paper.md


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41

---
title: Freedom of speech in the internet age
author: Mohit Agarwal
date: September 2021
bibliography: ["reference.bib","socialmedia.bib"]
link-citations: true
csl: http://www.zotero.org/styles/apa
papersize: a4
nocite: '@*'
---
<!-- *y -->
<!-- Should we rethink the nature and limits of freedom of speech in
the internet age? -->

In modern society usage of the internet is clearly widespread and is
noticeably an incredibly significant in our world today and will
continue to be so [@stats;@stats-population;@stats-access]. The nature
of the internet raises many questions in relation to our
understanding of freedom of speech and allows the spread of
information in a way that was once impossible. The significance and
prevalence of the internet both now and in the foreseeable future,
particularly given its popularity with young people means that we must
consider the internet's relation to freedom of speech and how we
should, or rather shouldn't attempt to act on it.

A significant feature of internet communication methods is its
resistance to regulation to limit freedom of speech. Although some
popular sites have been known to restrict their users' communications
at some times to the cause of some alarm [@twitter-suspends;@merkel].
These platforms, however, must be considered for what they are:
popular, for-profit, private sites. Howevermuch we are invited to
consider them as communications that exist for the common good of
humanity, they are not. In this light, just as a newspaper may publish
the content of its choosing, a website may host and not host content
of its choosing as a private enterprise. For those who are not fond of
such measures, there are other platforms which do not moderate users'
content to such an extent such as the site 4chan, but they therby
naturally have content that others may find distasteful
[@4chan;@moot].

# References and bibliography