Social Media Faces Reckoning As Trump Ban Forces Reset

Social media giants crossed a threshold in banning US President Donald Trump and an array of his supporters — and now face a quandary on defining their efforts to remain politically neutral while promoting democracy and free speech.

Trump was banned from inciting rioters on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google-owned YouTube and Snapchat after the unprecedented violence at Congressional headquarters. The Parler alternative network, which attracted many Trump supporters, was driven offline by the web services unit of Amazon. 

The bans broke new ground for internet firms but also shattered the longstanding notion that they are simply neutral platforms open for all to express any views.

“Banning Donald Trump was a crossing of a Rubicon for social media firms, and they can’t go back,” said Samuel Woolley, a professor and researcher with the University of Texas Center for Media Engagement.

“Up to now their biggest goal was to promote free speech, but recent events have shown they can no longer do this.”

Twitter chief Jack Dorsey last week defended the Trump ban while acknowledging it stemmed from “a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation” and that it “sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.”

Javier Pallero, policy analyst for Access Now, a non-profit digital rights organization, said Trump's ban may be only the beginning for social media platforms that are dealing with dangerous material, even from political leaders.

“The companies have reacted to calls for violence by the president in the United States, and that’s a good call. But they have failed in other areas like Myanmar,” where social media has been used to carry out persecution, Pallero said.

– Human rights first? –

Social platforms are being forced in some part of the world to choose to follow national laws or to prioritize human rights principles, Pallero noted.

“We ask platforms to put human rights first. Sometimes they do, but all decisions on content governance are always a game of frustration,” he said.

In authoritarian regimes with restrictive social media laws, Pallero said the platforms “should stay and give a voice to democracy activists… however if they have to identify dissidents or censor them, they probably should leave, but not without a fight.”

Woolley said social networks that banned Trump are likely to face pressure to take action against similarly styled leaders who abuse the platforms.

“They can’t simply ban a politician in the US without taking similar action around the world,” he said. “It would be seen as prioritizing the United States in way that would be seen as unfair.”

– Platform power –

For Twitter, which the president used for policy updates and to communicate with his more than 80 million followers, Trump's ban was a big move. Until recently, when implementing laws, platforms have provided world leaders with leeway, noting that their remarks are in the public interest even though they are provocative.

The de-platforming of Trump underscored the immense power of a handful of social networks over information flows, noted Bret Schafer, a researcher with the nonprofit Alliance for Securing Democracy.

“One of the things that compelled them to act was that we saw the president’s rhetoric manifest itself into real-world violence,” Schafer said. “That may be where they draw the line.”

But he noted inconsistencies in enforcing these policies in other parts of the world, including in authoritarian regimes.

“The is a legitimate argument on whether leaders in some of these countries should be allowed to have an account when their citizens do not, and can’t take part in the discussion,” Schafer said.

– Regulatory conundrum –

Internet firms are likely to face heightened calls for regulation following the recent turmoil.

Karen Kornbluh, who heads the German Marshall Fund's digital innovation and democracy project, said any legislative tweaks should be minimal in order to prevent government censorship of online expression.

Kornbluh said platforms should have a clear "code of conduct" that limits violence to misinformation and rewards and should be kept accountable if they do not comply with such conditions.

“I don’t think we want to regulate the internet,” she said. “We want to apply offline protection for individual rights.”

Platforms could also use “circuit breakers” to prevent inflammatory content from going viral, modeled as those used on Wall Street for extreme swings.

“The code should focus not on content but practices,” she said. “You don’t want the government deciding on content.”

Schafer cited a need for “some algorithmic oversight” of platforms to ensure against bias and amplification of inflammatory content.

He said the controversial Section 230 law remains important in enabling platforms to remove inappropriate content, but that it remains challenging “to moderate in a way that protects free speech and civil liberties.”

Daniel Kreiss, a professor and researcher with the University of North Carolina’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, said the major platforms “are going to have to rebuild their policies from the ground up” as a result of the crisis.

“This situation absolutely reveals the power of platform companies to make decisions on who gets hurt in the public sphere,” Kreiss said.

“The power they have is not simply free speech, it’s free amplification. But because they are private companies, under the law we give them a fair amount of latitude to set their own policies.”