I chose Eritrea purely at random based on it not having many extradition treaties (so imagine any other country too like say Madagascar). Much debate goes on around the big social media platforms (but include to TikTok, Telegram, and many others) and we align ourselves with our own country’s culture and norms especially when it comes to who is a terrorist, rights to absolute freedom of speech, any form of censorship, what’s fair in a political advert.
Just assume that all the above are fully allowed with no-holds barred according to Eritrea (do NOT debate the merits of the items as I said those differ) how would countries like the USA, China, South Africa, Pakistan, Russia, etc manage this for their citizens? Obviously if they are 100% aligned with Eritrea’s stance then no problem. If they were not, say around "who is a terrorist" do they censor those sites, do they block them, or do they decide freedom of speech overrides all and just let it all through?
We often argue around the US standpoint because some of the biggest social media platforms are based in the US. But imagine say Facebook was in Eritrea (or moved there tomorrow) and political adverts were placed on that platform but the platform is outside our country – it does change the debate somewhat as you can’t apply home rules to manage the platform itself. If we cannot regulate the content creation the debate moves to allowing or censoring the consumption. This has in fact already started in quite a few countries including even Australia.
Fact is the world is becoming more global and 194 countries are outside the country where a social platform exists. We have 7.8 billion people on Earth and China and India have substantially more people than any other country. The next five most populous nations – the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria – together have fewer people than India on its own.
We are 195 very different countries which are getting very inter-communicated and our trade and industries also affect each other… it is time we started thinking more globally.
#socialmedia #rights #censorship
