Social Media Banned The President
We all knew there would be fallout from Wednesday, January 6th, 2021. As the country picks up the pieces and tries to make sense of how?, why?, and what’s next?, there seems to be a consensus from social media companies: President Trump is no longer welcome. From Twitch to Reddit, Snapchat and everything in between, the sitting president of the United States has been banned from all sorts from digital platforms.
Now, if you’re expecting any kind of defense of Trump, his actions, or his enablers, this is not the column for you. I would argue that a price needs to be paid, beyond losing a bid for re-election, for his actions but that is another column. This one is about censorship, rules, and standards. To that end, I have questions.
Let’s say that most any group of reasonable people, of a wide range of political allegiances, can look at the recent events and definitively decide that Trump’s behavior on Twitter was bad. No stretch there. Now, let’s say you had a convicted felon. Someone who has committed a heinous act, served his time and would like to be able to express his thoughts on Twitter. He’s not committing any crimes at the moment but he says some inflammatory or hateful things. How do we want that handled? What about a leader of a totalitarian regime responsible for all sorts of atrocities? A brash, loudmouthed conspiracy theorist? A racist? A misogynist? Your uncle that quotes bogus Facebook stories about lizard people and ruins Thanksgiving? How do we want them handled?
Unfortunately, once the step of banning someone of significant stature has been taken, those questions will inevitably follow. Trump is bad. Regardless of what you think of him, there are worse out there and their Twitter accounts work just fine. It’s critical that an even standard is applied to take away potential ammunition for fringe groups (like those responsible for the horrible events at the Capitol) to say that their ‘truth’ is under attack and the only course is to fight back or escalate. That is where I believe this messaging arms race goes; without a transparent and evenly applied set of standards, the intended fix for the perceived problem will actually worsen things.
This brings us to the next steps taken by Google, which suspended Parler from their platform (going further than Apple which demanded that Parler submit a coherent plan for moderating its content). If you’re not familiar with Parler, it was branded as a censorship free version of Twitter. It has recently gained popularity with conservatives (fine) and with extremists who used it to plan the events of Jan 6 (not fine). Again, no one approves of the actions of the extremists. They used Parler. Terrorists in June of 2017 carried out an attack using a van and knives near the London Bridge. They used Facebook-owned WhatsApp to plan the attack according to reports. Ban the app?
Let’s say our Capitol terrorists all used the same cell phone company. Would it be incumbent on that cell service provider to cut service if they didn’t like what was being planned? That would require monitoring, and, again, a set of standards that I would argue a cellular company isn’t prepared to take on. What if a few of them were from the same neighborhood and on the same power grid and planned their crimes by lamplight. Should the power company cut their power? Should the airline that brought them to DC find out their associations in advance and deny them tickets? The bus, car company, rental car agency, clothing company or anything else: are they responsible? Should they have acted? What are the criteria? Again, no one likes what these terrorists did but these questions are inevitable. What are our standards? Like many of you, I am not entirely comfortable with ‘just trust us’ or ‘it’s just this one time.’
Apple, mentioned above, is demanding Parler moderate its content. Apple has also been deferential to the Chinese government in the past. For example, Apple took down an app used by Hong Kong protestors that the Chinese government didn’t like: https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/apple-chinese-government-microsoft-amazon-ice.html. What standards were applied? If it is merely ‘what’s best for our business interest or PR purposes,’ that should be concerning.
Now for the copout. I do not have answers to these questions. They are complicated and difficult and are about more than some right-wingers feeling slighted. This is about what we want our society to be and how we want to communicate with each other. The online world has made so much possible that never seemed remotely plausible only a couple decades ago. There are negative consequences to that advancement that we do not seem prepared to grapple with. These challenges are not going anywhere with selectively applied standards that inevitably will be perceived as favoring certain bad people, certain ideas, or certain affiliations over others. A transparent and clear set of evenly applied standards has never been more critical.
Danny Rouhier’s radio show: The Grant & Danny Show airs from 2–6:30pm Monday-Friday on 106.7 The Fan In Washington, DC and his weekly podcast ‘You Seem Interesting’ is available at patreon.com/funnydanny
