Freedom of Expression without fetters at Twitter

RUNNING HEAD: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITHOUT FETTERS AT TWITTER 1
Freedom of Expression without fetters at Twitter
Student Name
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RUNNING HEAD: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITHOUT FETTERS AT TWITTER 2
Freedom of Expression without fetters at Twitter
Introduction
The new media environment that exists today is highly dynamic and continues to evolve
in innovative and unpredictable ways, which reflects serious repercussions in relation to
upholding democracy and political governance. New media have dramatically changed the ways
in which various government institutions across the globe operate, the ways in which political
leaders communicate with the world and the myriad ways in which citizen engagement takes
place. The new forms of communication have developed very rapidly, specifically during the last
three decades, and continue to evolve in innovative ways which are often unpredictable in nature.
New media have several wide-ranging implications for preservation of democracy and political
practices.
Digital spaces, particularly few of the popular social networking sites, have become all-
pervasive in nature and are also commanding a great deal of influence on the ways in which
democratic governance is happening around the world. With this backdrop, the current study
proposes to investigate the ways in which the new media realm of Saudi Arabia and its people
are making use of their fundamental right of freedom of expression through the social media
platform – Twitter, for propagating political news as well as also a lot of fake news.
Research Question

RUNNING HEAD: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITHOUT FETTERS AT TWITTER 3
1. Why has Twitter recently become an important source for the masses in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia to propagate political news and spread out fake news?
2. Is there a lack of reliability in the traditional media in the Gulf nations?
3. Is the no-fetter mechanism or system of Twitter allowing people to publish news without any
form of restriction, and even without any form of verification of the person posting such news.
Research Context
The popularity of Twitter as a global digital social media platform is indisputable.
According to some statistics dating to the year 2016, 79% of Twitter’s users reside outside of the
United States, with roughly about 310 million active users every month. This makes Twitter
record a billion unique monthly visits to various websites that are connected to the social media
platform, with content being made available in more than 40 different global languages. is
available in over 40 languages (Iqbal, 2019). There are countless number of notable studies on
political communication surrounding Twitter, with the focus being investigation of the use of
Twitter for election-related communication or campaigning. The current study would serve as an
addition to such research which already exists about people using Twitter for political
communication.
Literature Review
Social media platform is one that is accessible to just about anyone needing just an
internet connection and a user id to access the social media site. Social media sites and blogs
very often have a common feature of allowing their individual members to “re-tweet” or “re-