Citizens 137
election
48
: exposed to a level of scrutiny within a wider public sphere
which he was not used to, Jones’ particular brand of fake news “entertainment” attracted increasing levels of hostility.
This extended case study does not in any way reflect on the status
of that site as an exemplar of so-called citizen journalism. Rather, it
demonstrates how notions of “citizen journalism” were frequently hijacked by an “alt-journalism” brigade with Infowars being perhaps the
highest-profile site disseminating fake news across digital channels. As
such, it posed a particular problem for social media companies that
sought to present themselves as proponents of free speech but which
were also being held increasingly responsible for the spread of disinformation. More acutely, the banning of Infowars threw into sharp relief
the power of big tech companies to direct and even dominate the flow
of information within various public spheres. After a half-decade of attempting to evade being labelled as media companies (with the threat of
regulation that would attend such a classification), the reconfiguration
of media power from production to distribution that was the subject of
Chapter 2 came into full force with the effective censoring of Alex Jones
and related accounts.
One of the most pertinent analyses was provided by David Greene,
the civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
writing in The Washington Post shortly after action was taken against
Infowars, he commented on the millions of posts removed and thousands
of accounts closed by the digital duopoly in particular but also other big
tech players. Such closures took place in a wide variety of countries and
across very different types of accounts – black and Muslim activists,
atheists in religious countries, and women posting images of breast feeding as well as right-wing conspiracy theorists. Remarking that
we should be extremely careful before rushing to embrace an Internet that is moderated by a few private companies by default, one
where the platforms that control so much public discourse routinely
remove posts and deactivate accounts because of objections to the
content.
Greene observed that content moderation placed too much power in
the hand of a few tech giants to determine what would and would not
be available in the public sphere.
49
Referring back to the EFF’s Santa
Clara Principles that had been proposed in February 2018,
50
Greene
argued that signing up to such a voluntary framework would offer at
least transparency with regard to moderation; companies would report
on the numbers of posts and accounts they moderated, by providing notice to those determined to be violating community rules, and to allow
a meaningful appeal system against such closures. In some respects, the
big tech companies were experiencing a greater degree of scrutiny in
election
48
: exposed to a level of scrutiny within a wider public sphere
which he was not used to, Jones’ particular brand of fake news “entertainment” attracted increasing levels of hostility.
This extended case study does not in any way reflect on the status
of that site as an exemplar of so-called citizen journalism. Rather, it
demonstrates how notions of “citizen journalism” were frequently hijacked by an “alt-journalism” brigade with Infowars being perhaps the
highest-profile site disseminating fake news across digital channels. As
such, it posed a particular problem for social media companies that
sought to present themselves as proponents of free speech but which
were also being held increasingly responsible for the spread of disinformation. More acutely, the banning of Infowars threw into sharp relief
the power of big tech companies to direct and even dominate the flow
of information within various public spheres. After a half-decade of attempting to evade being labelled as media companies (with the threat of
regulation that would attend such a classification), the reconfiguration
of media power from production to distribution that was the subject of
Chapter 2 came into full force with the effective censoring of Alex Jones
and related accounts.
One of the most pertinent analyses was provided by David Greene,
the civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
writing in The Washington Post shortly after action was taken against
Infowars, he commented on the millions of posts removed and thousands
of accounts closed by the digital duopoly in particular but also other big
tech players. Such closures took place in a wide variety of countries and
across very different types of accounts – black and Muslim activists,
atheists in religious countries, and women posting images of breast feeding as well as right-wing conspiracy theorists. Remarking that
we should be extremely careful before rushing to embrace an Internet that is moderated by a few private companies by default, one
where the platforms that control so much public discourse routinely
remove posts and deactivate accounts because of objections to the
content.
Greene observed that content moderation placed too much power in
the hand of a few tech giants to determine what would and would not
be available in the public sphere.
49
Referring back to the EFF’s Santa
Clara Principles that had been proposed in February 2018,
50
Greene
argued that signing up to such a voluntary framework would offer at
least transparency with regard to moderation; companies would report
on the numbers of posts and accounts they moderated, by providing notice to those determined to be violating community rules, and to allow
a meaningful appeal system against such closures. In some respects, the
big tech companies were experiencing a greater degree of scrutiny in