The Polish Strategy Against ‘Big Tech’ Censorship

In response to the Polish ruling party’s experiences with censorship on social media platforms, the government has proposed a bill which would make it unlawful for social media platforms to remove posts which do not break the nation's laws. 

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced on December 17th that the Polish Government was preparing a bill which aims to protect freedom of speech online, stating:

“It’s not uncommon that representatives of various groups operating in Poland fall victim to ideological censorship when seeing their content removed or blocked from the internet.”

The bill followed some social media companies, such as Facebook, taking action to restrict the activity of some pages associated with the ruling Law and Justice Party. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated in a Facebook post:

“The censorship of freedom of speech, the domain of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is returning today in the form of a new, commercial mechanism fighting against those who think differently,”

Sebastian Kaleta, Poland’s Deputy Minister for Justice responsible in part for drafting the bill, told Breitbart London that he believed “neo-Marxists” have control of social media platforms. He stipulated that social media and mainstream media companies use “methods which are closer to those of Soviet Russia than social democracy”. He continued:

“The pressure from the far left has developed from soft political correctness into a much harsher phase, that of cancel culture… [it is] very worrying, and is more reminiscent of bolshevik standards than democratic ones.”

“The signals from the left are clear — if you do not agree with us and you criticise us, the ‘system’ we have created will not only get you fired, but it will also limit your access to certain services and products.”

The proposed bill would compel social media companies to provide users with the ability to submit complaints to the offending website if their content is interfered with. This aims to ensure the companies themselves are the first option in restoring the content. If the company does not restore the content within 48 hours, the Polish government will step in.

The bill proposes the creation of a ‘free-speech board’ which would allow Polish citizens to appeal the decisions to block, delete, or limit posts or accounts seen as problematic by Silicon Valley but do not break Polish law. If the board were to deem the suppressed content acceptable under Polish law, social media outlets could face fines of up to 50 million Polish złoty (£9.8m, $13.4m) for failing to restore deleted, blocked, or limited posts or accounts. 

The proposed legislation also introduces a mechanism known as a “blind lawsuit”. This new form of legal case is intended to protect the identity of an individual whose rights have been infringed by an anonymous individual online. All prospective defendants would need to provide details of the URL, date, time and username of the content in question to bring the case before the court.

The bill also seeks to improve enforcement of existing Polish law, providing Polish citizens with the ability to submit a complaint to social media sites if any content is suspected of being illegal - the site will then be given 48 hours to address this complaint. 

While Poland is currently leading the charge against online censorship in Europe, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has also expressed his intentions to follow Poland’s lead. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is reinforcing ‘hate speech’ legislation by proposing large fines for social media companies for failing to remove ‘hateful content’ in an “Online Harms Bill”, as detailed previously by Lotuseaters.com.