Social media has the right to censor people, but they do so unequally

Twitter’s perfectly legal decision to bar Trump from their online platform offers no opportunity for argument. Nonetheless, some mainstream media sites have taken this decision to the absolute extreme. The Washington Post’s article on the subject matter reads, “[the twitter team members] were worried for their colleagues’ safety — some had already received security threats” (Tiku and Dwoskin). It is not uncommon for large platforms or media outlets to accuse or misportray presidents, congresspeople, or partisans with little or no evidence, as it occurs increasingly more frequently.

The issue I take with the decision, and the reaction of both parties, is Twitter’s inequality in applying its rules. Twitter advertises as a non-partisan public platform that withholds the right to ban or suspend accounts based on their code of conduct. Granted, Trump’s comments, leading up to the horrific events of January 6th, “raised the country’s temperature,” but did not specifically incite violence. Any United States attorney would vehemently agree. Despite this, I would accept the decision to ban Trump if Twitter would suspend Colin Kapernick, for example, for saying equally ambiguous language, stating that “when civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction” and “we have the right to fight back!” on his Twitter feed (Kapernick). I am no Trump supporter, to say for sure. I only wish that twitter’s policy can be applied equally, whether that be harshly or leniently, to all of its users. 

Upon this point, the final problem with the decision is apparent. Banning presidents, congresspeople, or world leaders based on accordance with the rules of a platform is acceptable; nevertheless, deciding the application of those terms is usually the task of Twitter officials, who do not withhold their ideologies in their work. This problem has much less of a specific solution, being that suspicion of an account for language use is highly subjective. In summation, Twitter and other platforms hold the right to ban or suspend accounts based on their usage; however, acting less frequently and more evenly when applying their regulations may better serve society.

By Dean Troiano