be the potential for gore and violence content. Sometimes showing the ugly reality is needed to let people know the reality rather than a polished sanitized version. Instagram might not be the place for that though given the audience it has.
By comparison a tame subject, but the case involving George Carlin still holds some sway on matters of what’s appropriate for public broadcast.
