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Content Management or Censorship?

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Censorship from Plato to Social Media

Part of the book series: Law, Governance and Technology Series ((LGTS,volume 61))

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Abstract

It is now becoming increasingly clear what new challenges even democratic states face in relation to this new medium. If we follow Jack M. Balkin’s above line of thought, we can say that, with the emergence and spread of the Internet, there have been many cases, in addition to classical political censorship, where it is also difficult to decide whether we can really talk about censorship. In his writings, he consistently argues for the use of the term speech control rather than censorship, which shows how the scope of speech and the resulting content control has changed according to some views. “Traditional or ‘old-school’ techniques of speech regulation have generally employed criminal penalties, civil damages, and injunctions to regulate individual speakers and publishers”, but the twenty-first century has fundamentally rewritten these. All this, as will be seen in a moment, makes it very difficult to determine whether we are talking about content regulation or censorship in individual cases.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Green and Karolides (2005), p. xxviii.

  2. 2.

    Tótfalusi (2001).

  3. 3.

    Hegyi (2018), p. 125.

  4. 4.

    Mendel (2010).

  5. 5.

    Engel and Others v The Netherlands App nos 5100/71, 5101/71, 5102/71, 5354/72, 5370/72 (ECtHR, 8 June 1976) [41.]-[42.], [100.]; Handyside v The United Kingdom App no 5393/72 (ECtHR, 7 December 1976), [49.]; Association Ekin v France App no 39288/98 (ECtHR, 17 July 2001), [56.]; Perna v Italy App no 48898/99 (ECtHR, 6 May 2003), [39.].

  6. 6.

    For a summary in the literature cf. Barendt (2007); Smith (2019); Garton Ash (2016); Sorabji (2021). In the arts cf. Bradbury (1991).

  7. 7.

    Rosenfeld (2001), p. 117.

  8. 8.

    Roberts (2018), p. 7.

  9. 9.

    Barendt (2007), p. 151.

  10. 10.

    For a summary of the theory see Freshwater (2004), pp. 225–246.

  11. 11.

    Bunn (2015), p. 26.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., p. 27.

  13. 13.

    Lessig (2015), p. vii.

  14. 14.

    Barendt (2007), pp. 122–123.

  15. 15.

    Of course, this does not include restrictions on the internet where there is human error or a natural problem. This was the case in 2008 when two cables in the Mediterranean Sea were accidentally damaged, which then caused an almost total internet blackout in 14 countries for a longer or shorter period. Zetter (2008). Larger countries usually have two main cables to ensure internet access, but this is not always possible for smaller, developing countries. Bateman (2022).

  16. 16.

    Riordan (2016), pp. 463–473.

  17. 17.

    Langvardt (2017), pp. 1353–1388.

  18. 18.

    Oppenheim and Smith (2004), p. 160; Cf. “Censorship is the suppression of certain views in favour of other views (…)” Bajomi-Lázár (2017), p. 63.

  19. 19.

    For a detailed history of political censorship, see Sect. 2.3.

  20. 20.

    For more on the situation in Central Eastern Europe, see Codreanu et al. (2021).

  21. 21.

    Bennett and Naim (2015).

  22. 22.

    Cf. Balkin (2019), pp. 159–162.

  23. 23.

    Roberts (2018), pp. 9–10.

  24. 24.

    Bunn (2015), p. 40.

  25. 25.

    For more on the economic power of platforms, see Busch et al. (2021), pp. 15–17.

  26. 26.

    There is no consensus in the literature as to what term should be used: even documents issued by the same organisations give different names and definitions of ISPs (online platforms, gatekeepers, intermediary service providers, etc.), as they are of very broad types and cover a wide range of activities. On the issue of classification, the European Parliament pointed out that “would be very difficult to arrive at a single, legally relevant and future-proof definition of online platforms at EU level, owing to factors such as the great variety of types of existing online platforms and their areas of activity, as well as the fast-changing environment of the digital world.” 2016/2276(INI), p. 6.; for a recent example of classification, see Bertolini (2021), pp. 7–23.

  27. 27.

    Balkin (2018), p. 1153.

  28. 28.

    Polyák (2020), p. 132.

  29. 29.

    Helberger et al. (2015), pp. 50–71.

  30. 30.

    Langvardt (2017), p. 1355.

  31. 31.

    Jackson (2014), pp. 132–133.

  32. 32.

    On user feelings and thoughts, see West (2018), pp. 4366–4383.

  33. 33.

    Balkin (2014), pp. 2306–2307.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 2309.

  35. 35.

    It is worth pointing out at the beginning of the book that the liability of tech companies is legally secondary to the primary liability of the content creator, but because the identity of the content creator is not always clear on the internet, many documents confuse these levels of liability. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, I will leave this distinction aside in the further discussion of the liability of tech companies. On the advantages and disadvantages of secondary liability, see Sartor (2017), pp. 10–12.; Ullrich (2021), pp. 108–115.

  36. 36.

    Schimpfössl et al. (2020), pp. 3–4.

  37. 37.

    Petley (2009), p. 33.

  38. 38.

    Mill (1859).

  39. 39.

    Threet (2018), pp. 539–565.

  40. 40.

    Bourdieu (1991), pp. 77–79.

  41. 41.

    Keane (1991), p. 39.

  42. 42.

    Pech (2021); Baumbach (2018), pp. 92–114.; Townend (2017), pp. 73–82.; UNHRC (2011), pp. 26., 28.

  43. 43.

    It is worth noting here that this can also be related to Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s theory of the spiral of silence. Noelle-Neumann (1974), pp. 43–51.

  44. 44.

    Hayes et al. (2005), pp. 306–307.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., p. 299.

  46. 46.

    Badouard (2021), pp. 49–58.

  47. 47.

    Dentzel (2014), pp. 242–243.

  48. 48.

    Cengiz and Others v Turkey App nos 48226/10 and 14027/11 (ECtHR, 1 December 2015), [49.].

  49. 49.

    Gordon (1997), pp. 235–249.

  50. 50.

    Cengiz and Others v Turkey App nos 48226/10 and 14027/11 (ECtHR, 1 December 2015), [52.].

  51. 51.

    Balkin (2014), p. 2299.; Cf. based on Heidegger’s work, Judith Butler suggests the general use of the term exclusion instead of censorship. Butler (1998), p. 255.

  52. 52.

    Balkin (2014), p. 2299.

  53. 53.

    Sethi and Behera (2017), pp. 369–375.

  54. 54.

    World Bank (2021).

  55. 55.

    Regulation (EU) 2015/2120.

  56. 56.

    See, for example: (A) a Brazilian court ordered Facebook and Twitter to suspend the social media accounts of individuals under investigation for ‘false news, false accusations, spreading threats’ and other illegal conduct that ‘affect the honour and safety of the members and families of the Supreme Court’. Inquérito 4.781, Distrito Federal (May 26, 2020) or (B) a German court ruled that Facebook can block access to its platforms from associations that are classified as ‘hate organizations’. Ein Prozent v Facebook Ireland Ltd, Oberlandesgericht Dresden, 4 U 2890/19, 16 June 2020.

  57. 57.

    CoE (2018).

  58. 58.

    Koltay (2019), p. 137.

  59. 59.

    Korpisaari (2022), p. 358.

  60. 60.

    UNHRC (2011), p. 62.

  61. 61.

    Pyati (2005), p. 73.

  62. 62.

    ITU (2005).

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  1. Faculty of Law, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary

    Gergely Gosztonyi

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Gosztonyi, G. (2023). Content Management or Censorship?. In: Censorship from Plato to Social Media. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 61. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46529-1_2

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