A private (or public as Twitter is) is free to respond to someone’s post, and to a limited degree delete posts and accounts. They do it all the time. See my follow-up post about the actual order. Of course, that’s the legal maneuver.
I’m talking here about his follow-up tweets about the situation and his general sense that what Twitter did somehow violated his right to free speech.
While Barr has said the DOJ had been looking into that particular section of the law, and there are some good arguments that it should be altered, I do believe the timing of this is simply a result of Trump’s vindictiveness.
The document is really not that complex and could have easily been written in a couple of days and even a matter of hours by someone versed in the particular law under scrutiny. It also clearly shows the vindictive nature that he’s expressed in tweets following Twitter replying to his tweet. See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/
Of course, this will need to withstand legal scrutiny of the courts, but I think that is part of the ploy–make social media platforms “waste” money in drawn-out legal battles in which it seems lawyers are typically the only winners.
There is a lot to debate about section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act but I believe it actually allows free speech more than it hampers it. Without it, say, Lori Klausutis’ husband could sue Twitter about the posts the president made concerning her death. That just does not seem right to me. It would be like a store being sued because someone besides the owners posting inflammatory material on a bulletin board they’d set up for public announcements. If you want to go even more extreme, I don’t think it’d be right to allow a business to be sued because of someone spray-painting inflammatory things on their building.
Social platforms need to maintain a balance between allowing people to express their opinions and the need to prevent misinformation from spreading, and maybe they go too far sometimes.
I believe Trump’s original travel ban from Arab counties did not pass the legal challenges, but the revised version did by a party-line vote in SCOTUS. But the debate over the courts becoming too political is for another time.
I’m talking here about his follow-up tweets about the situation and his general sense that what Twitter did somehow violated his right to free speech.
While Barr has said the DOJ had been looking into that particular section of the law, and there are some good arguments that it should be altered, I do believe the timing of this is simply a result of Trump’s vindictiveness.
The document is really not that complex and could have easily been written in a couple of days and even a matter of hours by someone versed in the particular law under scrutiny. It also clearly shows the vindictive nature that he’s expressed in tweets following Twitter replying to his tweet. See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/
Of course, this will need to withstand legal scrutiny of the courts, but I think that is part of the ploy–make social media platforms “waste” money in drawn-out legal battles in which it seems lawyers are typically the only winners.
There is a lot to debate about section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act but I believe it actually allows free speech more than it hampers it. Without it, say, Lori Klausutis’ husband could sue Twitter about the posts the president made concerning her death. That just does not seem right to me. It would be like a store being sued because someone besides the owners posting inflammatory material on a bulletin board they’d set up for public announcements. If you want to go even more extreme, I don’t think it’d be right to allow a business to be sued because of someone spray-painting inflammatory things on their building.
Social platforms need to maintain a balance between allowing people to express their opinions and the need to prevent misinformation from spreading, and maybe they go too far sometimes.
I believe Trump’s original travel ban from Arab counties did not pass the legal challenges, but the revised version did by a party-line vote in SCOTUS. But the debate over the courts becoming too political is for another time.
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