As we saw last Wednesday, 1/6/2021, violence broke out at our nations Capitol. Many have been pointing fingers to place blame for these horrible acts and some are pointing fingers at Donald Trump. Because of the words he tweeted before, during and after this event, Twitter chose to temporarily ban Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) for 12 hours on Wednesday. On Friday, 1/8/2021, Twitter enacted a final full shutdown of his Twitter account due to more violations.
Private Company Censorship Is Not a First Amendment Violation
Even as most words of the United States’ Constitution are being reviewed to new interpretations, the Twitter / Trump shutdown is rather clear. Twitter is a private company which means they have the right NOT to serve a person. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
First Amendment
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.
Twitter is a private company and it did not violate any laws that prohibit discrimination in Education, Employment, Housing, Lending, Public Accommodations, Law Enforcement / Police Misconduct, or Voting. Since it didn’t violate any Civil Rights, they had every right to make the decision based on their rules. Whether Donald Trump liked it or not, he was using Twitter under the Twitter Rules which he had to abide by or services would discontinue. The Twitter Rules are pretty clear.
Twitter’s Announcement and Explanation
Twitter took to their blog on 1/8/2021 to announce they had permanently removed @realDonaldTrump due to violating their rules. In this blog, they also referenced a “World Leaders: principals & approach” whereby they outlined what they expected from world leaders to use and continue to use their services.
Social Media’s Crack Down
Not only did Twitter ban Donald Trump’s account, it caught him using a colleague’s Twitter account and shut that account down as well. Facebook and Instagram have also followed their lead and banned Trump’s accounts as well for violating their terms of service. The rules were in writing and we all have to agree to them in order to use their services.
Effects on Daily Life
The effects on daily life are much more noticeable with social media post vetting than in early 2020. Most social media have AI bots that help them enforce their rules by searching out words and phrases that will set off an alarm and cause a temporary ban of an account if using the phrases on the list. Unfortunately, that leaves no room for a grey area. I’ve noticed many social media organic and paid posts have been flagged much more than in the past. I’ve even heard several news reports of people having their accounts banned due to quoting of these words in a completely different reference.
In summary, business owners who use social media accounts to get their messages out are going to have to be much more careful with words and phrases they use. This will be a topic of conversation for many months and years due to the huge dependence individuals and brands have on social media companies to get the word out to their hundreds, thousands, or millions of followers.
