Personal Media Restrictions on Freedom of Speech: A Social Contract Theory Behind It

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Law, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Malaysia

2 Faculty of Law, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

3 Al-Mustaqbal University College, Iraq

Abstract

In the burst of sophisticated platforms, it reached its peak where people worship and preach their rights of freedom of speech.  We witnessed a subsequent arose issue where people questioned the imposed restrictions on them in the realm of social media platforms by the authority. Nonetheless, the merely conferred freedom of speech will bring public disharmony. It was because people are exposed to and choose to be permeated by personal media applications. Thus, via the platforms, people are inclined to voice, issue and navigate their statements based on feelings, thoughts, and opinions without contemplating the effects and rationale of it. Normally, the statement is controversial while dripping at the edge of the sensitive topic while creating social disharmony and triggering social bonding. Thus, principle of Social Contract was brought in order to justify the restrictions imposed by the authority. At the same time, people used Social Contract as a defense to uphold their rights. Nevertheless, it may lead to numerous problems with the absence of restrictions. Besides, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and etc. were the examples of personal media platforms the writer referred to. Thus, the thrust of the paper is to examine to what extent the government may impose restrictions on their citizens via personal media platforms in relation to Social Contracts and the right of freedom of speech. Thus, the writers will conduct the paper through a qualitative approach which is a pure literature review. The gist of limitation is where the personal media platform would be focused, and restrictions referred to which were imposed by the governmental authorities instead of the personal media administrator. The The paper suggests that, notwithstanding the conventional Social Contract theory, the writers argued that the restrictions shall be imposed on personal media users.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Geopolitics Quarterly
Volume 19, Special Issue
July 2023
Pages 119-144

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  • Receive Date: 20 April 2023
  • Accept Date: 17 June 2023

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