By Manuel Mejido
When the internet began to be used in a massive way, back in the 90s, a world was idealized where freedom of expression would be guaranteed. However, copyright was the first guarantee to be disrupted.
In those days, the music industry (then one of the most powerful) was the first to be affected because netizens began to share millions of song files and complete albums from person to person.
The theft from the publishing sector followed, where the culture of “copy-paste” became a form of “intellectuality”, but in reality it is the theft of ideas and research that took years of creation and, in many cases, thousands of dollars to develop it.
Later, cyberspace expanded its offer to users until the arrival of social networks, through various names and different services, all with the same purpose: to unite its subscribers.
No one ever imagined the impact that some networks would have, such as Facebook, the first to be truly massive and that disrupted people’s lives, to the point of causing lawsuits between families and friends.
Without a doubt, Twitter became the mother of all networks, because, first, it disseminates short ideas, powerful images and the most controversial content, while allowing interaction. It also became an important disseminator of official communications and the spread of fake news.
Furthermore, “the little bird” managed to unite millions of nonconformists in that Arab Spring that overthrew dictators who seemed untouchable; The same thing brought together Spaniards at Puerta del Sol, which “occupies Wall Street” in New York.
It was then that the alerts were turned on to control this medium that united the different ones, the extreme right demanded his disappearance and the most radical left defended total freedom of expression. Both parties forgot that Twitter, despite everything, is an American company that seeks to enrich itself and control its consumers.
LOCO vs DICTADOR: TRUMP vs ZUCKERBERG
Citizens of almost all the world consider that the public is free, like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Nothing is more false than such an assertion, because although it is correct to affirm that it costs nothing to open an account, it is also correct to understand that its owners can set the rules that they see fit.
And they showed it a couple of weeks ago, when the madman of then President Donald Trump called for an insurrection against the Democrat and his successor, Joe Biden, which involved the death of at least five people.
Just on the day of the taking of the US Capitol, social networks went crazy, some users supporting the insurrection and others rejecting the violence and, without a doubt, what caused the most questions was that, unilaterally, the directors of Twitter closed the account of former President Trump, who exhibited his most recalcitrant far-right side.
The next day, during the morning conference, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, came out in defense not of Trump but of the right to express himself freely and that no company, neither the United States nor anywhere, could establish its criteria unilaterally.
Those anti-lopezobradorista immediately criticized the Tabasco politician arguing that his desire was really to defend the unhinged Trump, when in reality the President only reiterated his defense of a fundamental human right: freedom of expression.
This matter has been the subject of debate for many years, without the constitutional experts, journalists, researchers or any of the parties involved having been able to agree to this date.
WHAT SHOULD OR NOT BE ALLOWED
On the one hand, each citizen has the freedom to open an account or as many as he wants, in any social network and whose content he publishes no longer belongs exclusively to him and can be used, replicated or reproduced by almost anyone. In this regard, the networks are “public”, they cease to be when there is a company that is behind it and that must take care of its income through the advertising that includes when the netizen uses this or that platform.
Regarding the content, each country should establish for the companies that administer them a series of conditions and matters that cannot be published, such as the call to insurrection, to commit murder, trafficking in persons or any of those that are understood, such as and as it happens with the mass media.
Against this background, Twitter adhered to US laws and blocked Trump’s account at the time of calling to occupy the Capitol and prevent Biden from protesting.
The criticism is that Mark Zuckerberg’s platform had to report the content of Trump’s account to the US authorities to proceed accordingly, not block the account of the crazy user unilaterally, because then the censorship could occur in any country where it is allowed. the social network.
In another matter related to the reservation of information, there are those who demand that the clinical report of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador be public, after last week he confirmed that he tested positive for covid 19.
In this case, it must be a matter of national security because any rumor or misinterpretation puts the economic, political and social situation of the entire country at risk. And it is not because it is AMLO, but who is in charge of the government.
It is important to establish what information is public and what is private, the same does not matter if it is a social network than a clinical report. Laws must define the limits of each one.
And until next week, in this same space.
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