Since social media sites banned Trump, others should be banned as well

On Tuesday, January 12th of 2021, former President Trump was banned permanently from Twitter, the global social networking platform built for self-expression and conversation in real time. Fellow media powerhouses such as Facebook, Twitch, Snapchat, and YouTube soon followed suit. In the midst of an ongoing debate about the role and power of social media sites, I hold the belief that social media outlets should, in fact, be able to ban figures that violate their rules and policies- even the POTUS. However, this process of fact-checking, verifying, controlling, or even eliminating user content should apply to all users who break the rules, not just one.

Twitter is a private company that has the right to ban anyone. It is, therefore, an undisputed fact that Trump broke Twitter’s terms and Twitter has the right to refuse their service to him. Twitter is justified in its campaign to halt the spread of violence and want to prevent the initiation of future violence both domestically and internationally. But what is also a fact is that President Trump is not the only person in power to spread what the media site considers hate, misinformation and violence. Worst of all, it is a fact that these users remain doing so on the app while Twitter turns a blind eye to their advocates even more detrimental and extreme than anything President Trump had ever posted.

Noah Metz writes in his Hi’s Eye article “Should Social Media Sites Be Allowed to Suspend Their Users?”, “..honestly, (no matter your opinion on Trump himself) are we really banning the former president of the United States without banning the authoritarian governments of China and Iran, who have called for violence countless times on Twitter?” Consider world leaders like Louis Farrahkan, China’s U.S. embassy, and Ayatollah Khomeni, all twitter users. Farrahkan is the leader of the hate group Nation of Islam who has tweeted and said many hateful antisemitic, and homophobic comments. China’s U.S. embassy has boasted about sterilizing women and standing for Islamophobia. Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has called for genocide of Israelis and has engaged in Holocaust denial, directly calling for violence on the Twitter platform. Although some posts have been removed here and there, each of these accounts still stand. Twitter is proud to represent its stance as a marketplace for the global free exchange of conversation and ideas. If the company is going to, as it should, stand for banning those who incite violence on its platform in such conversations, is it really so moral to only eliminate one user, not all?

By Lauren Bohrer