https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14293/facebook-government-censorship
As indicated by the US in its statement, the problem with these government-led drives for more censorship in the name of fighting “terrorist and violent extremist content online” is where one draws the line as to what constitutes “hate speech”, and the extent to which such drives can manage to uphold the rights of citizens to free speech.
In Europe, hate-speech laws have increasingly been used to shut down the speech of citizens who disagree with government migration policies.
The claim of preventing the spread of terrorist content has also been used as an excuse in attempts to shut down political opponents….
At the same time, the different signatories to the Christchurch Call to Action appear to have different views on what constitutes terrorism in the first place, further complicating how one should define ‘terrorist content’.
It is often argued that Facebook is a private enterprise and therefore free to censor whatever it wishes.
However, Facebook and the other internet giants, such as Google, YouTube (a subsidiary of Google), and Twitter, have come to control the flow of information on the internet, to such a degree – as virtual monopolies — that they have become the ‘public square’ of our times. That outcome makes them far more than merely private enterprises and endows them with a special responsibility: Those who cannot publish on Facebook or Twitter, effectively no longer have full freedom of speech.
Governments have always known that free speech can be controlled on social media — there is no internet freedom in countries such as China or Russia. For years, however, Western governments have also been controlling the conduct of free speech on the internet – in the name of fighting supposed ‘hate speech’. Controlling free speech has taken the form of ‘cooperating’ with the internet giants — Facebook, Google, Twitter and You Tube — on voluntary initiatives such as the EU “Code of Conduct on countering illegal online hate speech online”, which requires social media giants to act as censors on behalf of the European Union and to remove within 24 hours content that is regarded as “illegal hate speech”.