Can Free Speech Help Us Beat the Coronavirus?

“We must remind those like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Susan Wojcicki that they should not silence ideas from the get-go because they fear that people are incapable of evaluating information for themselves.”

Since its founding in the early 1980’s, the Internet has largely been an open and interactive environment, where users could freely express their views and opinions. Not surprisingly, the virtual world was considered to be a refuge of liberty, a land of freedom. However, as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads rapidly throughout the world, Silicon Valley technology companies have been moving towards taking tighter control over what types of content can be readily accessed online. Using a version of the longstanding argument that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, technology companies have pushed forward constraints on speech under the guise of tackling “misinformation.”

Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and YouTube issued a joint statement on March 16th and updated their guidelines, writing that “ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency, we’ve been working to connect people to accurate information and taking aggressive steps to stop misinformation and harmful content from spreading. […] We remove COVID-19 related misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm.”

Yet, the question remains: Is this a good idea? Will these restrictions on speech help curb the spread of the pandemic? Despite their intentions, these types of controls on free expression routinely generate more harm than good.

The Thin Line Between Right and Wrong

There’s often a gray area between information and misinformation. For instance, Facebook blocked videos of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro endorsing hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment. Yet, at around the same time, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mastercard were investing $9.2 million in hydroxychloroquine clinical trials.