Freedom of speech in the digital era needs re-evaluation
Freedom of speech in the virtual world and in giant social media platforms in the digital era is in need of further discussions, experts said at a forum held in Taipei on Friday.
Freedom of speech should not be the knee-jerk worry that stops governments from taking actions to curb information manipulation, National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Journalism director Hung Chen-ling (洪貞玲) said.
She made the comment when asked about how Taiwan should respond to Chinese platforms such as TikTok, which are popular among young Taiwanese, but have been found to operate in China’s interests by groups that combat disinformation such as Taiwan AI Labs and Doublethink Lab.
While banning them might incur criticisms of freedom of speech infringement, before using this to justify not doing so, “we first have to get to the bottom of how the contemporary informational environment operates,” Hung said.
“The freedom of speech question is no longer simply about protecting it in order to fight an authoritarian government like before. What we are facing in our era is a situation where our freedom of speech is directed by and is at the mercy of giant platforms and business interests,” she said.
“When a democracy is constantly threatened by a neighboring authoritarian country through information manipulation [on digital platforms], the talk of freedom of speech needs to be done in a new light to see how a democracy’s freedom of speech and national security can be protected,” Hung said.
She said the government should have the courage to do more, citing the US’ bill as an example, which is forcing ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to divest its US assets or face a total ban.
The ultimate goal of freedom of speech is to protect human rights, Taiwan AI Labs content executive officer Hwang Chao-hwei (黃兆徽) said.
“In a virtual world, we have to ask whether this human is real or fake. Fake humans should not be granted rights,” Hwang said.
When one person can control and manipulate hundreds of accounts to sway online discussions, “it is also against the spirit of freedom of speech,” she said.
Hwang said she does not support using laws to regulate content, but that what is needed is structural regulation; meaning, transparency must be demanded “in the platforms’ money flow, algorithms, and where their adverts come from.”