Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1335208
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 JANUARY 2021 OPINION WHEN Facebook and Twitter suspend- ed then President Trump's account with them, questions were raised as to whether such action amounted to cen- sorship. Others claimed that what Facebook and Twitter had done is simply decide that Trump will not have a direct line through their platform to broadcast his ideas to millions of people at a time. They also argued that this is the kind of editorial decision taken regularly when it happens in television or print news. Comparisons are odious, and somehow, this one also smacks like an excuse. More so, since these compa- nies claim they are neutral arbiters who make no editorial interventions. It does seem that nowadays, social media companies are getting more in- volved as intermediaries in news and political coverage and the difference be- tween how they present themselves and how they actually function has become a sore point. There is no doubt that the Trump bans raised important questions about the role of Facebook and Twitter in shap- ing political discourse and information online. American technology industry con- sultant Lon Safko – author of 'The So- cial Media Bible' – insisted that social media platforms had overwhelmingly censored Trump and his administra- tion. According to him, "Any form of censorship, any form, is unacceptable. Social platforms such as Facebook, whose primary business is open com- munication between its over 2.7 bil- lion members, have a moral and legal responsibility to allow those conversa- tions to transpire, organically... And, if the viewer disagrees or is offended by that conversation, then it is their right to simply close the window and walk away." Since leaving office, Trump officially opened the 'Office of the Former Pres- ident' and used this 'entity' to get back onto Twitter in quite a roundabout way, although it didn't bring the expected response he would have liked. Of more than 60,000 tweets on the day this Twit- ter account was opened, few were sup- portive of the new office. Private conversations should remain uncensored, of course. Phone compa- nies, for example, do not have the ability to limit what people talk to one anoth- er on their networks. And they cannot decide to not let customers – that are of one political party or another – use their services. But inputs on social media are not pri- vate. In Malta, we have already had libel court cases on comments posted by in- dividuals on the social networks. But there is a subtle difference between these and libel cases about some writ- ten article in the newspapers. Every newspaper has a registered editor who checks the contents of whatever is printed and is therefore also responsi- ble at law for what is published in his paper. There is no such restraint in the case of the social media. Nobody checks posts for libel before they are 'published' on the social media. One can only sue the person making a statement but not the entity allowing that person to say his piece on its social platform. The problem is even more compli- cated because a substantial number of Facebook and Twitter users do not live in the US but in other parts of the world. Different countries have different laws and definitions on the 'same' is- sues. We speak of the illegality of racist comments, of hate speech, of seditious incitement, of justifying violence, and other illegalities. These issues are interpreted different- ly in different countries. And, the im- portance of the right for 'free speech' does not have the same clout in all the Constitutions of the world. There is, for example, not one defini- tion of 'racist comments' applicable to every country. We have seen this in in- cidents in football where matches were disrupted and players were suspended for comments that were considered racist by the powers that be, while oth- ers considered them innocuous; prob- ably as they would not have been con- sidered abusive or illegal in the social milieu that they come from. Some countries are taking drastic ac- tion. Turkey has enacted a law regulat- ing the public use of social platforms. The law obliges social media outlets to have representatives responsible for re- moving unlawful content and to block access to harmful content. In the UK, the 'Online Safety and Me- dia Regulation Bill' targets online sites – including posts on social media – that feature criminal content, cyber-bulling, and content likely to promote eating disorders, self-harm or suicide. So, do we legislate or let the owners of the social platforms do their own cen- soring according to their own parame- ters? How can we be sure that such de- cisions would, in fact, be taken because of commercial considerations rather than for ethical reasons and be free of political pressures? These are the unresolved problems ahead. Carnival holidays are sacred Last Wednesday, the PM suggested that it would be good for schools to consider not having the mid-term hol- idays now and instead postponing them to a later date so as to avoid spreading the COVID virus. Robert Abela was speaking at a press conference during which he announced some modifications to existing COVID restrictions. I was not surprised when I learnt that Malta's two unions representing teach- ers had immediately reacted negatively to the Prime Minister's suggestion. The MUT declared that after taking note of the government suggestion that schools remain open for mid-term hol- idays it categorically "does not agree with this suggestion and it is not ready to hold any discussions regarding the school calendar." The 'rival' teachers' union, the UPE – Union of Professional Educators – also declared that it opposed the post- ponement of carnival holidays from the agreed calendar. This union is still questioning what was agreed a few weeks ago between the MUT and the Government after the recent teacher's strike. Attempting to remove Carnival holi- days from the school calendar is a sore point for the MUT – even though these holidays are now being termed 'mid- term holidays'. In fact, the UPE de- scribed them as what they really are. For teachers' unions, it seems that car- nival holidays are sacred. Some old-tim- ers might recall that when Malta was still a British colony, in 1952, the MUT had adamantly refused to renounce the carnival holidays when Carnival was postponed in view of the death of King George VI on February 6. An industrial dispute ensued. That was some 70 years ago. For the MUT, carnival holidays are definitely sacred. Reining in social media abuses Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com