Facebook and the First Amendment - A Discussion

You've undoubtedly seen the headlines that bring back middle school social studies lessons. The Facebook Papers? While the Federalist Papers (https://rly.pt/FederalistPapers) helped establish the United States as a country independent from outside rule, the Facebook Papers (https://rly.pt/FacebookPapers) shed light on how far we’ve come from our Founding Fathers’ fight. Hundreds of pages written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison ultimately convinced the masses that ratifying the US Constitution (https://rly.pt/Constitution) was the only way to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The Facebook Papers address how the media monolith promotes injustice, disrupts tranquility, enables offense, and detracts from the general welfare of our great nation. Thousands upon thousands of internal documents seem to suggest that Facebook is responsible for a great deal of harm.

Exactly what kind of harm are we talking about? Here are four key issues being raised from the digestion of the Facebook Papers by 17 news organizations:

1. Promoting Injustice: https://rly.pt/30lSxE8
“Stop the Steal,” QAnon and Three Percenters, to name a few, have a platform in which to organize and spread messages of hate and misinformation. Facebook, according to the papers, knew about the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol as it was happening but did nothing to stop the attack on our government.

2. Disrupting Tranquility: https://rly.pt/3Dh2EZG
Civil War is pretty much the antithesis to tranquility and yet Facebook is playing a major role in the violence erupting in Africa, namely Ethiopia. Citing the platform’s inability to support local languages, the Papers address increasing violence in developing countries that goes hand-in-hand with increased use of social media.

3. Enabling Offense: https://rly.pt/3qCgimD
Defending VIPs and giving almost six million users the ability to sidestep content sanctions, Facebook misled its oversight board which ultimately allowed troves of offensive content to be disseminated across it’s platform.

4. Detracting from the General Welfare: https://rly.pt/3c9hGEM
Over half of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases last year occurred on Facebook. This information isn’t new. Apple threatened to pull Facebook’s products from it’s app store in 2018 due to human trafficking concerns.

The Facebook Papers bring some ugly truths to the forefront with regard to human behavior. I’m not interested in your thoughts on the Facebook Papers, but rather how 21st century technology factors into the laws and ideals that serve as the backbone of our great nation. The Federalists succeeded in their efforts to establish a government like none seen before it in history. However, opposition was fierce and thus was born the Bill of Rights. The compromise allowed anti-Federalists to limit the power of the government. The very first Amendment protects the right to free speech. https://rly.pt/FreedomOfSpeech

Hamilton and Madison did not have the internet in mind when defending the constitution or amending the document. We no longer live in a world where one’s voice is only heard by those within shouting distance. Your right to free speech ends when it infringes upon another’s basic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Should the government hold Facebook accountable for harmful speech disseminated on its platform? If the technology grew faster than Facebook’s ability to control it, should it be shut down until effective safety measures are put in place? I encourage you to share your thoughts by respecting your right to free speech and using it kindly, thoughtfully and responsibly.