Read on Twitter
We have all been following the events in recent days (years) that led to Trump’s permanent suspension from Twitter. And while the suspension is the right thing to do, we should all feel uneasy about it. 1/10
And the discourse I’ve seen so far does not reflect that as much as I would like. Bear with me, because my arguments are more nuanced than works on social media. He was permanently suspended for inciting violence. 2/10
In many ways the takeaway is that he was finally required to comply with Twitter’s Terms of Service like everyone else. And it is important to emphasize that we know the reasons for his permanent suspension because Twitter posted it: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html. 3/10
But some of the rhetoric I have seen has dismissed concerns about his suspension on the basis that this is a private platform and there is no right to have access to it to speak or receive information. This is not helpful and misses the point. 4/10
It is equally unhelpful to argue that this is censorship, casting aside the profound harm his words caused and that free speech is not an absolute right. Even in America. What we should be talking about is this: 5/10
These platforms have tremendous power in setting and enforcing the rules of free speech. And whether we like it or not, these are the primary spaces that we are informed and engage. Stop pretending that this suspension is not meaningful. 6/10
That we can just shrug and say it is a private company making decisions about its space. It might not be a public square in a historic sense, but they are important spaces for discourse nonetheless. 7/10
What we should be talking about is platform power and the ways that our social order is structured and governed by them. What we should be talking about is what the regulations of that environment should look like. 8/10
And include in that assessment celebration of Twitter’s steps to dismantle discourse that posed a serious threat, and its forthrightness in keeping the public apprised, and a reckoning for the failure to do so the last four years. 9/10
We should directly address the line between the freedom of a business to develop its business as it sees fit and the social and democratic impact of these decisions when free speech and other rights are engaged. 10/10
