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Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all taken recent measures to combat coronavirus misinformation, but some First Amendment advocates think these are steps in the wrong direction and could limit free speech.
“It honestly doesn’t matter whether or not they think they are doing the right thing, as the old saying goes ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions,’” conservative strategist Chris Barron told Fox News.
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“At some point we have to recognize that there are limits to what governments and big tech can do to protect people. At some point we have to trust in people to do the right thing,” Barron said. “We are at that point. We must stop the urge to trade away unthinkable amounts of power to the government and big tech companies in exchange for empty promises of safety.”
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all taken recent measures to combat coronavirus misinformation, irking free speech advocates in the process.
Twitter expanded its guidelines Wednesday on “unverified claims that incite people to engage in harmful activity” related to the pandemic.
The company noted that some of the more popular unverified claims that it will clamp down on include theories that “could lead to the destruction or damage of critical 5G infrastructure, or could lead to widespread panic, social unrest or large-scale disorder.”
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Twitter said it has removed more than 2,230 tweets containing “misleading and potentially harmful content” since March 18. The company cited an example of a bogus tweet: “The National Guard just announced that no more shipments of food will be arriving for two months — run to the grocery store ASAP and buy everything”
Another example of misinformation the platform would remove was, “5G causes coronavirus — go destroy the cell towers in your neighborhood!”
Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor, who oversees the group’s TechWatch initiative designed to defend conservative speech online, told Fox News that the problem is big tech uses “an impossible standard that guarantees errors and abuse” of its guidelines.
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“Twitter says it will delete posts that ‘could lead to widespread panic, social unrest, or large-scale disorder.’ That could be absolutely anything,” Gainor said. “Will it delete posts that show China lied and tens of thousands of Americans died? Will it delete posts about protests? Or just protests Twitter disagrees with?”
Earlier this month, Twitter announced that it was broadening its definition of “harm” to combat tweets that go against “guidance from authoritative sources” of public health information.
“Twitter has served as a news wire showing breaking news photos and video from around the world. Now Twitter wants to restrict that information,” Gainor said. “It’s a rule only a dictator could love.”
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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced similar plans on Sunday, which included removing any content deemed “problematic” by the tech giant.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said “anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations” would violate company policy.
“Anything that is medically unsubstantiated, so people saying, like, ‘Take Vitamin C… take turmeric, those cure you,’ those are examples of things that would be a violation of our policy. Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy,” Wojcicki told CNN.
Guy Benson, a Facebook executive with the title “vice president of integrity,” penned a blog post last week about what he’s doing to “limit misinformation” about COVID-19.
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“Liberal activist groups see this as a hopeful sign that Facebook will crack down more on freedom of speech in the future with the use of liberal fact-checkers,” TechWatch staff writer Alexander Hall wrote when analyzing Benson’s blog.
The Facebook honcho detailed that the company now works with “over 60 fact-checking organizations that review and rate content” across 50 different languages.
“Once a piece of content is rated false by fact-checkers, we reduce its distribution and show warning labels with more context,” Benson wrote.
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“We’ve also removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm. Examples of misinformation we’ve removed include harmful claims like drinking bleach cures the virus and theories like physical distancing is ineffective in preventing the disease from spreading.”
New initiatives announced by Facebook included “informing people who interacted with harmful COVID-19 claims” and “making it easier for people to get the facts.” Facebook has banned some pages promoting protests of stay-at-home mandates that challenge the government’s advice about social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson recently told Fox News that Facebook “is acting on instructions from state governments to silence lawful political speech” when it comes to removing content that advocates for in-person gatherings during the pandemic.
“As such, Facebook may have crossed the line from platform ‘misinformation’ control, which arguably is lawful as a private entity, to acting as an extension of government,” Jacobson said.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday to offer his thoughts on what is considered “harmful misinformation.”
“We do classify that as harmful misinformation, and we take that down,” Zuckerberg said when asked about protests that go against social distancing guidelines. “At the same time, it’s important that people can debate policies… but more than normal political discourse, a lot of the stuff that people are saying that is false, around a health emergency like this, can be classified as harmful misinformation.”
One critic of Facebook’s policy is the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who took to Twitter to call the situation “very dangerous.”
“Why is @Facebook colluding with state governments to quash peoples free speech? Regardless of what you think about the lockdowns or the protests against them, this is a chilling & disturbing government directed shutdown of peoples 1st Amendment rights,” Trump Jr. wrote. “Very dangerous!”
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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby has pushed the pause button on a contentious bill that would have allowed the province to recover health care and other costs attributed to the marketing of risky products in B.C.
Two dozen business and industry groups had called for the New Democrats to put the bill on hold, claiming it was so broadly drafted that it could be used to go after producers, distributors and retailers of every kind.
“It is safe to say that we got the attention of these major multinational companies,” the premier told reporters on Tuesday, citing the deal with Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and X, the major players in the field.
“They understand our concern and the urgency with which we’re approaching this issue. They also understand the bill is still there.”
The New Democrats maintain that the legislation was never intended to capture the many B.C. companies and associations that complained about it.
Rather it was targeted at Facebook owner Meta and other social media companies and the online harm done to young people. A prime example was the suicide of a Prince George youth who was trapped by an online predator.
Still, there was nothing in the wording of Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, to indicate its application would be confined to social media companies or their impact on young people.
Some critics wondered if the bill’s broad-based concept of harms and risks could be used to prosecute the liquor board or the dispensers of safer-supply drugs, products with proven harms greater than any sugary drink.
Perhaps thinking along those lines, the government specifically exempted itself from prosecution under the Act.
This week’s announcement came as a surprise. As recently as Monday, Attorney General Niki Sharma told reporters the government had no intention of putting the bill on hold.
Tuesday, she justified her evasion by saying the talks with the social media companies were intense and confidential.
She said the pause was conditional on Meta and the other companies delivering a quick response to government concerns.
“British Columbians expect us to take action on online safety,” she told reporters. “What I’ll be looking for at this table is quick and immediate action to get to that better, safety online.”
A prime goal is addressing online harassment and “the online mental health and anxiety that’s rising in young people,” she said
“I want to sit down with these companies look at them face to face and see what they can do immediately to improve the outcomes for British Columbians.”
Meta has already committed to rectifying Eby’s concern that it should relay urgent news about wildfires, flood and other disasters in B.C. Last year, those were blocked, collateral damage in the company’s hardball dispute with the federal government over linking to news stories from Canadian media companies.
Eby says he was very skeptical about the initial contact from the companies. Now he sees Meta’s willingness to deliver emergency information as a “major step” and he’s prepared to give talks the benefit of the doubt.
Not long ago he was scoring political points off the social media companies in the harshest terms.
“The billionaires who run them resist accountability, resist any suggestion that they have responsibility for the harms that they are causing,” said the premier on March 14, the day Bill 12 was introduced.
Given those characterizations, perhaps the big, faceless billionaires will simply direct their negotiating team to play for time until the legislation adjourns as scheduled on May 16.
“The legislation is not being pulled and we’re not backtracking,” said Sharma. “We can always come back and bring legislation back.”
The government could schedule a quick makeup session of the legislature in late May or June or even in early September, before the house is dissolved for the four-week campaign leading up to the scheduled election day, Oct. 19.
More likely, if the New Democrats feel doublecrossed, they could go back to war with the faceless billionaires with a view to re-enacting Bill 12 after a hoped-for election victory.
Even if the New Democrats get some satisfaction from the social media companies in the short term, they have also framed Bill 12 as a way to force the marketers of risky products to help cover the cost of health care and other services.
B.C.’s attorney general says the province can bring the online harms legislation back but it will first seek remedies through negotiations with social media companies.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The British Columbia government has agreed to shelve proposed legislation that would have allowed it to sue social-media companies for online harms after Meta, TikTok and others agreed to work with the province to put voluntary protections in place.
The social-media companies have not agreed to anything other than talks, but Attorney-General Niki Sharma credited the proposed legislation with bringing the key players to the province’s door.
“Our bill was able to get the attention of some pretty big companies out there and get them to the table with us, and I’m pleased with that,” she told reporters Tuesday.
The government can bring the bill back, she said, but it will first seek remedies through negotiations. “We could be locked in litigation for years, but at this stage it’s my obligation to see if we can come to some kind of improvements,” Ms. Sharma said.
Premier David Eby said the agreement was hammered out after Meta reached out to the province. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Danielle Morgan, a spokesperson for TikTok, said her company is committed to developing new safeguards. “We look forward to joining Premier Eby and working with industry counterparts … to discuss best practices towards our shared goal of keeping young people safe online.”
The province introduced Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, in March with the promise that it would allow government to recover costs associated with the promotion, marketing and distribution of products that are harmful to adults and children in the province.
But while the bill received the support of researchers who study the impact of some platforms on mental well-being, particularly in teenagers, the broad scope of the legislation alarmed business leaders who warned it could be used to target companies well beyond social-media platforms.
“The net spread so widely, it could capture just about anything you could imagine,” said Bridgitte Anderson, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. She said the provincial government heard the concerns of many different sectors when it withdrew the bill from this spring’s legislative agenda. “We’re delighted the government is going to hit pause on this.”
The B.C. bill was tabled just weeks after Ottawa introduced Bill C-63 to create a new Online Harms Act, which is meant to hold tech platforms accountable for the content they host.
Kaitlynn Mendes, a professor of sociology at Ontario’s Western University, is an expert on the impact of online harms on youth, including sexual exploitation, self-harm, anxiety and anti-social behaviour.
She said the B.C. government is being optimistic in thinking it can bring social-media giants into line without a legal cudgel.
“I think that is wishful thinking. Industries don’t want to be governed. They’d rather have codes of conduct but that relies on them being good faith actors – ultimately, they are going to act in their best interests. I’d be skeptical that it’s going to change anything,” she said in an interview.
“I really hope the Canadian government doesn’t try to rely on deals. We need to have structures in place to hold these companies accountable.”
Mr. Eby issued a joint statement on Tuesday with representatives from Meta, TikTok, Snap and X, saying they have reached an agreement to work to help young people stay safe online through the new BC Online Safety Action Table.
“Digital platforms are powerful tools, which can connect family members and loved ones and are places where we find like-minded people. Places where community is built and sustained. But the internet is also a place where criminals and scammers are constantly seeking new ways to find and extort potential victims,” the joint statement said.
Mr. Eby championed the pursuit of tackling social-media harms after meeting with the grieving parents of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old who killed himself last October after being sexually victimized online.
“Carson was deceived by an online predator, tormented and sexually extorted. He took his own life before his parents were aware of what was happening,” the statement continued. “Premier Eby made a promise to Carson’s parents that his government would find ways to make sure Carson left behind a legacy that will help protect other young people.”
The province will place Bill 12 on hold while the parties meet to discuss how to protect youth from online harms before they happen.
Ms. Sharma said there are three areas B.C. wants addressed: sexual exploitation of youth online; rising mental-health issues and anxiety among young people; and online harassment and bullying.
B.C.’s bill was modelled on its efforts to seek damages from major tobacco companies over tobacco-related health costs. The province was the first Canadian jurisdiction to launch such a lawsuit, in 1998, but that case is not yet resolved – underscoring the lengthy process involved in reaching a resolution.
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Jon Stewart called the trial a “test of the fairness of the American legal system, but it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way.”
Jimmy Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, took the stage with Madonna in Mexico City over the weekend.
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