[Censored]: No Free Speech Without Data Privacy and Ownership

With today’s rapid tech advancements, tech ethics and enforceable laws are urgently needed.

When your free speech generates profits for Big Tech and is key to centralized powers maintaining control, free expression is not so free, and private data is not so private.

Freedom, Meet Surveillance…and the Shadow Ban.

The U.S prides itself on many things, such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which grant us certain unalienable rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

And nothing gets more patriotic than sharing your opinion online about anything and everything all the time. That’s a lot of fact, fiction, fib, and everything in between, soaring past our fingertips at the speed of sight.

History has long shown us that the powers that control the flow of information control the course of humanity.

Shadow banned: The modern-day censorship

Welcome to the era of shadow banning — when your post is technically up, but functionally invisible. Social media companies implement shadow bans for different reasons, and because their policies can be vague, you’re not wrong to wonder:

Are company policies tools of targeted content suppression and censorship?

One study, conducted by the Center for Democracy and Technology, showed:

The platforms where the most users believed they were shadowbanned were: Facebook (8.1%) Twitter (4.1%) Instagram (3.8%) TikTok (3.2%).

In addition to this survey of disgruntled users, Twitter/X has faced whistleblower allegations about undeleting users’ tweets and in 2021, Twitter’s own internal research revealed algorithmic bias toward right-wing politicians. It’s not just Twitter — TikTok has been accused of suppressing videos from users with disabilities or LGBTQ+ tags under vague “content moderation” policies.

So remember, you might have the right to free speech, but centralized powers still largely control the platforms where you exercise that right. Dissent at your own risk, especially when you’re playing in Big Tech’s backyard.

The right to share your ideas and content is just as important as the right to privacy of personal information and communication. Unfortunately, not all institutions respect this balance — And even if they try to, it’s a slippery slope.

Former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, spoke to this exact ethical challenge after permanently banning President Trump following the January 6 capitol riot:

“A ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation […]. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power of an individual or corporation has over part of the global public conversation.”

Censorship is just one tool of maintaining control in the broader surveillance state. Read our blog to understand the role and history of surveillance throughout history.

Surveillance Solutions: The price of storing data

Many cloud services, while providing you with the convenience of data storage, often include clauses in their Terms of Service that allow them to analyze your content for various purposes. The same idea applies to popular apps like Instagram, which request access to the user’s entire photo library to curate a feed based on analyzing the user’s photo library’s metadata.

You can opt out, by the way, visit the link to learn how.

In the age of companies surveilling your private data in exchange for the opportunity to participate in the digital world, it can feel like selling your birthright for a bowl of soup.

Is Big Brother watching? They never stopped.

Let’s dive deeper into the U.S. government’s requests for users’ private data.

Via a warrant or subpoena, companies are often forced to hand over people’s private user data.

Part of Google’s transparency report shows a significant increase in these government requests over the last decade — numbering in the tens of thousands per year.

In fact, probable cause is no longer required for authorities to request your location data from Google as part of reverse search warrants or geo-fence warrants. Simply be in the vicinity of a crime when it happened, and authorities can pull your location data from Google.

Later in 2021, a U.S. appeals court ruled that United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can freely search your devices without a warrant at the borders. Unless you’re flying in or out of New York, go Big Apple!

We may think that we have the right to privacy, but how can we conceive of true privacy when so many entities access our information to use against us?

Remember that surveillance always has one purpose: control. Whatever you say can and will be used against you to the benefit of centralized power.

The urgency of data ownership has never been greater. At Sia, we believe that true freedom of speech requires data privacy and ownership. Centralized powers like Big Tech will never willingly relinquish their control so long as our data and our voices continue to turn profits and reinforce their power.

Therefore, the power lies with you to demand an entirely new system altogether. Demand true privacy and ownership over your data.

Follow Sia on Bluesky, X, Instagram, and TikTok to learn more about data privacy and how to own your data.

Thank you to Sabrina Dorfman for her support on this article.

[Censored]: No Free Speech Without Data Privacy and Ownership was originally published in The Sia Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.