The recent hack of prominent Twitter accounts resulted in a temporary muting of all verified users on the social network. The action once again reveals the potentially totalitarian levers of speech control wielded by Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple, and other major players within the world of social media and cellular communications in general. Everyone might know that a mute button exists—it has most recently been used in discrete cases of misinformation—but to see it in operation on such a massive scale raises questions about how it might be used in the future, as well as how regulation might someday become necessary to protect individuals from it being used for purposes other than emergency response.

While its use in this discrete instance was absolutely warranted, the demonstration of force provides evidence of capabilities that ought to provoke citizens to take a moment to think. Twitter was able to temporarily identify and completely silence a class of users. Additionally, Google was able to temporarily complicate access to one of the key prior means of accessing those users’ content by manually changing Search results, all within a matter of hours. The capabilities are clear but what does this mean to citizens within a democratic free society?

Related: Twitter Unverified Uprising: Funniest Reactions To Verified Tweet Silence

The capabilities are a double-edged sword. Equally as much as they have proved to be efficient, albeit imperfect, tools in suppressing illegal activity and responding to emergencies such as this recent Bitcoin hack, they have also enabled censorship within authoritarian regimes. As we continue to become more reliant upon and integrated with digital technologies, these capabilities as well as the relatively lax constraints on their use should give citizens, especially those currently living within liberal societies, very serious pause. This is an especially important consideration at a time when a large percentage of the population has expressed a desire to actually suppress the speech of others in more extreme ways than currently available through the law. Who will determine who has the right to speak—how, when, and where?—private actors in boardrooms, citizens and their elected representatives, judges? Additionally, what precedents are we setting now for a future in which our integration with technology goes beyond handheld and wearable devices?

Is Responsibility Or Regulation The Answer?

Beyond the hack response, social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have been tackling difficult challenges related to the regulation of misinformation, political campaigning, and hate speech on their platforms. Additionally, pressure from social movements has been applied with the goal of increasing restrictions on speech, a demand that has been producing concrete outcomes within companies’ policies. Many of these changes are to be applauded, however, there is also the potential for the companies to go too far in silencing the speech of even the most infantile and misguided of their users. Companies, as well as movement organizers and participants, ought to move forward with principled and historically informed distinctions of where to draw the line.

With regard to the capabilities displayed during the most recent hack response, their existence is paramount to providing security to users as well as the wider public. However, their potential to be applied beyond the demands of the extant legal system, especially given recent demands for companies to do so, should give us all pause. Restraint in use, as well as a consistent and demonstrated commitment to freedom of speech, will be key to keeping the issue within the hands of corporate leaders rather than within democratic legislative bodies or judicial arenas. That said, regardless of whether firms are currently behaving responsibly, is it responsible on the part of citizens to refrain from preemptively operating through political institutions to shape the future of speech regulation within a digitally integrated world?

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