The First Amendment and Social Media, Again

AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File
In a rather unprecedented, but not altogether unsurprising move recently, former President Trump and his team announced the creation of a social media platform after being banned off of several of them earlier this year due to false claims of campaign fraud as well as content relating to the January 6 riot. 

In a deliberate move to counter the sites Trump was pushed off of earlier this year, in the platforms Terms of Service it "bar users from annoying any of the site’s employees and from statements that “'disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site.'” In essence, users of the platform cannot make aggressive or inflammatory statements against the site - and one can assume former President Trump. 

So how does this relate to the First Amendment again? In one of my earlier blog posts, I discussed how at the very base, social media platforms do not fall under the protection of the First Amendment. When many political actors were being banned from these sites at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, they were crying "Freedom of Speech", but while these sites are public they are not the government w
hich is the primary entity that the first amendment protects citizens from. So while this platform may not be an ideal addition to the web, there is little the government can do about it when it comes to banning certain profiles or posts.

And that is how Donald Trump circumvented the system. Again. 

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-technology-business-media-social-media-b89e2e49345c125d8e6832a50821948f

Comments

  1. Susan BankstonNovember 18, 2021 at 2:13 PM

    Keats, great post! I agree it’s not surprising that Trump, and those in his corner, have created a social media platform. Now, what does this mean for his followers, and what is to come in the future? My predictions are he’ll probably “allow” freedom of speech, similarly to what Parler advertised. According to his most recent statement, Trump is still pushing the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. With that being said, this will be a great space to continue that conversation. I feel that this will be a 4Chan/8Chan/Parler that revolves around Trump. This is not an ideal design for a platform, for any political or cultural figure, as it can be a breading ground dangerous thinking. It’ll be interesting to see how this platform grows (or not) in the coming months.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There is Still Hope for Local News Outlets

Image
Getty Editorial  As we have discussed a little throughout the semester, as the world becomes more and more connected, local news organizations become more and more nationalized. While this is still the exception and not the rule, as media corporations continue to amass organizations under their umbrellas, uniform and national reporting of local stories will be on the rise, but the Build Back Better Agenda is hoping to provide a boost to the industry as a whole, including the little guys.  In President Bidens multi-trillion dollar social relief package hoping to pass the Senate, there is a large sum of money for a relatively unpublicized sector: local news organizations. The relief package will set aside $1.67 billion over the next five years for outlets that primarily cover local news. If this seems too good to be true, it sort of is. The package is not disregarding national news organizations and media conglomerates as many of the local and regional outlets are actually under those co
Read more

Has influencing public policy has been made easier by social media?

Image
                                                            Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times It is no secret or surprise that social media and the fast spread of the internet has allowed the world to become more connected than ever before. In a study done two years ago by the Pew Research Center, they found that the internet and the advent of more communication technologies has allowed for greater impact on politics. This got me thinking about if the public is influencing policy more or if we are just more aware of decisions being made in the government. As I was contemplating these questions, Biden announced his plan to ramp up vaccine production as well as vaccine distribution around the globe . As pointed out in the article, this move was made amid recent outcries against the administration for the lack of a role the United States has played in increasing vaccine rates globally. Not only completed vaccine distribution but earlier this year when the United States and much of the
Read more