Ever since a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6th, many individuals across the United States have voiced their opinions. Although it is good to spread awareness of the massive problems Trump has caused, the common people don’t have the power to take action against Trump and his supporters. However, many platforms have taken steps to try and help the situation.
Platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon, Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, Google, YouTube, TikTok, Apple, Discord, Stripe, Shopify, and even Pinterest have banned or restricted Donald Trump’s account and/or forums affiliated with pro-Trump violence and conspiracies in light of the attack on the Capitol. Many platforms have suspended Donald Trump’s account from posting on their forums as they believe it is “too great a risk.” Google, Apple, and Amazon have taken down Parler, a social media app for conservatives and far-right extremists, from their websites and other platforms have taken down content and chat groups that may be used to spread hate and incite violence.
Trump and his followers argue that this restriction is a direct assault on their First Amendment. However, the First Amendment prohibits government censorship and does not apply to decisions made by private businesses. Therefore, the social media companies’ actions were completely lawful. Although it was legal, many people, Republican and Democrats alike, are worried about social media companies being able to block certain users and decide what speech is acceptable.
In the end, the First Amendment doesn’t require a private forum to publish everyone’s speech. Although Trump is losing access to platforms he used to be able to speak freely on, Trump, being the president, will never lose his ability to share his views to the public. Although the social media companies’ power over speech is a slight bit concerning, when it comes to being silenced, the president is the last person we should need to worry about.
With social media's growing impact on our everyday lives, do you think they should have the power to restrict people from posting to the public?
9 comments:
Although I do somewhat understand the reasons of concern over social media compagnies censuring public figures a little concerning for some, I do believe that these social media platforms banning the president do represent a strong and needed exercise of power against him. Since the beginning of his presidency, Trump has continuously used sites like Twitter to voice his political agenda and views that often consisted of less than factual statements. Trump has been striked multiple times by Twitter for these often ridiculous claims especially during this most recent presidential election where he voiced his strong beliefs of voter fraud as the culprit for his loss in the election. These erroneous statements made by such a large public figure instills false views and beliefs within thousands of those who are strong supporters to these figures. In the case of Trump, this has created fake news and radicalization amongst his supporters. With the recent violence at the capital by a mob of loyal Trump supporters one can only wonder if Trump's string of irresponsible use of social media platforms like Twitter could have been a large factor in these demonstrators storming the capitol. The recent action taken by social media sites against Trump is a bold reminder that no matter how powerful or influential an individual can be, it is important to uphold accuracy and truth in one's statements especially online. Thus even though there are some concerns, give the string of recent events I do believe that social media sites took the right actions against Trump.
I believe that the widespread media ban on Trump was necessary to prevent more violence and chaos by his following like what we saw in the Capitol on January 6th. I think it was key that these companies put in place this ban before his second impeachment in which he would've reached out to his followers for their support and possibly spreading more false information. I believe the ban did in fact help prevent another uproar from his supporters who still believe the President should be the rightful president for the next four years. While I can understand why some people might be concerned over the censorship social media websites have over their users it still is their right to disable and is put in the terms of service of every social media app. While social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook do hold this power over every user they have only so far used to this power reasonably trying to limit the amounts of false information and propaganda to incite violence. Before his ban on Twitter, Trump had already gotten many videos taken down for the same reason saying the attackers on the capital were right because the election was fraudulent. Nowadays social media has become a major source of the news and politics while overall censorship of peoples opinions on how they perceive current events going on, I believe the companies do have the obligation to step in once it crosses the line of an opinion to provoking violence.
Social media companies have the constitutional and (debated, as Amazon is currently in court against Parler) legal right to ban whomever they want from their platforms. Furthermore, the ban of President Trump and other right-wing extremist groups across these platforms was definitely a good thing - the companies made the right decision. However, there are two issues I currently see with the *way* he was banned. Firstly, the companies shouldn't have to have banned him: departments like the FTC or the Department of Homeland Security really should've been the ones to say that these groups present a threat to our nation and must be removed from their platforms. It shouldn't have been left to companies to decide upon. Secondly, the slope of censorship can be extremely slippery. With social media companies having correct justification in this case, they may be able to gain more slack when in future situations, unjustly censoring certain individuals or groups. That isn't to say what they have done in the past week is wrong, because it isn't, but we should definitely be extremely careful in the months and years to come regarding who social media companies censor, why the censor them, and how they do it.
Though social media platforms do have the legal right as a private company to delete users, it is concerning that what is essentially the equivalent of the modern day public forum is not regulated in the same way as a public forum would be. It is especially concerning considering that Twitter suspended Trump's account immediately after he told protestors to remain peaceful and go home in a video statement. Though Trump, being the president of the United States, will have the power to get his messages out there, Twitter has not begun, nor will they stop, at the president. Even then, the reality is that censorship will not work; it will only serve to further anger people, creating even more division and radicalizing those who were not already radical. If social media companies actually cared a sliver about not radicalizing people, they would immediately stop using personalized feeds that cause many on both sides of the aisles to become stuck in an echo chamber and become further entrenched within their ideologies.
I agree with many of the commenters above. Though there may be a fine line between censorship and impeding upon the First Amendment’s guaranteed freedom of speech, President Trump’s constant spread of misinformation has long been a serious matter of concern for many. Similar to Matthew and Laurent’s points, I believe that due to the prestige of the presidency, and Trump’s large following on various platforms, it is likely that his words will continue to be heard. As stated in the title of this Vox piece, “Trump’s history of inciting violence in words and tweets,” Trump’s speech has now ultimately contributed to a deliberate attack on American democracy. It seems that censorship in this situation has been long overdue. And, as Ethan stated, with more people turning to social media to stay in the loop, it’s important that information spreading within the platform “does not provoke violence.”
However, with Trump’s removal from these generally well-known social media platforms, I wonder where he has and will continue to spread his message. On these networks, there were millions of people who could more easily monitor the information he sent out. In time, I wonder if he will seek to create his own, or whether he will turn to other sites to publicize his views.
https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech
Although I definitely understand the concerns of social media censorship, I feel the censorship was justified in this case. Trump has been spreading misinformation for his whole presidency, the amount and severity only increasing as time has gone on. In addition, the recent attack on the Capitol leads to the valid concern that people will hear false information spread by Trump supporters about it or that they'll unite and attempt another attack or means of rebellion. Another attack, especially with the impending inauguration, has the potential to be extremely dangerous and I think it's not only valid for social media to censor this, but that it should be encouraged. Decreasing the spread of false information and decreasing the access people have to extremist groups can hardly be considered bad, and quite frankly should have been done sooner. Media has so much power and can reach such a large audience these days that it's extremely dangerous and scarily easy to have situations like this spread.
With such a large influence on the general public, I believe social media companies have every right to block certain users from posting. If there is worry of a domestic attack (like on the Capitol), being able to block certain instigators will help protect the safety of U.S. citizens. Additionally, if someone is promoting terrorist or extremist ideologies, social media should have full control over shutting that platform down. Yes, we are all entitled to free speech. However, when such speech because an issue of general safety, media businesses should be allowed to limit access to their platform. When it comes down to it, its their platform we're granted access to, and if they feel they need to revoke that ability, then that's their decision (with just cause, of course).
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