The Concerning Rise of Mob Rule and Censorship on Twitter

Opinion

Clyde Greene

Of the Eight Values of Free Expression, I believe the most relevant value today is the the 8th value, Protect Dissent, specifically on Twitter. Social media has led to the rise of mob mentality in the public. Because different platforms have unique themes or methods of communication (ex. pictures and videos on Instagram or longer videos on YouTube), different websites have different communities. One of the more increasingly dangerous communities on the internet is on Twitter. Twitter has become a hot spot for much of the mainstream internet's mob mentality. Between censorship and cancel culture, the website has never been more toxic and threatening to free speech. I find this extremely dangerous due to the influence and power that these groups have. 

Since the election of former President Trump, censorship on Twitter has become a frequently appearing topic within the twenty four hour news cycle. The polarizing election brought out the extremists from both sides of the political spectrum. While Twitter has banned accounts from both radical conservative and liberal accounts, there has been an alarming bias towards conservatives and larger conservative voices, such as former President Trump, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Sydney Powell. It is especially unnerving that the president of the United States can be banned from a website while using free speech. 

However, the issue is that Twitter is a private company that can freely ban accounts that violate their terms of service, which is not applicable to the first amendment. While there are definitely questionable, misleading, or even false statements made on Twitter made by accounts such as these, it still would be considered free speech according to the government. 

While there is no doubt that some of these accounts have made outlandish statements before, freedom of speech is essential to have productive discourse and democracy. Due to the immense portion of Americans that have social media accounts, it is not surprise that social media plays an enormous role in modern election campaigns. 

Ads from the 2016 Election

One of the most recent examples of this new advertisement medium comes from the 2016 presidential election, where former President Trump's ads were extraordinarily more effective than former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's, according to the Trump campaign's digital strategist Brad Parscale. While there were obviously many other factors that influenced the election, the ad campaign was aggressive and potentially had a major influence on the campaign.

Though there have been many conservatives banned from social media platforms like Twitter, there have also been left-wing accounts with large followings that have been banned as well. In 2018, Twitter banned roughly 80 left-wing accounts with large followings. 

While the banning of important voices like the previously mentioned accounts should be concerning for many Americans, there is not much backlash from the opposite side of the political spectrum. The lack of concern is concerning in itself, as this would be a serious violation of the first amendment if these platforms were not private. The hivemind mentality on Twitter is not only effecting politics though. People with different opinions and ideas have even been affected personally due to the mob mentality on platforms like Twitter.

Within the last year and a half, mob mentality and censorship and become a much more serious matter due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The world has never had a major pandemic in the digital age, leading to the chaos that has been occurring online. 

Due to various factors such as the distrust of government, personal concerns, and fear, many people are hesitant/refusing to be vaccinated. Many people that are publicly hesitant or are not getting vaccinated are receiving backlash for their decisions. Due to the censorship on the website, Twitter has begun to remove tweets that "misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm." Many tweets criticizing the vaccine have been taken down due to Twitter's crackdown on "misinformation," although the tweets are opinions from many different types of people. 

Although the First Amendment protects the right to disagree with the government, disagreeing with the mob mentality of users on social media can ruin lives. In recent years, the mob mentality on Twitter has led to the rise of cancel culture. In simplistic terms, cancel culture is like the court of the people with the jury being replaced with a reputational firing squad. Cancel culture has become a very powerful influence on the lives of the "cancelled," sometimes even ruining careers.

  

The cancel culture phenomenon is quite similar to the saying, "guilty until proven innocent," which seemingly has replaced presumption of innocence. There is constantly a new politician, celebrity, or influencer being cancelled everyday, especially in the entertainment world. This "woke" and "mob mentality" can ruin not only careers, but lives.

Cancellation and censorship pose a looming threat to democracy. The right to criticize the government or political figures is essential for democracy, and the mob mentality on social media that shuts down conversation and opinion is concerning. 

I personally am very worried about the rise of censorship and mob rule in America. The shift towards the suppression of certain voices and groups is very concerning, and very similar to what has happened in authoritarian countries in history. The right to criticize the government and speak freely is more important now than ever, but is seemingly becoming more and more of a privilege instead of a constitutional right.