For many, though, Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement on 7 January that Meta would replace fact checkers on Facebook and Instagram with the “community notes” system adopted by Elon Musk’s X just elevated “challenging” to “disastrous.”

Zuckerberg’s claim that this move prioritizes “freedom of expression” over political bias itself demonstrates political motivation. The announcement was quickly branded as corporate self-interest* to align with the incoming U.S. administration rather than altruistic trust in Facebook’s community of 3 billion to moderate themselves.

This shift in policy and practice has huge ramifications across the globe for informed public discourse, democratic participation and individual and community safety. In fact, to judge whether this move is indeed rights-based, one can ask, Who will benefit and who will suffer?

Given who has expressed pleasure in the move, conservative and far-right politicians and activists – who have felt that their forthright opinions and truth-claims have been censored – will benefit.

Potentially, Meta as a company could benefit by attracting increased support particularly from the incoming U.S. administration and its allies, by gaining influence in U.S. legislation, and by decreasing its administration and financial expenses by reducing or eliminating its global moderation team and its financial support for independent fact checkers.

And who will be adversely affected? Those who already are targets of gender-based abuse, misogyny, racism, and disinformation campaigns in the first place.

By removing barriers to hate speech in a stated bid for “freedom of expression” for some, Meta will undoubtedly be silencing more who find such platforms unsafe and unwanted.

And the larger question of who will suffer surrounds the impact of an expected growth in misinformation and disinformation.

Since Facebook instigated its independent fact-checking in 2016 around the time of the election of Donald Trump to his first term as U.S. president, there has been considerable evidence that the warning labels attached to misleading content (not censoring or removing) have slowed the spread of misinformation, notably during the Covid pandemic.

Where does this leave all of us who believe in respectful dialogue and public space, informed democracy, and knowledge based on facts to inform policy and practice?

Will we see alternative platforms gain prominence, and an exodus of subscribers from Facebook, similar to those who left X for BlueSky and others – an online polarization of discourse? Will there be enough people with the energy and commitment to be the responsible community calling out lies and hate on these platforms? Can we collectively strengthen legislative efforts led by the European Union with its Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act that prioritise accountability and transparency while promoting innovation and helping smaller businesses to gain a foothold in a global market dominated by a handful of Big Tech companies?

These and more are valid actions and necessary. What is not possible is not to engage.

Even if we say “No” to being on Facebook, we will live in a world where such social media platforms will play a huge role in shaping the societies in which we live. As The Guardian reported, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa said that relaxing content moderation on Facebook and Instagram would lead to a “world without facts” – “a world that’s right for a dictator.”

More than ever, we must support public interest journalism and independent fact-checkers who are now further in the firing line of populist politics. Our rights –including freedom of expression – depend on them.

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* For example, by the BBC and Article 19.

Image: Kemarrravv13/Shutterstock

Most people around the world, especially those in rural, poor and marginalized areas, experience the Internet largely through social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and other platforms. According to the Internet usage rate worldwide as of 2022, by gender and market maturity, from Statista, women make up a sizeable proportion of the networked population, nearly at par with men in wealthy nations to four out of ten Internet users in the poorest regions.

Juxtapose this fact with the unbounded misogyny thriving in online communities, unfettered by all measures to contain and eradicate it, and propelled by individuals such as the self-described misogynist Andrew Tate with his over 4.5 million followers on Twitter alone or  groups such as Homme Choc on Facebook where men bond over hatred of women. Almost nine out of ten girls and women Internet users know first-hand what it feels like: Targeted harassment and abuse, gendered disinformation, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images and the creation of deep fakes.

Safer Internet Day (SID) on February 7 was established to “raise awareness of emerging online issues and current concerns.” Online safety issues tend to more often than not, be gender-based, targeting girls, women, gender and sexual minorities disproportionately. This SID, do what you can to advance a misogyny-free Internet.

Get Involved

Visit the Safer Internet Day website to find ideas on how to advance a misogyny-free Internet.

Photo: Rana Hamid

The military, law-enforcement agencies, and commercial corporations are exploiting facial recognition and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to collect personal data. Yet, the legal frameworks controlling how that data can be used have not kept pace with the technology.

In May 2019, San Francisco became the first US city to ban the use of facial recognition by its authorities. However, the city ordinance did not prevent private companies from using facial ID in ways that people find objectionable.

In July 2019, the first independent evaluation of the use of facial recognition by London’s Metropolitan police warned it is “highly possible” the system would be ruled unlawful if challenged in court.

As face recognition becomes more and more common, there are also growing concerns about the gender and racial bias embedded in many systems. Writing in “FaceApp Makes Today’s Privacy Laws Look Antiquated” (The Atlantic, 20 July 2019) Tiffany C. Li, a Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, puts the onus on tech companies themselves:

“Developers need to go further and build actual privacy protections into their apps. These can include notifications on how data (or photos) are being used, clear internal policies on data retention and deletion, and easy workflows for users to request data correction and deletion. Additionally, app providers and platforms such as Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook should build in more safeguards for third-party apps.”

All well and good, but misuse, misappropriation, and mistaken identity require legislation and regulation that includes better privacy laws that address the potential for harms inherent in these technologies. In Li’s opinion:

“To deal with privacy risks in the larger data ecosystem, we need to regulate how data brokers can use the personal information they obtain. We need safeguards against the practical harms that invasions of privacy can cause; that could mean, for example, limiting the use of facial-recognition algorithms for predictive policing. We also need laws that give individuals power over data they have not voluntarily submitted.”

In short, global corporations play by their own rules and require oversight. The problem is how to guarantee compliance.

He calls for a commitment to the three ethical principles that underlie human solidarity: truth telling, human dignity, and non-violence, which “highlight the distinctive character of any society and are the basis for distinguishing the human community and virtual networks from each other.”

Those who wish to read in depth should obtain Christians’ latest book: Media Ethics and Global Justice in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

In short, as with every new technological innovation, there are pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, benefits and risks.

People’s increased interconnectedness offers opportunities to share information, experience, and knowledge, but it also creates new risks and ethical dilemmas. Advancements in digital technologies have led to many positive effects, but at the same time a kind of digital vulnerability has emerged which has been exploited by governments, corporate interests, xenophobic populist politicians and even by internet service providers.

Abuses include disrupting or shutting down systems, the misuse of information for surveillance, invasion of privacy, censoring speech, deleting or blocking data, and the forced distribution of politically motivated messages via network operators.

And, according to a recent study commissioned by the European Parliament, women are especially affected:

“Cyber violence and hate speech online against women occurs on a variety of platforms: social media, web content and discussion sites, search engines, messaging services, blogs, dating websites and apps, comment sections of media and newspapers, forums, chat rooms of online video games, etc. Research shows that women are specifically targeted by cyber violence and that age and gender are significant factors in the prevalence of cyber violence… Cyber violence infringes women’s fundamental rights and freedoms, their dignity and equality and impacts their lives at all levels.”

So, the question is who is going to speak out and act to protect our collective digital rights and freedoms and to decrease our collective vulnerability to misinformation, manipulation, and cyber violence? Without safeguards, the digital age risks becoming an ally of those who seek to disparage and demean human dignity and global justice.

As Elie Wiesel said in his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”