Digital Media Regulation

US Law Section 230 (1996)

A media platform is not held responsible for the content on their site.

The company must regulate its own content as long as it acts in good faith.

Exemptions: Copyright, Prostitution, Sex trafficking

Twitter and their Platform Policy

The Twitter Rule: 

"Twitter's purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely."

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

On Friday, 8 January 2021, Twitter Inc. published a blog regarding the permanent suspension of Donald Trump's official twitter account. 

On January 8, 2021, former President Donald J. Trump Tweeted:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the former President Tweeted:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

After receiving criticism and number of reports from other Twitter users, Twitter decided to conduct an assessment on those tweets.

Twitter then concluded that the languages in these Tweets are against their Glorification of Violence policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service. Twitter's action aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A few hours from its account suspension, Trump tried to bypass it by tweeting from the official presidential account, @POTUS. He immediately shared a series of tweets accusing the social media company of “banning free speech” and attacking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1995.

Citing concerns over “the risk of the US president using the platform to incite further violence”. Twitch, Vimeo, Reddit and Shopify, Facebook and YouTube joined Twitter by suspending or limiting Trump’s access to their platforms.

These actions come after years of criticism that social media companies have not done enough to clamp down on Trump for spreading misinformation and inciting violence.

One of the challenges of digital media regulations is how social media companies can only regulate contents after the post is published and shared to the internet.

In 19 November 2022, Elon Musk, the new owner of twitter posted a poll on his twitter account (@elonmusk) asking other twitter user to weigh in on whether Trump should be allowed to return. The poll ended with the majority agreeing to the former President Trump being reinstated. 

However, Trump decided to not return to Twitter and stated that he would stick with his new platform Truth Social, developed by his Trump Media and Technology Group startup.

Previously, in early 2020, Trump has made an attempt to alter Section 230 by releasing an executive order targeting section 230 and social media. The order asked regulators to redefine Section 230 more narrowly, bypassing the authority of Congress and the courts.