Trump vs. Twitter (or ‘How to censor censorship’ by Donald J. Trump)

After one of his recent tweets on mail-in voting was flagged by Twitter’s new fact-checking features, President Trump has reportedly issued an executive order that seeks to “remove or change” a piece of legislation known as ‘Section 230’, which essentially protects platforms from liability for content posted by their users.

In Donald Trump’s endless quest to make an even bigger mockery of the whole leader-of-the-free-world malarkey that he’s been messing about with, he has now taken on… Twitter.

Why? Trump usually uses Twitter as his preferred tool of war. He crushes his opponents and critics with scathing commentary and then washes them away in a sea of MAGA encouraging ReTweets and news stories… Right?

It was right. Until Twitter decided that they would stick their bloody nose in and ruin everything.

Everything went Pete Tong when Twitter flagged one of Trump’s tweets on mail-in voting as potential misinformation:

Now the irony of the president who popularised the term “Fake News” with an entire generation of voters being pulled up on social media for misinformation should not be lost on you.

It gave me great amusement and cause to chuckle, BUT!

Whilst Trump is someone who accuses people of making fake news and ill-informed comments on a very regular basis, he (surprisingly) isn’t someone who takes those same accusations well when they’re levelled against him.

Okay, so Trump isn’t happy, and according to him he’s going to do something about it.

In comes the Presidential executive orders — “In the United States, a federal executive order is a directive issued by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government.”

“This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!” the president tweeted on Thursday morning before attacking by name the Twitter employee whom some conservatives have falsely claimed was responsible for adding the fact-check label to his tweets.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended the Trump fact-check, tweeting,

“Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”

Trump is proposing using an executive order to change Section 230, but what does Section 230 actually do?

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”

So essentially Section 230 stops Twitter being on the receiving end of a lawsuit because of some content posted by one of their users.

Makes sense, seeing as Twitter has over 150 million daily active users and 22% of all US adults use the social media platform. It’d be a legal (and logistical) nightmare if Twitter were personally accountable for every single bit of content, every tweet, every photo, every link… You get where I’m going here right?

President Trump argued that in flagging his tweet, Twitter had actually ‘edited’ his content and ‘ceases to become a neutral public platform and becomes an editor with a viewpoint’.

Most critics have suggested that the executive order won’t stand up to legal scrutiny and this will all disappear sooner rather than later, but if it was somehow passed, would this mean that Twitter (and other popular social media sites) have to stop offering their services in the United States?

US Attorney General William Barr has already taken steps to reassure people that the executive order signed on Thursday will not revoke Section 230, but he didn’t exactly elaborate on how it was going to impact the legislation either.

Law scholars like Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, have been quick to warn that it’s unlikely that America will see a social media shutdown as a result of this executive order.

“It’s largely atmospherics. It’s largely performative.. Twitter slapped Trump on the wrist… Trump responds with an attempt to blow up the entire internet.”

Okay, so it’s not really going to have an effect right? The whole point is to remind the social media companies that Donald is in charge and holds all the Top Trumps (I will not apologise for that one) cards right?

Seems to already be working on Facebook head honcho, Mark Zuckerberg who took an interview with Fox News as an opportunity to distance his company from Twitter and their stance on the issue, saying that Facebook should not be an ‘arbiter of truth’. Zuckerberg did, however, go on to challenge the very reasoning for the executive order.

“I think a government choosing to censor a platform because they’re worried about censorship doesn’t exactly strike me as the right reflex there.”

It’s something that has been repeatedly echoed by critics on both sides of the political spectrum in America.

If you can bear to stomach the unbearable stench of hypocrisy coming off anything to do with Trump and ‘fake news’, there’s also the fact that the government interfering in what private companies do with their private companies is pretty anti-republican, and he’s supposed to be a republican… right?

I guess it’s positive that Trump’s tantrum isn’t actually going to stop Twitter being able to provide services in the US, and whilst Trump is big mad because he was on the end of their fact-checking feature, could it arguably be a tool for good? The U.S Department for Justice have suggested that they’re using this as an opportunity to reassess the effectiveness of the legislation, but with more of a focus on internet safety, rather than censorship and ‘fake news’.

In my opinion, the potential for these platforms to abuse these powers needs to be closely monitored, but we can’t simply let them shirk their responsibilities to the truth. If Twitter uses their fact-checking features to censor the ideas and discourse that it doesn’t like, that’s obviously bad. In an Orwellian-in-need-of-rebellion kinda way. At the same time, platforms like Twitter are introducing these features in response to a deluge of fake news, bots, misinformation and more. They do have a responsibility to highlight reputable sources (take verified accounts for example) and discredit those that have proven to be misleading people.

Censorship is frightening stuff, but so is the feeling of entitlement to a right to lead others astray, especially from those we choose to lead.