This blog entry dives into how the internet as a medium has transformed freedom of expression through the contrasting lenses of tools utilized by social platforms and institutions like “content moderation”. In addition, I also provide a brief blurb on my view of a couple values that every internet user should keep in mind in the modern digital age.
The internet has has fundamentally reconfigured the way we view freedom of expression by one important quantifying factor: it has allowed for more far more and faster accessibility/reach in creating and sharing one’s thoughts and viewpoints than ever before in human history. This should ultimately be seen as beneficial, as more people being given the chance for their ideas to be amplified can assist in progression through a social, political, and cultural lens throughout the world. According to the World Economic Forum, over 60% of the global population has gained access to the internet by from the 1990s to 2023, with 1.5 billion people having gained access access to social media and online messaging platforms alone from 2020-2025 alone (UNESCO, 2026). Because of this sharp increase, there has been a legitimate concern that while the internet has a lot of positives in allowing for more freedom of expression, this medium could also be utilized by bad actors to inflict harm on people.
Content moderation seems to be a necessary, yet highly contentious approach in how to handle free expression in an online space. As the line between moderation and censorship can be easily blurred, this has had mixed reception in recent years. While platforms and institutions have certainly made efforts to moderate user content posted online, a lot of the data results found in transparency reports focus on quantitative metrics over qualitative, and fails to get to the heart of aggressive moderation and takedowns in how it’s addressing many of these socialized issues at play. A common example of this is found in Google’s $60 million Content ID system, which if you have spent time using any of Google’ services, such as YouTube, you would quickly understand how inefficient and faulty this content moderation system. While moderating content involving copyright should be relatively straightforward, as most of these laws are consistent around the globe, other examples of policies and platform tools that blur the lines from content moderation to censorship include Facebook’s political advertising ID system, which has been reported in failing to distinguish between political and business advertisement, having mistakenly blocking said business advertisements from appearing on their platform. In addition to this, there’s been reports of Facebook accidentally blocking newspapers’ political reporting, which consequently can play a role in affecting the democratic process in many countries (Feld, 2018). These examples cited make it clear that in this new online era where individuals’ freedom of expression is far more accessible and has a larger reach, there needs to be more solutions rather than simple deletion tactics put into place by these companies and institutions in order to ensure their platform and the internet as a whole remains safe, while still being a beacon of freedom of expression protections. Just like any new technology that’s emerged involving electronic mass communication, it’s always been necessary to reimagine how we address and hold criminals and those acting with the intent to harm others accountable with the advent of the new medium.
I do believe that a ranking involving the values and rights of the digital age is important to consider in-context, however, I do not think it is entirely necessary or warranted in an absolute, hierarchical “checklist” sense. The first value we need to ensure is kept is to ensure physical safety and human dignity is met in online spaces. This value should be at the forefront as without it, these digital age rights would lose all of its meaning. Keeping spaces devoid of violences, threats of violence and dehumanization is something that has been legally protected and upheld in any civilized society, which naturally translates and indicates these protections should be upheld in a virtual, online medium as well. I think it is important for one to consider freedom of expression as a value in a modern digital landscape when posting online content because of just how much more amplified our voice can become in a digital medium and our freedom of expression can be much more influential by allowing for a greater reach. By keeping this value in mind, it also serves as a reminder for the social obligation and responsibility we all have as to what we contribute online and ensure we are utilizing this freedom of expression wisely with the first value involving safety in mind. By possessing a ranking and consideration of these values, it allows us to navigate conflicts posted online and gives us appropriate context in how to best deal with them, interpersonally and systemically.