Censorship and Privacy (Week 11)
Part 1: Censorship Actually, no. Really, what I want to talk about is not a case of censorship, despite often being portrayed as such. And this is not a one-off case either, this happens quite often when a public figure loses a platform because of something they did. I want to talk about Trump's Twitter ban. On the face of it, it can look ugly. The President himself being silenced by a multinational corporation? Outrageous! This has to be a violation of the First Amendment, right? Well, no. I am not a lawyer, but it must be said that the First Amendment only protects people and private entities from the government. So, for example, an American citizen may post (almost) anything online and the government cannot force them to delete the post or punish them for it. Also, the government cannot force a private entity to say something that entity does not believe in. So, let's say if a President (an agent of the government) demands that Twitter (a private company) reinstate his Twi