Twitter finally blocks Trump; should we be worried?

Some are taking concern with social media now censoring politicians. However, it is well within their right to do so

Baylynne Brunetti / Asst. Opinion Editor
 

After an already tumultuous presidency, President Donald J. Trump started 2021 tweeting enough election fraud rhetoric to incite a coup d’ètat against the American government. He has fired off tweets about unfound election fraud since last November. This continuous rhetoric fueled the fire that led to an insurrection at the Capitol in Washington D.C., taking the lives of U.S. Capitol police officers and several of Trump’s supporters. Because their platform allowed Trump to rattle off his election fraud fantasies, Twitter stepped up and permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account. In a statement by Twitter, the company said they suspended his account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

Twitter made the right call. They justified their decision with multiple reviews of their guidelines and rules. Trump did in fact incite violence — a violent insurrection at that — which should be more than enough to block him from Twitter. However, the issue at hand is the precedent that is being set by banning public officials from social media platforms.

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, published a series of tweets to say that even he was worried about the example they were setting. Dorsey stated, “This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.” This decision opens up the argument about what the future of the internet looks like, especially if Twitter moves toward having the powers of censorship at their fingertips.

Twitter and Facebook are completely private companies. They have become useful platforms for civic engagement— in most cases. They do not exist as a government entity or to serve the United States government. If members of the Democratic Party were spewing falsehoods about our elections,I firmly believe that these platforms would move to fact check and block those posts.This rhetoric that Twitter or Facebook possess too much power and are trying to block conservative voices in order to push a liberal agenda is merely more propaganda to continue the fear mongering that has grown exponentially in the last four years. We should be more concerned with the fact that private companies had to alert the masses to the lies that were being spread from our very own government officials.

Another issue that arises in this situation is the argument that suspending his account violates Trump’s First Amendment rights. However, Twitter is a private entity, giving it the right to make its own rules and guidelines for its platform. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Therefore, unless Twitter has become the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate in the midst of this chaos, they are not violating Trump’s rights.

Even if Twitter were to inch toward the government sector, this would still not be a violation of the First Amendment. There are exceptions that stem from the baseline of the First Amendment that classifies as unprotected speech. The most common example: yelling fire in the middle of a crowded movie theater. You cannot use your “freedom of speech pass” to incite a violent attempted coup. The Supreme Court has made it clear that not all speech is protected. The Court established the clear and present danger test which states that speech that “is directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action” is not protected by the Constitution. It is fair to say that under this test, the speech that led to the insurrection at the Capitol would not be protected under the Constitution.

Though I do worry about the blurred lines of social media platforms censoring speech, I worry more about the violence that takes place when they do not. These companies do not exist to protect our freedom of speech; that is the government’s job. Twitter and other platforms have teams of lawyers that advise them on all the issues that have been mentioned above. They do not want to be sued or be involved in the crosshairs of government lawsuits. So, I trust in their policies and their legal reasoning behind why they are taking a step to halt violence when it presents itself on their platforms.

Alas, it seems Twitter was right in banning Trump from their platform. However, it does still leave a dangling question about what the future holds in terms of social media censorship. I do not have a crystal ball, but I do not see Twitter making this their new status quo and becoming the overlords of free speech. I hope this was an isolated incident in which Twitter saw an opportunity to make right in the wake of the horrific events at the Capitol, but only time will tell.

The views expressed in the editorial and op-ed sections are not necessarily those of The USD Vista staff, the University of San Diego, or its student body.