By Gabriel E. Levy B, associate researcher at OBSERVACOM.
This week, Facebook censored Colombia’s Canal Trece (Tv Andina), one of the eight regional channels that are part of the country’s public media ecosystem. The reason: a few seconds of a live soccer match triggered the platform’s algorithm, which decided to sanction the channel for several days. As a result, Canal Trece was left out of an essential space for its broadcasts.
The censorship of Canal Trece is not an isolated case. In 2023, Canal Capital, also Colombian, was blocked for several months for broadcasting 28 seconds of a women’s soccer match, according to the Latin American Observatory of Media Regulation and Convergence (OBSERVACOM).
What happens when public media are silenced by private and automated decisions? The question is not rhetorical; it touches the core of how we understand freedom of expression in the 21st century.
These episodes reveal a dangerous reality: private platforms like Facebook, whose jurisdiction should not replace that of a judge, are making decisions that directly impact the right to public communication. Although Facebook is a private company, its role in communication transcends the commercial sphere.
In Colombia, the Constitutional Court has made it clear that freedom of expression is a reinforced right, especially in public media that, by their nature, represent a pillar of democracy. But when a platform like Facebook decides to block a media outlet, without judicial mediation, a basic principle of the rule of law is violated.
Sanctioning before asking
The most paradoxical thing about the case is that Canal Trece owned the rights to the content that caused the blockage. As the legitimate holder of the broadcasting rights, the public media did not infringe any intellectual property rules. However, Facebook proceeded with the sanction without carrying out a prior verification or consulting whether the channel was authorized to broadcast the material.
This automated procedure shows a serious failure of the system: the platform acts first and asks questions later, leaving those affected at a disadvantage, who must prove their innocence after the blockage, instead of validating the infringement before imposing a measure that affects both its operation and the public’s access to information.
OBSERVACOM considers that these actions could be interpreted as a “privatization of justice”, that is, an implicit delegation of judicial functions to companies that are not subject to democratic control. And their decisions not only affect the sanctioned media, but also call into question citizens’ access to diverse and plural information.
The debate is not trivial. Legal experts such as Cass Sunstein have pointed out that digital platforms have become public forums where democratic debate takes place. Denying access to these spaces to a public medium is not a simple business decision, it is a political act that redefines the limits of communication and justice in the digital age.
In Colombia, the legislation is clear: no private individual is empowered to sanction a media outlet. However, the legal vacuum in the digital sphere allows giants such as Facebook to act with a discretion that borders on arbitrariness. The case of Canal Trece illustrates how the absence of specific regulation for digital platforms creates fertile ground for abuse.
Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist and technology expert, warns that the dependence on private platforms for public communication puts us in a position of structural vulnerability. This type of censorship not only limits the reach of a medium; it also restricts the ability of citizens to access critical information in real time, such as in live broadcasts. The impact of these blockages is aggravated when it comes to public media, whose mission is to guarantee equal access to information.
Gustavo Gómez, executive director of OBSERVACOM, has denounced in multiple forums that digital platforms, far from guaranteeing a fair and transparent process, delegate these decisions to automated algorithms. According to Gómez, these companies do not even invest in experts or human teams that can evaluate specific contexts, as when it comes to the media.
Instead, an opaque and incomprehensible code becomes the police and judge, without considering the implications for democracy. This model not only ignores the particularities of each case, but leaves the management of an essential scenario for public debate in the hands of an automatic and commercial logic.
The lack of transparency about how these algorithms operate exacerbates the problem, weakening confidence in platforms as spaces for the exercise of fundamental rights. By disconnecting these voices, a fundamental democratic principle is undermined: the right to be informed.
It is not only Colombia that faces this challenge. In Brazil, Public TV was suspended for a similar situation. In Europe, the European Parliament has debated the limits of algorithmic censorship, warning that fundamental rights cannot be subordinated to the terms and conditions of private companies.
In Latin America, the Network of Public Broadcasters has denounced that the rules imposed by platforms such as Facebook and YouTube ignore the particularities of public media, applying disproportionate sanctions that affect their sustainability and credibility. These blockages, although temporary, have long-lasting effects on public trust and the perception of press freedom.
In conclusion, the censorship of Canal Trece and other public media exposes a tension between fundamental freedoms and the power of digital platforms. It is urgent that Colombia and other countries adopt legislation that limits the discretionary power of these companies over the media.
Democracy cannot afford to allow algorithms to decide which voices deserve to be heard. The debate is not only legal, but ethical: who controls access to information in an increasingly digital world?
ENLACES RELACIONADOS:
Corte Constitucional de Colombia. (2010). Sentencia T391 de 2007.