When Does Twitter Blocking Violate The First Amendment
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PARTICIPANTS
Katie Fallowis a senior attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and was one of the lead attorneys representing the blocked Twitter users and the Knight Institute in Knight Institute v. Trump. She was previously a partner at Jenner & Block, where she litigated First Amendment cases, and was deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.
David Frenchis senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and senior writer for National Review. French was previously the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , a lecturer at Cornell Law School, and a senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Center for Law and Justice. He is a former major in the Army Reserves who earned a bronze star for his service in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, the only institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.
Additional Resources
This episode was engineered by Greg Scheckler, and produced by Jackie McDermott. Research was provided by Ellinor Rutkey, Michael Boyd, Jackie McDermott, Zoe Dettelbach, Perri Wilson, and Ben Roebuck.
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TRANSCRIPT
Removing The Bells And Whistles Of Big Platforms
A large part of Trump’s power comes from how easy he is to hear, says Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab. Many of his supporters hear him directly on Twitter. And the media expands this reach dramatically: a Harvard study from earlier this year found that mainstream news outlets are the largest amplifier of White House disinformation, since journalists, all of whom are on Twitter, quickly work his statements into their broadcasts, he adds.
Twitter Suspends Trump Permanently After Inciting Mob
About two hours after his ban, Trump did turn to the official @POTUS account, railing against Twitter, Democrats, and the Radical Left, in a series of tweets that were quickly deleted. A Twitter spokesperson said, As weve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules. We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the .
In the blog post, Twitter cited Trumps two most recent tweets as an explanation for the permanent suspension.
In the first one, Trump wrote: The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!
In the next, he tweeted, To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
Taken together, the company determined, they were likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.
The suspension drew immediate praise from Democratic politicians.
“Thank you @twitter for taking this action,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., tweeted. “We must come together as a country to heal and find a common path forward.”
Republican politicians and Trump loyalists pushed back on the decision.
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Twitter Ceo Defends Trump Ban Warns Of Dangerous Precedent
SAN FRANCISCO Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his companys ban of President Donald Trump in a philosophical Twitter thread that is his first public statement on the subject.
When Trump incited his followers to storm the U.S. Capitol last week, then continued to tweet potentially ominous messages, Dorsey said the resulting risk to public safety created an extraordinary and untenable circumstance for the company. Having already briefly suspended Trumps account the day of the Capitol riot, Twitter on Friday banned Trump entirely, then smacked down the presidents attempts to tweet using other accounts.
Dorsey acknowledged that shows of strength like the Trump ban could set dangerous precedents, even calling them a sign of failure. Although not in so many words, Dorsey suggested that Twitter needs to find ways to avoid having to make such decisions in the first place. Exactly how that would work isnt clear, although it could range from earlier and more effective moderation to a fundamental restructuring of social networks.
In Dorsey-speak, that means Twitter needs to work harder to promote healthy conversation.
Extreme measures such as banning Trump also highlight the extraordinary power that Twitter and other Big Tech companies can wield without accountability or recourse, Dorsey wrote.
Tweets As Official Statements
Throughout his presidency, Trump frequently appeared to issue orders through his tweets. Whether these tweets were official directives was unclear. A US National Archives spokesman said that Trump’s tweets are considered presidential records.
In 2017, the Department of Justice argued in one court case that Trump’s tweets were “official statements of the President of the United States.” In another case, the DOJ argued they were official policy statements but that the tweets were also “personal conduct that is not an exercise of state power.” The ABA Journal wrote in 2017, “There’s little caselaw on to what extent government use of social media can be considered official or a ‘public forum,’ which affords First Amendment protection to people who might be excluded based on their viewpoints.”
In 2019, the Secretary of the U.S. Navy said he did not interpret a Trump tweet as a “formal order to act” after Trump tweeted that the Navy should not take away Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher‘s status as a Navy SEAL.
In 2020, a court asked that Trump clarify his intention after he tweeted what appeared to be an order calling for the disclosure of documents related to Russian interference in the 2016 election. In a court filing White House Chief of Staff said that: “The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents.”
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Trump Tries To Get Around Twitter Ban And Gets Suspended Again
Donald Trumps team attempt to get around his Twitter ban was not successful.
A account reportedly created by the staff of former President Donald Trump has been suspended a day after its creation.
Trumps new online project debuted earlier in the week and it permits fans to share Trumps communications on their own personal social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook, sites that Trump is not permitted on. According to reports, the account @DJTDesk was removed on Wednesday for violating Twitter rules.
Journalist Andrew Solender shared the update on Twitter, writing, A Twitter account made to tweet the statements Trump puts out through his super PAC, , has been suspended after about a day.
Mr Trump was an active user of Twitter, boasting 88 million followers before he was removed for his involvement in the insurrection on 6 January. It is believed that the new Twitter account was made to get around this as it was a useful method for quick communication with his supporters.
His new website has a feature where you can be notified every time Mr Trump posts an update.
A Twitter account made to tweet the statements Trump puts out through his super PAC, , has been suspended after about a day.
Andrew Solender May 6, 2021
Along with Twitter, Mr Trump is also not permitted on other social media networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, following the events at the Capitol.
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Twitter Bans Account Linked To Iranian Leader Over Video Threatening Trump
Twitter said Saturday it had permanently suspended an account linked to Iran’s supreme leader that posted a video calling for revenge for a top general’s assassination against former US President Donald Trump.
“The account referenced has been permanently suspended for violating our ban evasion policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told AFP.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s main accounts in various languages remain active. Last year, another similar account was suspended by Twitter over a post also appearing to reference revenge against Trump.
The recent video, titled “Revenge is Definite,” was also posted on Khamenei’s official website.
According to Twitter, the company’s top priority is keeping people safe and protecting the health of the conversation on the platform.
The social media giant says it has clear policies around abusive behavior and will take action when violations are identified.
As head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Soleimani was the architect of its strategy in the Middle East.
He and his Iraqi lieutenant were killed by a U.S. drone strike outside Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.
Khamenei has repeatedly promised to avenge his death.
On January 3, the second anniversary of the strike, the supreme leader and ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi once again threatened the U.S. with revenge.
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Q: What Is Section 230
Trump is referring to section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which grants social media sites immunity from liability for content posted by users.
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider, the section reads.
Trump has long sought to limit the protections afforded by section 230.
In May, Trump signed an executive order stating the governments policy on social media censorship and instructing the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to review social media policies, making sure they apply section 230 in the narrowest form.
Section 230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike, the executive order states.
Missives From The Office Of The Former President
Trump was swift to establish his Office of the Former President once he left office.
“The Office will be responsible for managing President Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump administration through advocacy, organising, and public activism,” a statement read.
Mr Trump couldn’t tweet the news himself, of course.
But he didn’t have to.
Moments after the statement hit the inboxes of thousands of journalists, they tweeted it.
Not long afterwards, the former president endorsed his former press secretary Sarah Sanders in her quest to become Governor of Arkansas.
Moments later, thousands of journalists tweeted it.
And while his initial statements were nothing out of the ordinary, recent missives from the former president read like a tweet by any other name.
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!,” a 274-character statement from March 10 read.
Even the counter-punching he became famous for on his Twitter account has shown up in recent statements.
Journalists, who Trump so often clashed with and threatened during his presidency, keep sending out the statements to thousands of their followers, spreading the post-presidential missives far and wide.
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Deplatforming Can Change Cultural Mores
Deplatforming impacts the culture of both the platform thats doing the ousting and the group that gets ousted. When internet communities send a message of zero tolerance toward white supremacists and other extremists, other users also grow less tolerant and less likely to indulge extremist behavior and messaging. For example, after Reddit banned several notorious subreddits in 2015, leaving many toxic users no place to gather, a 2017 study of the remaining communities on the site found that hate speech decreased across Reddit.
That may seem like an obvious takeaway, but it perhaps needs to be repeated: The element of public shaming involved in kicking people off a platform reminds everyone to behave better. As such, the message of zero tolerance that tech companies sent by deplatforming Trump is long overdue in the eyes of many, such as the millions of Twitter users who spent years pressuring the company to ban the Nazis and other white supremacists whose rhetoric Trump frequently echoed on his Twitter account. But it is a welcome message nonetheless.
But even as extreme spaces get more extreme and agitated, theres evidence to suggest that depriving extremist groups of a stable and consistent place to gather can make the groups less organized and more unwieldy. As put it, The rope connecting ISISs base of sympathizers to the organizations top-down, central infrastructure is beginning to fray as followers stray from the agenda set for them by strategic communicators.
Trump Twitter Ban Raises Concerns Over ‘unchecked’ Power Of Big Tech
Even some Trump critics sounded the alarm over the power of social media giants.
Social media purges accounts after Capitol Hill insurrection
Donald Trump is arguably the president — having relied on his digital megaphone as a candidate and while in office to communicate unfettered with millions of supporters, unlike any past commander-in-chief.
So when and Twitter permanently suspended his accounts Friday in the wake of the Capitol siege over concerns that his posts were inciting violence, the president and his allies appeared incensed.
Many on the right — even those critical of Trump’s rhetoric — renewed their attacks on “big tech,” accusing companies of censoring conservatives and echoing Donald Trump, Jr.’s tweeted sentiment that “free-speech no longer exists in America.
Trump, who along with other conservatives, has long railed against the social media giants for allegedly being biased against conservatives, blasted Twitter in a statement released by the White House Friday. He said the company has “gone further and further in banning free speech” and suspended his account in an effort to “silence” him.
Trump’s tweets had been repeatedly flagged around the election for providing misleading information, another controversial move by social media companies seeking to bolster their fact-checking operations amid a torrent of disinformation.
So is this a matter of free speech or something else?
Civil rights groups sound alarm over unchecked power of big tech
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Sharing Of Violent Far
Trump has been criticized for his practice of retweeting or copying material from social media accounts posting antisemitic, racist, or false information, such as claims exaggerating the number of crimes committed by black people.
During campaign
PolitiFact singled out as particularly obviously false an image retweeted by Trump that claimed that 81% of white murder victims are killed by black people. Politifact noted that, besides being a five-fold exaggeration, the claim was sourced to the non-existent “Crime Statistics Bureau, San Francisco” it later highlighted this retweet when awarding its 2015 “Lie of the Year” badge to Trump’s entire presidential campaign. The fake statistics were first posted by a neo-Nazi Twitter account.
CNN wrestling video
The clip appeared on pro-Trump subreddit, /r/The Donald, about four days earlier, and was created by a Reddit account which had previously posted racist, antisemitic and bigoted content. A White House official later denied that the video came from Reddit the official declined “to respond to questions about where the president obtained the clip.” As of December 20,2017, the tweet had been retweeted over 330,000 times, making it Trump’s most retweeted post.
Britain First videos
South Africa
Katie Hopkins
Allusions to violence in May 2020
OANN conspiracy theory
June 9, 2020
“White power” video clip
Twitter Says Trump Ban Is Permanent Even If He Runs For Office Again
Chief financial officer says when youre removed, youre removed our policies dont allow people to come back
Donald Trumps ban from the social media platform Twitter is going to stick even if he runs for the White House again and even if he won again, a senior executive said on Wednesday.
The former presidents permanent block from Twitter is permanent, Twitters chief financial officer, Ned Segal, said during an interview on CNBC when he was asked whether Trumps tweeting privileges could be restored if he ever returns to power.
The way our policies work, when youre removed from the platform, youre removed from the platform, Segal said.
He added: Whether youre a commentator, youre a CFO, or you are a former or current public official. Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies dont allow people to come back.
The news came as Trumps impeachment trial is taking place in the Senate, on a charge that he incited an insurrection with his inflammatory exhortations at a rally in Washington immediately before the breach of the US Capitol by a murderous mob on 6 January.
When he was impeached last year, he tweeted criticism throughout, although then, and now, he declined to appear at the trial in his own defense.
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Okay So Twitter Could Kick Trump Off Should They
Now were talking. There is an argument to be made that the sitting president of the United States should always be allowed access to internet platforms because he is the most consequential public figure in the world and there is inherent value in all of his statements.
I do not buy this argument.
Its hard to come up with a use case that might justify a Twitter ban for any president not named Donald J. Trump. But its not all that hard to come up with one for him.
For example: If the president had tweeted out his speculative advice on injecting bleach into the human body to cure COVID-19, a reasonable interpretation might have been that this was the public-health equivalent of shouting Fire! in a crowded theater.
Trump has recently taken to accusing a private citizen of murder. A reasonable interpretation might be that this is defamatory. Still, in the case of defamation, there are legal remedies available to the aggrieved party.
So by the same token, a reasonable person could also conclude that while Trumps tweets are creating private legal exposure for him, on balance banning him would cause more harm than good.