Freedom of Tweets

My first assignment in graduate school was as a research assistant to Jack Brehm, who was then developing on his theory of psychological reactance. Reactance is about our response to a loss of personal freedom. According to the theory, we all have a set of what we believe are free behaviors—behaviors we are free to engage in whenever they are situationally appropriate. When one of more of our free behaviors is eliminated or threatened with elimination, we experience an unpleasant motivational state called reactance, the goal of which is to restore the lost or threatened freedom. The amount of reactance we feel depends on such factors as the number and importance of the free behaviors under threat, as well as any other free behaviors that are threatened by implication.

One immediate effect of reactance is that the lost or threatened behavior becomes more attractive. If the behavior is merely threatened, we can reassert our freedom by engaging in it more often. If engaging in the behavior is no longer possible, we may try to restore our freedom indirectly by carrying out similar actions that have the same effect, or that imply that we could exercise the lost freedom if we really wanted to.

A classic example of reactance is our reaction to censorship attempts. Censorship obviously threatens freedom of speech and of the press, and may be seen as an attempt to control our thoughts. Steve Worchel and his colleagues have done studies—this one, for example—showing that telling experimental participants that an article has been censored increases their interest in reading it (compared to other participants for whom the article was not censored). In addition, the participants change their attitudes in favor of the position taken by the author of the censored article, even though they haven't read it. The participants seem to infer that if someone has tried to censor a message, it must be persuasive.

Censorship was in the news this past week when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accused of accepting bribes and other corrupt behaviors in a series of Twitter messages. Erdogan faces possible loss of power after local elections tomorrow (March 30). It's not clear how true the charges are, but Erdogan's response to them was not very smart. Saying that social media are a menace to society, he announced that the government was shutting down Twitter throughout Turkey.

However, Turkish Twitter users could work around the ban by altering domain name settings. The word spread quickly that, by going to a little extra trouble, they could continue tweeting. As reactance theory predicts, the ban backfired. This chart from the social media analysis firm Brandwatch shows that there was a 38% increase in the hourly numbers of tweets from March 19, the day before the ban, to March 21, the first full day after it.

By March 22, the government was able to close down these workarounds. But it's hard to censor the internet, since there are so many alternative paths a message can take. Another solution was to send tweets through a portal called Tor. The chart below shows an increase in Tor usage as well, from roughly 25,000 connects on March 20 to 40,000 on March 23.

Erdogan has become an object of ridicule in political cartoons such as the one below. (See this article for some other examples.) More importantly, reactance theory predicts the failed censorship attempt will lead more Turks to believe he is guilty of corruption. Unfortunately, I have no data on that.

The Turkish courts have overturned the Twitter ban, but service is still blocked since the government has 30 days to comply. But Erdogan has not learned his lesson. The other day a video appeared on You Tube containing a wiretapped conversation between members of the Turkish government and military discussing the possibility of going to war with Syria. They appear to be planning a “false flag” operation in which they would bomb a Turkish shrine and blame it on Syria, as a pretext for war. (Erdogan claims the tape was “immorally edited.”) On Thursday, the Turkish government banned You Tube as well. I presume this ban will also be thrown out by the courts, but not until after the election.

Consider how many political debates in this country are about real or imagined threats to our freedom. For example, Edward Snowden's disclosures have increased public awareness of the threat to privacy posed by mass surveillance. Loss of privacy could be considered an implied threat to a variety of free behaviors—anything from carrying on an extramarital affair to engaging in political dissent. The time may be right for a revival of interest in reactance theory, with expanded emphasis on implied threats to freedom.

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Talking Back to the Media