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What to call this situation? Is this a restriction on freedom of expression? Did the company that destroyed Trump’s most powerful weapon, which essentially brought him into politics and gave him the presidency, have the right to take that weapon out of his hands and prohibit the raising of any other similar weapon? Or is it the right of a private company to serve only those clients it wants to serve?
Lost voice
Trump and a large number of his supporters have been banned from almost all public platforms with at least some such access: the president of the United States himself has not only lost his Twitter account, but has been blocked “indefinitely “On Facebook and Instagram, his account was blocked by Snapchat and Pinterest, and Shopify removed all Trump-owned businesses from their directories.
Those Trump-friendly Twitter users, whose accounts weren’t deleted after the U.S. Capitol storm on January 6, have publicly complained that they have suddenly lost tens of thousands of followers. After all, the company that operates the short message network distributed the most radical right-wing figures with the same gifts: account lockouts.
What’s more, Twitter is urgently blocking any account through which the president tries to transmit his messages; those accounts are “loaned” to him by his colleagues. There are now at least two such accounts that have been blocked due to account management being turned over to Trump. In addition, Twitter is deleting the messages that Trump is posting through the official @POTUS account of the President of the United States, which will be inherited by President-elect Joe Biden after January 20.
We remind you that a very significant part of Trump’s tweets has been available since November 3. The defeated election was flagged as bogus because Trump, without any foundation or evidence, repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen,” that there was massive fraud, and that he should be the winner.
Meanwhile, the Parler platform, for which Amazon terminated the hosting contract, has been unable to find other partners to integrate the service on its servers and has ceased operations entirely.
The Parler platform, for which Amazon terminated the hosting agreement, was unable to find other partners to host the service on its servers and ceased operations entirely.
Reasons and explanations
The main reason why all social networks acted at the same time was on January 6. Trump’s assault on the Capitol by supporters summoned to Washington, in which 5 people lost their lives. The catalyst for the activity of this violent crowd is believed to have been Trump’s constant call not to trust the American democratic system and the election results.
“After a thorough review of recent posts from @realDonaldTrump and the context in which they were written, we have irrevocably suspended the account due to the threat of further incitement to violence,” Twitter officials wrote in an official statement justifying their decision.
Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “The shocking events of the past 24 hours have clearly demonstrated that President Donald Trump is determined to obstruct the peaceful and legitimate transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden for the remainder of his presidency.
His decision to use this platform not to condemn the fans who stormed the Capitol, but to encourage them, has rightly upset people in the United States and around the world. Yesterday we withdrew these statements because we believe that their effect, and probably their intention, would be to provoke more violence.
After the certification of the electorate’s votes in Congress, the most important thing for the entire country is to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after the inauguration are peaceful and in accordance with established democratic norms.
In recent years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform according to our own rules, sometimes by removing content uploaded by him or by flagging posts that violate our content policy. We did so because we believed that the public had the right to access the widest range of political speeches, even conflicting speeches. However, the current context is fundamentally different, in which our platform has been used to incite a violent uprising against a democratically elected government.
“We are confident that the risk of allowing President Trump to continue to use our services during this period is too great, which is why we are extending the blocking of his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least two weeks until complete. the peaceful transfer of power “. wrote M. Zuckerberg. Until then, Trump’s accounts on networks managed by Facebook had been suspended for 24 hours.
Amazon wrote in a letter to Parler motivating the termination: “We have recently seen a steady increase in violent content on your site, in violation of our Terms and Conditions. It is clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS Terms of Service. “
Expert evaluations
Formally, under US law, social media operators have the right to moderate content, but according to Syracuse University (US) associate professor Jennifer Grygiel, who specializes in social media research , social networks are poorly regulated and the companies that operate those networks are not motivated to moderate their content. show users only content that is deemed safe. And the storm of the United States Congress, according to the expert, was a revealing fact.
According to her, the fact that Amazon terminated the contract with Parler is in no way censorship or an attack on a smaller company by a powerful technology company; it is a decision to stop providing services to a company that does not comply with the terms of service (that is, offers a dangerous product). Parler can continue to prosper simply by finding another hosting provider or by developing a network infrastructure that is independent of other companies.
“The president has gone to great lengths to annoy everyone and make them think that this is a matter of freedom of expression, but when it comes specifically to him, he is a representative of the authorities. He is an elected official. And sadly, the president has systematically spread misinformation and bypassed the free press for many years using social media. And who said the president should tweet? You know, I said the same thing a few days ago. And now that? Now you can no longer tweet. So obviously that’s not a fundamental thing, is it? Well now we have a president who is discreet. This is a cultural issue. And we really need our government to assess how the federal government can use social media to ensure, say, public safety, to ensure that American society is never propagated by any president, be it the Trump administration or the elected Biden or any other. future administration. . What happened at the Capitol is horrible. We need social media to be safely regulated, ”said the associate professor.
Jerry Dickinson, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, argued that the decision to block the president on social media was unconstitutional. According to the professor, it is wrong to treat the constitution as if it believes that private companies cannot control freedom of expression. “[JAV Konstitucijos pirmoji pataisa – red.] it only restricts the ability of the authorities to restrict your right to freedom of expression. Not valid on Facebook or Twitter, said the professor.
Additionally, recent developments may lead top social media administrators to reconsider their internal policies.
“There is a lot of activity in the United States right now, everything is bubbling and these social platforms are contributing to that. I think after evaluating what we know now, many of those companies will go back to the drawing board and rethink some of the rules. to moderate its content in the future, ”said the professor.
According to him, there are many gray areas here, but according to the professor, companies will have to use their discretion and make sure that Internet broadcasting does not cross borders and does not become dangerous.
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