Freedom of Speech in a Digital World
The Digital Public Sphere allows citizens from all over their country, and other parts of the world to engage in a sector of free conversation and debate. It’s a place where people can easily discuss issues and voice their opinions. I believe that the Digital Public Sphere creates an increase of citizen awareness to issues and encourages people to act on their actions. I think that social networks and mediums create a public sphere that is easily visible and influential to people who view the discussions, issues and events within the sphere. People who browse through the Digital Public Spheres created by networks such as Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. see their own voices being spread through other people. It is very common that there will be people who share your values, hobbies, interests and opinions and these people can easily be connected with through the digital world. It is also true that people are influenced heavily by what others are saying and doing on social media. One instance of this is occurring right now in the digital realm, and that is the issue of registering and voting in the 2020 Presidential Election. If you are indeed a person who is a frequent, or at all, user of these social networks, there is a high likeliness that you have seen your friends and people you follow posting about how important it is to vote in the upcoming election. Seeing posts from people who have influence will do just that, they will influence the public to believe and practice their ideals. The Digital Public sphere has the ability to up the step from vicarious living to imitation of others and their beliefs, which in turn leads to a sway in your own beliefs.
One of the largest networks responsible for taking part in the creation of a modern Digital Public Sphere is Reddit. Reddit is social news platform that allows anonymous users to create sub-Reddit pages in which themselves and other users are able to engage in discussions, share posts and news, post links, memes, pictures, videos and so on. Sub-Reddit’s are created by users who want to start conversations and awareness of a certain topic. One important aspect to consider is that these pages are not guided or created by official Reddit employees or monitors, but rather by any users who feels the desire to create a page. If you and I wanted to, we could create a Reddit account right now and make a sub-Reddit page about ourselves, or cheese, or football cleats or whatever else your mind can think of. Then we can proceed to run it, share it and hope people post and discuss about the topic within. Although this is a great way to increase the power of the Digital Public Sphere and encourage freedom of speech, there has to be some guidelines created for the protection of the Reddit company and for its users. The first major case that the Reddit team stepped up to engage in was a sub-Reddit page based on pornography that resembled child porn. Technically speaking, this wasn’t illegal. However, in a more literal sense this page had violated unwritten rules and morals that are looked upon to protect users from overly explicit content. Although Reddit is a strong part in the increasing of a Digital Public Sphere, there are some safety guidelines that do need to be implemented from time to time in order to keep all of its user’s safe. So, I encourage you, if there’s a hobby of yours, go create or find a sub-Reddit page! Someone’s bound to be talking about it.
