{"id":2826,"date":"2019-01-30T13:54:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T13:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/?page_id=2826"},"modified":"2025-12-31T13:03:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:03:34","slug":"digital-content","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/digital-content\/","title":{"rendered":"DIGITAL ACCESS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump supporters outside the US Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. (Wikipedia, Tyler Merbler).<\/p><\/div>\r\n

DE-PLATFORMING<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Social media companies have\u00a0 terms of service that can shut down\u00a0 content and accounts that promote violence, misinformation and hate speech.\u00a0 For want of a better term, this is called “de-platforming.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

The best-known instance of de-platforming<\/strong> was\u00a0 a permanent ban on US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account<\/a> announced on Jan. 8, 2021. The announcement took place two days after the attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s followers in an attempt to stop the election certification process and to execute the vice president on the US Capitol mall.\u00a0 Trump played a major role by helping to pay for and organize the protests and by giving speeches that incited violence.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

In response, Facebook and Twitter suspended Trump<\/strong> “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Legal opinion tended to place Trump’s Jan. 6 speech in the \u201cimminent action\u201d category of speech not protected by the First Amendment.\u00a0 Harvard Law professor\u00a0<\/span>Einer Elhauge.<\/a> says Donald Trump clearly went beyond the First Amendment boundary and incited imminent lawless action.\u00a0 \u00a0(See\u00a0\u201cThe First Amendment Doesnt protect Trump\u2019s Incitement.<\/a>\u201d)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Trump, in return, <\/span>\u00a0filed a lawsuit<\/a> against Facebook, Twitter and Google on July 7, 2021, claiming that the tech giants were “state actors” (by virtue of their protection through Section 230) and that <\/span>censorship by de-platforming was unconstitutional.<\/a>\u00a0 However, since the social media tech giants are private entities (not government actors), Trump’s legal argument does not apply.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

When Trump regained the White House, Twitter (X)\u00a0 and Facebook (Meta) responded to the de-platforming lawsuits<\/a> with $10 and $25 million settlements.\u00a0 Similar settlements for Trump’s lawsuits against ABC\/Disney\u00a0 for $15 million in 2024 and CBS \/ Paramount \/ Skydance were also settled for $16 million in 2o25.\u00a0 All four lawsuits were frivolous and, in a different era, would never have been settled. They show a casual\u00a0 disregard for the First Amendment by the media corporations and President Trump. Steven Colbert called the CBS settlement “a big fat bribe.”<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Trump also created a new social media channel called “Truth Social”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 And he\u00a0 began an investigation<\/a> into 1\/6 de-platforming on the first day of his second presidential term with the idea that HE was the victim.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0

Many others on the right wing were also de-platformed. <\/strong>According to the BBC, <\/span>Twitter suspended more than 70,000 accounts<\/a> linked to the false right-wing conspiracy theory <\/span>QAnon<\/a>. Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Services\u00a0<\/span>banned<\/a> the right-wing Twitter alternative Parler, temporarily <\/span>shutting down the site.<\/a>\u00a0 An anti-trust lawsuit by Parler was not successful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Others de-platformed are those who continued to claim that Trump won the 2020 election. Among them are Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell,\u00a0 <\/a>(who later said she was “just kidding”<\/a>), former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the insurrectionist “my pillow” guy,\u00a0 and Virginia state senator Amanda Chase\u00a0 <\/a>who has been challenged by the state attorney general<\/a> to provide evidence to back up claims of fraud.\u00a0 US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green was\u00a0 also “de-platformed” on Jan. 2, 2022,\u00a0 by Twitter<\/a> .\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Among the many questions<\/strong> about “de-platforming” are:<\/p>\r\n