Who Will Set the Boundaries of Free Speech on Social Media?
During the days when Instagram was temporarily shut down in Turkey, important global events and discussions surrounding social media were also unfolding around the world. What is the limit to freedom of expression on social media? Will it be the states or the social media companies that set these limits? Who is responsible? The questions we often ask ourselves in Turkey, frequently likened to a “dialogue of the deaf,” are being asked globally. Let’s look at the events that have prompted us to revisit these questions this month.
Our first protagonist, of course, is Elon Musk. In July, as protests targeting Muslim immigrants erupted in the UK, law enforcement began monitoring social media posts that incited violence. When reports emerged of some users being detained, Musk tweeted, “The UK has turned into Soviet Russia.” He didn’t stop there — after rebranding Twitter as “X” and promoting his idea of “absolute free speech,” Musk posted dozens of tweets mocking British authorities. Interestingly, the response didn’t come from the UK but from Thierry Breton, a member of the European Commission. In an official letter posted on Twitter, Breton warned Musk: “If you continue like this, we can shut down Twitter under the Digital Services Act.” The verbal sparring between the two continues.
The second bombshell came from Facebook’s owner, Mark Zuckerberg. In his testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration had made informal requests to remove some social media posts critical of vaccines and lockdowns. He also regretted taking down news related to inappropriate content found on President Biden’s son’s laptop ahead of the 2020 elections. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk voiced his support for Zuckerberg on social media. This comes after both Twitter and Facebook reinstated Donald Trump’s accounts earlier this year, as his chances of winning the presidency rose. The accounts had been suspended after the Capitol riot in 2021. It remains to be seen what these platforms will do if Trump doesn’t win the election.
The third and biggest piece of news came from Paris on August 25. Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in Paris after flying in from Baku on his private jet. Let’s first get to know Durov a little. Durov had previously founded VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook. Due to cultural reasons and the alphabet difference, alternative social networks thrive in Russia. VKontakte grew rapidly, and by 2020, when Turkey revised its social media laws, it was revealed that VKontakte had over a million users in Turkey alone (how many of those were Russian or Turkish, and what the Turkish users were doing there, remains unclear!). When Putin seized control of VKontakte in 2014, Durov relocated to Dubai and founded Telegram. He is now a citizen of both the United Arab Emirates and France.
If VKontakte is Russia’s Facebook, Telegram is the underworld’s WhatsApp. It’s a similar messaging app. For some reason, many people believe that Telegram messages are encrypted and private. However, unless you go out of your way to open a secret chat, Telegram messages are not encrypted and are stored on central servers. In contrast, WhatsApp and Signal messages are end-to-end encrypted. Because of its weaker encryption, Telegram is technically more suited for forming large groups and broadcasting messages, sometimes even conducting transactions. Of course, the records of these messages are stored by Telegram.
The French government claims that “large child pornography networks operate on Telegram. The group conversations that provide evidence of their activities are archived on Telegram’s servers, but Pavel Durov refuses to hand over this evidence. So, we’ve arrested him.” There are also those who speculate that Durov, after failing to strike a deal with Putin during his recent trip to Baku, wanted to be “arrested” to seek protection from the French. The truth remains uncertain. Still, it’s worth noting that the court released Durov on the condition that he report to the police once a week.
If France’s claims are serious, we’re facing a significant dilemma regarding the boundaries of free speech. If discussions that facilitate or constitute criminal activity are handed over to the authorities for judicial proceedings, where do we draw the line? After all, what one state considers a crime may vary greatly from another. In France, child pornography is illegal, while in 20 of India’s 28 states, cattle slaughter is banned. Will these states be granted access to evidence as they see fit? If Telegram is to choose between states, how will it make that choice? Aren’t all nation-states supposed to be equal?
As you can see, there are no clear answers to these questions. We’ll have to wait and see how the struggle between nation-states and tech giants evolves. Turkey will continue to be one of the battlegrounds in this conflict.
This article is a translated version of “Sosyal medyada ifade hürriyetinin sınırını kim çizecek?” which was initially published in Economic Daily (Nasıl Bir Ekonomi Gazetesi) on August 30, 2024.
