We’ve all been told that we have the right to free speech and the right to express our own opinion on whatever issue, but at what point do you draw the line on what you say? And when should external parties, like the company you work for or the school you go to, step in if the ideas expressed aren’t necessarily accepted by society?
Corporate censorship has taken on media with the increase of the so-called “cancelled culture,” where people on the internet expose celebrities for doing or saying certain things that come across as offensive and disgusting. Corporate censorship is basically a serious version of “cancelled culture,” because it involves the people and companies that these people either work for or with.
Two things have been questioned by the general public about corporate censorship: whether it’s wrong to oppose someone’s opinion on something and whether it’s an obligation for big companies and people to do this. My answer is that corporate censorship in general should be done with honest intentions.
Many times, we see people, most commonly famous celebrities, getting the consequences for their actions as a result of a larger, more important party finding out about their behaviour and not so much because of the behaviour that they presented.
A popular example would be of the reboot and cancellation of the hit show, Roseanne. Before talks of her return to acting were made, Roseanne Barr was caught in a string of controversies, including her infamous Hitler photoshoot (despite growing up in a Jewish household) and her support for U.S. President Donald Trump.
Though she had a bad reputation, the TV network, ABC, still chose to reboot the show for the sake of nostalgia. Though Barr tweeted about a conspiracy theory that David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, did a Nazi salute at a March for Our Lives rally the week that her show came back on TV, ABC was focused more on the fact that the first episode brought in 27.2 million viewers.
Roseanne Barr (pictured) was fired and her rebooted show cancelled after she sent a tweet largely hailed as racist. (Photo by Stand-Up Sucks, LLC)
Two months after the reboot, Barr sent a tweet reading, “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” “VJ” is a reference to Valerie Jarrett, a Senior Advisor to former U.S. president Barack Obama of Iranian descent. As a result of the tweet seen by her millions of followers and, later on, the executive producers of the show, the next season of Roseanne was cancelled and all of the aired episodes had been removed from ABC.
What’s funny about this whole situation is that Barr’s behaviour on Twitter has in fact been a major concern for the executive producers prior to the reboot, due to her support to conspiracy theories. Yet they still didn’t think that it was much of a problem considering today’s political environment. To make matters worse, the tweet was later deleted by Barr herself, meaning that Twitter, the social media domain, didn’t interfere with her expression of racism, just like how they haven’t with other right-wing people who use the platform.
In all honesty, it was a good thing that Barr faced the consequences of her disrespectful opinions. It showed fellow people like her that karma will kick you no matter how hard you try to block it. What wasn’t good about this situation was that ABC only called out her behaviour once it started affecting their business, and not the moment a reboot was suggested in the network.
What truly disappointed me from this was that Twitter didn’t attempt to take down the tweet in respect to its “freedom of speech” policies. At the end of the day, Twitter can’t exile a specific person to not use their platform because it’s not their right to decide whether someone should use it or not. What they can do is make sure what’s being posted on the platform is safe, appropriate and not influencing the public in a problematic manner. But at what extent can Twitter continue to do something like this without making it look like that they’re silencing the person?
It’s impossible to draw the line on what comes out of our mouths, because there will always be people who are unwilling to move away from their stance, no matter how stupid they sound. I also believe that companies and parties should start checking in on the people under them for the sake of being genuinely concerned about their behaviour, because they really do represent the values and atmosphere of the enterprise as a whole.
By Keerthikah Jegatheesan
Please note that opinions expressed are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page
