Censorship and the First Amendment

 In January of 2021, Twitter shocked the world by banning the current US President, Donald Trump, from its platform. This move was made shortly after the January Capitol riots, when hoards of people stormed the US Capitol in protest of Bidens election win. Many people believed this to be incited by Trump, which is why Twitter banned him. In an official statement, Twitter said they banned Trump “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after going through his tweets. This incident has sparked even more controversy this year on a long debated topic- should there be more or less censorship in the media? As US citizens, do we have a right to voice our opinions on social media sites, no matter how controversial they may be?

In this debate on censorship, many bring up a specific clause listed in the First Amendment- freedom of speech. In an interview with Forbes, author Lon Safto states "Any form of censorship, any form, is unacceptable. Social platform such as Facebook, whose primary business is open communication between its over 2.7 billion members, have a moral and legal responsibility to allow those conversations to transpire, organically." However, do these social platforms have a legal duty to allow any type of speech on their platform? Or are they able to pick and choose what type of content users produce on their sites?

It is true that in the Constitution, your free speech is protected. However, free speech is protected from the government, not from privately owned companies. Twitter is a private company, which means the First Amendment rule does not apply here. This means that Twitter and other privately owned companies have no legal obligation to keep Trump on their platforms. In an article from the Washington Post, journalist Amber Phillips states "The First Amendment was designed to prevent Congress or the states from blocking people’s freedom to express themselves. In fact, you could argue that it protects the right of a company such as Twitter to decide for itself what content to allow." Phillips brings up the point that the First Amendment not only cannot be used against Twitter, it may actually be an aide to those trying to get Twitter shut down.

The First Amendment does not condone government intervention in free speech. However, no where in the Constitution does it state that a privately owned company is prohibited from determining what type of content is produced via their platform. Because of this, Twitter, and any other social media site, is in the clear when it comes to barring users from their platforms, regardless of who they are.