Twitter’s Decision to Ban Trump is not an Affront to Free Speech but a Responsible Exercise of a First Amendment Right
Inciter-in-Chief loses his favorite pastime.
On Friday, Twitter permanently banned President Trump from its service “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Twitter said in a blog post that President Trump’s personal @realDonalTrump account, which has more than 88 million followers, would be shut down immediately.
Twitter justified its move by saying two tweets by Trump violated its “Glorification of Violence,” policy, “which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts,” and said it “determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
The first tweet from Trump that prompted Twitter to ban him from its platform called his supporters “patriots,” and the second tweet said he would not go to the presidential inauguration on January 20.
Twitter said those messages appeared to condone Wednesday’s violence and were likely to stoke further violence. It added that the one about the inauguration offered the date as a target for attack. — nytimes.com
Permanently banning @realDonaldTrump is not an affront to free speech but a responsible exercise of a First Amendment right.
It is far too easy and lazy, although popular, to scream, “what about free speech? First Amendment rights!” as many of Trump’s supporters screamed on Twitter all weekend immediately after Trump’s account was deleted.
But according to lawyer RonNell Andersen Jones,
“The First Amendment limits only government actors, and neither a social media company nor a book publisher is the government. Indeed, they enjoy their own First Amendment rights not to have the government require them to associate with speech when they prefer not to do so.”
Far too often, people are easily manipulated on social media, and it is mind-boggling how many lack critical thinking skills. Anyone can tweet any ignorant opinion, any time, and some take those tweets as verified facts. Twitter is a rabbit hole of bad information; you have to be careful who you follow.
Now that the worst offender of making stuff up and pulling bullshit out of his ass is now permanently banned from Twitter for violating its terms, this won’t stop the spread of Trump’s irresponsible and dangerous misinformation campaign. His racist dog whistles to his bigoted and white supremacist supporters to organize, meet, and plan future attacks on democracy is well underway. Trump’s rallying cries of his First Amendment rights being violated are all over the Twittersphere by people willing to do his bidding for him.
The blind leading the ignorant.
The fundamental legal question could not be more straightforward. That is because the First Amendment prohibits government censorship and does not apply to decisions made by private businesses.
Professor Magarian puts it another way,
“The First Amendment doesn’t require any private forum to publish anyone’s speech,” he said to The New York Times. “Neither Twitter nor Simon & Schuster has any obligations under the First Amendment.”
On Thursday, Simon & Schuster canceled the publication of an upcoming book by Senator Josh Hawley, one of several members of Congress who tried to overturn the results of the presidential election. Hawley gave a clenched-fist salute to the hordes outside the Capitol as he pulled up to challenge the results the day the mob attacked the Capitol.
Simon & Schuster will no longer be working with him. Their company, their choice.
Since Trump’s banning from Twitter on Friday, tweets falsely claiming Twitter has violated First Amendment rights have been flying recklessly non-stop. His family and his supporters tweet things like, “We are living Orwell’s 1984,” Donald Trump Jr. said — on Twitter. “Free-speech no longer exists in America.”
The First Amendment clearly states that the freedom applies to government, not private companies: “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.”
The First Amendment limits the Government’s power.
“Congress shall make no law,” means that nothing the federal government does can restrict speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition.
Twitter is not governed by the First Amendment. Twitter is a private entity and not related to the Government. It can accept or reject speech as it sees fit.
A report by The Congressional Research Service: Free Speech and the Regulations of Social Media Content March 27, 2019, says that “courts have uniformly concluded that the First Amendment does not prevent social media providers from restricting users’ ability to post content on their networks. “
That is because the First Amendment prohibits government censorship and does not apply to decisions made by private businesses.
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued President Trump over the handling of his account, explained the distinction to The New York Times,
“We sued the president, not Twitter, and this makes all the difference, legally,” he said. “Government actors have to comply with the First Amendment, but private corporations don’t.”
“As a result,” Mr. Jaffer said, “the President can’t block people from his social media accounts based on their political views, but Twitter can ban people from its platform for pretty much whatever reasons it wants to. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Twitter was right to ban Trump, but there’s no question it was legally entitled to do it.”
Twitter can do what it wants.
If you owned a coffee shop and someone entered it and started assaulting other customers with offensive hate speech, you can legally tell them to leave and not serve them coffee and a muffin. Well, the same goes for Twitter. @jack can do whatever he wants, his company, his rules.
Twitter and other social media networks are fertile ground for white supremacists, QAnon groups, and bigots to organize at the direction of the Inciter-in-Chief. They have plans for more riots on January 17, 2021, an “Armed March on All-State Capitals,” including localized events in all 50 states as well as the US Capitol and the Mall in Washington.
What happened on January 6, 2021, was a coup. It was inspired and instigated by President Trump, attempting to overthrow the American Government and overturn the election results. Men in tactical gear roamed through our nations’ Capitol “seeking hostages while others smeared human shit on the wall.”
On Friday, the same day Twitter banned Trump, Trump-appointed Pentagon officials described the attempted insurrection on Capitol Hill as “First Amendment Protests in Washington DC.”
The attempt to rebrand the violence to overtake the Capitol, which ended in five people dead, by calling them “protests” is not only an effort to downplay what actually happened but to also link them to Trump being banned from Twitter.
These were not peaceful protesters walking to the Capitol with Trump flags waving. The Capitol’s attackers “pinned a bloodied police officer with a blunt weapon and body-slammed a third over a railing into the crowd. ‘Hang Mike Pence!’ the insurrectionists chanted as they pressed inside, beating police with pipes. They demanded Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts, too.”
Outside, makeshift gallows stood, complete with sturdy wooden steps and a noose. Guns and pipe bombs had been stashed in the vicinity.
This is homegrown fascism, and its meeting place is Twitter and other social media platforms that have taken steps to ban Trump and his violent rhetoric.
Legally, they can ban whoever they want to ban.
If you have a problem with big tech banning Trump because he is inciting violence and violating their terms of use, maybe you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering perfectionist. She lives in Los Angeles with her extroverted daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
