Summit Against Online Extremism: Is Censorship the Way Forward?

Tammy Paola
5 min readMay 26, 2019

In April 2019, New Zealand experienced a terrorist attack that revealed human nature at its worst. As the dust began to settle, social media’s role in the Christchurch Massacre was called into question. The attacker, live streamed the massacre via Facebook. In the days leading up to it, he published a manifesto that brimmed with extremist vitriol.

The reaction to the events was almost predictable. Part of human nature involves searching for an immediate and punishable target when tragedy unfolds. In the aftermath of the Christchurch Massacre, that target became social media.

Fast forward to the Summit Against Online Extremism and New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has proposed an initiative called the Christchurch Call. As part of the Christchurch Call, Ardern suggested taking steps to prevent the use of social media for the spread of terrorist content. Many world leaders were, naturally, in agreement.

Ardern’s immediate response to the massacre was nothing short of admirable. But, there’s a strong chance that her approach to social media censorship is wrong. Not only is it unlikely to prevent extremism, but there are also ways it could exacerbate the problem.

Who decides what extremism is anyway?

There’s an old saying in some parts of the world: one man’s terrorist is another man’s talisman. Now, that saying isn’t designed to excuse terrorism in any way, shape, or form. But, it does beg the question: who decides what extremism is anyway?

Some may cry that Jacinda Ardern is a voice of reason who, surely, is the right person for the job. Take a not-so-fast journey over the Pacific Ocean and plenty would also decide that Donald Trump is the voice of reason. How many of those people would feel comfortable giving Mark Zuckerberg the task of determining what extremism is? It’s important to remember this as we continue discussing the problems with the Christchurch Call.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, extremism holds the following definition:

“The holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism.”

According to Google, we could view extremism in the following way:

“An action or threat designed to influence the government or intimidate the public. Its purpose is to advance a political, religious or ideological cause.”

The above definitions are reasonable. However, they’re still open to interpretation. When interpreted too liberally, they result in a mob mentality that may infringe on freedom of speech.

Let’s take Rugby Australia player Israel Folau for example. His views on homosexuality are, undoubtedly, extreme. After airing them, the social media response resulted in the loss of his job. While this was a fair strike for gay rights, on the one hand, it’s resulted in rallying against one person’s freedom of religion on the other. The overall message is that reflecting upon your religion on social media could result in consequences as severe as a job loss.

Interestingly, although Google’s definition reflects upon not influencing the government for an ideological cause, social media has been allowed to achieve exactly that. Child climate activist Greta Thunberg has swayed government policy using social media and her views on environmentalism. Surely this is extremism if we’re going to take a strict interpretation?

Legislating against social media use?

The Christchurch Call has gained the support of five nations. Each has agreed to introduce legislation to combat the use of social media for promoting extremism. More specifically, it calls for legislation that forces social media channels to remove extremist posts.

While well-intentioned, legislating against social media use seems Orwellian to say the least. First, it’s difficult to determine what is extremist. Members of both left and right wing political organisations may well view their opponents’ as taking an extremist stance. Should one gain majority power, there’s a chance they’d use such legislation to stop their opponents’ views being aired via social media.

It’s possible to argue that social media outlets could curtail posts that have fundamentalist sentiments. This introduces the risk of marginalising different religions and limiting freedom of speech within said religions. Two recent examples of religious extremism are ISIL and the IRA. If you delve into the more devout elements of Islam and Catholicism respectively, you may find elements of either religion that feel uncomfortably close to sectarian organisations. But, how much of that is to do with your perception? Should we begin curtailing freedom of speech because something may seem fundamentalist?

How much power should Facebook have?

The Summit Against Online Extremism also called for Facebook to take a stance. Nobody will deny that Facebook needed to remove the video associated with the massacre. However, should we be handing over too much power to the social media giant?

While some will argue that Facebook is a private entity that’s entitled to restrict its platform as the owners see fit, those people are ignoring the public reach it has. It isn’t unrealistic to say that more people will use Facebook than a government website or a news outlet’s website. As such, it’s reckless to assume that giving the company the power to restrict views is simply a Libertarian interpretation of how a private company can act.

It’s also worth recognising that even if we do give Facebook so much power, the tech giant may not be up to the task. A case in point involves the social media channel banning images from a breast cancer awareness campaign. If Facebook can’t differentiate between anatomy and pornography, can its algorithms really tell the difference between extremism and religion?

Does Ardern miss the real issues?

Finally, we can’t ignore the way censorship becomes a red herring. While it may stop the spread of extremist material to those who are on the path to being radicalised, is it an approach that acts too late?

Nobody can argue that such censorship tackles the root of the problem. To target extremism, government agencies need to further their efforts to understand why it happens. How do extremists become so alluring? And, which members of our societies are vulnerable and open to their ideas? When we look at cases such as ISIS brides, it doesn’t take long to find a legacy of young girls who felt abandoned within their communities and saw Syria as a way out. By focusing on social media, governments are missing the chance to destroy the problem at its source.

Ultimately, we also can’t ignore that wiping extremists from public platforms drives them further underground. When they hide themselves in the depths of the Internet, surely they’ll become harder to find, observe, and infiltrate for government forces too?

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