Soooo..... a question for the group - is Twitter (which is 'free' to join) closing an account because they interpret the content as a violation of terms the same as as one person blocking another person because they dont want to hear their drivel?
However, Social Media sites are third party entities. ShadowSpear gives folks the boot every so often - does that mean ShadowSpear is violating free speech? There are probably members right now - blocking me - because I'm an asshole - c'est la vie.
Being endowed with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn't mean we get to catch happiness - just like I can't make people unblock me so that they have to endure my snarky, sarcastic, right leaning diatribes.
Using government power assets and resources to silence someone from talking is easily a violation of individual rights. I just don't think that there are any social media platforms being controlled by the government. Yet
- at least not until we start regulating them so that the "in" party" can sensor the "out" party.
Mileage may vary, some restrictions may apply, batteries not included
To the bolded- this question probably needs to be answered long before the question of the 1st on Twitter, because it informs context, which I think is pretty important because other than
@Cookie_ and
@Kraut783 I don't think people are grasping.
If Twitter is a utility (because it's evolved to be a platform for government officials to pass important unfiltered information directly to "the people", as the president likes to say), then citizens should not be disallowed from using that platform because of the views they express.
Replace Twitter with whatever electric company you'd like to choose and make an argument that the electric company should be able to deny you service because of your opinion on politics. "So what the electric company said you can't use their service- shouldn't have said universal health care was a good idea. There are no other electric companies, but there are options, so quit whining. You can just make solar panels. Or burn diesel. Oh, and there's no recourse, none of your communications will even get through."
I get that some generations may not "be there" in reference to what Twitter has become/is becoming; imagine if you wanted to call or write your congressman, and they blocked your phone number and stamped all your letters "return to sender" because they don't agree with an article you wrote. You would be ignored and denied any opportunity to criticize your elected official or be privy to policy that affects you as a constituent no matter how "correct" you are to do so. Moreover, you aren't allowed to be in the discussion with other constituents because you wouldn't even be informed that a conversation was taking place.
This is an important point that people are either ignoring or aren't aware of. When you block someone on Twitter, they can't Tweet at you which means the blocked person cannot engage on any conversation the person they blocked them starts.
Example-The president blocks an investigative reporter for whatever reason. The investigative reporter can't tweet at the president but all of the president's followers ALSO can't see anything that reporter would tweet at the president. So now, that reporter won't be seen by 8 million Americans because the president decided he didn't like what the reporter has to say. That is the government (the president) censoring the press to the tune of 8 million Americans because the government doesn't like what the press said.
The president took a lot of heat when he released his trans policy via Twitter. Deservedly so, some number of American citizens took to the president's Twitter to give him THEIR unfiltered opinion on his policy, because that's the generation we live in and the president opened the door to that sort of direct communication. The president's response? He blocked viewpoints he didn't agree with.
He literally made those dissenters unable to voice a contrarian viewpoint and made sure his 8 million followers didn't see it either. I get that some people dismiss Twitter as "something these darn kids use", but it's place in the zeitgeist is pretty firmly established. News breaks there. Policy breaks there. FEMA and emergency services post information there before National Warning Systems.
So, IF Twitter is deemed a utility and not a publishing platform that can't be moderated the way it is now, AND we agree that citizens have the right to contact their elected officials on the platform (when those government officials make it clear they're using it for official business which the president clearly is), then we all need to accept the circumstance for the here and now and examine if silencing someone in that context is inhibiting on their free speech.
