Corporate Censorship Discussion
This discussion will also be worth 5 points. 5 points for writing a 2 page essay on the topic of corporate censorship (answering the five questions below) and 5 points writing a counterpoint to your peer reviewed person.
Start by stating what your position is on the following topics:
1) What theory of truth are you using in your essay post (consensus, correspondence, coherence, deflationary, Marxist, Pragmatic)
2) What moral framework are you using in your essay (Natural Rights, Utilitarian, Deontology, etc.)
3) State your thesis in bold.
Back in the day, people would have conversations about important topics in public spaces such as town squares. The right to peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances are right there in the First Amendment alongside the more well-known rights to free speech, religion, and the press.
Nowadays, much of our conversations and petitions are done online, inside of spaces owned by corporations (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc.). There is no First Amendment right to free speech in these spaces, as the First Amendment only applies to the governments, not corporations. If YouTube wants to demonetize you because they don’t like your political beliefs, they are free to do so (and have done so). If Ebay wants to take down people selling *To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street* they can legally do so, as they believe it is against their “Offensive Materials” policy. There’s a variety of ways that you can respond to these facts. Let’s hear from you!
Question 1) Do you think the right to free speech should be extended into online spaces owned by private corporations? Why?
Question 2A) If you think it should, would this not infringe on a corporations right to free speech, that it has a right to say what it wants to say, and block who it wants to block?
Question 2B) If you think it should not, does this not eliminate First Amendment protections in practice, as most communications these days (especially in the era of Coronavirus) take place through privately owned channels, and not in public spaces any more? Respond.
Question 3) Who should control what can be said in these online spaces? The government? Corporations? Nobody? Everybody?
Question 4) Where should the balance of power lie? In other words, if the government thinks a corporation is being unfair to the ruling political party, should the corporation be forced to be more fair? Or not? Or sometimes? How should this be handled? Should viewpoint discrimination be allowed?
Question 5) Which person, committee or organization could be trusted to watch a web site to see is being politically neutral or balanced? Who will watch the watchers?
You must cite at least three references to back up your points. For each citation you are missing you will lose 1 point.
After the deadline, you will be issued another student’s essay to peer review. Make sure you do your work by the deadline or you will not be issued one and you will be a sad panda.
When you do your peer review, you must take a contrary position of the person you are responding to, even if you agree with them. Go through their references and see if they are in fact saying what the person said they said. Remember to be respectful and disagree in a positive manner. Online makes it a lot easier to be rude by accident. Use the hamburger model of disagreement – say something that you liked about their essay. Then say your point of disagreement (“I believe you may have used a Naturalistic Fallacy on line 7….”) and then finish with another positive statement. Five points for your response, or zero if it is disrespectful. You have a week after the original deadline to do your peer review.
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