From the Editor

LAST WEEK the world watched as the seat of American democracy in Washington, D.C. was stormed by a pro-Donald Trump mob, egged on by the outgoing president in a desperate last-ditch effort to overturn the results of the election.

Footage from inside the Capitol showed that a group of rioters had reached one of the doors to the building and smashed out the glass. Another group managed to make their way into the Senate Rotunda, carrying Confederate flags. The Capitol police were seemingly outnumbered and many are still asking how the rioters breached the barricades.

One female rioter was shot and later died of her injuries, according to police. Three other people who experienced medical emergencies, also died. Explosive devices were found, while several police officers were injured. One Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, died from injuries sustained after being struck with a fire extinguisher by rioters, according to media reports.

On Jan. 7, following the riots, Twitter and Facebook both suspended Pres. Donald Trump from their platforms. The next day, Twitter made its suspension permanent.

Many praised the decision for preventing the president from doing more harm at a time when his adherents are taking cues from his false claims that the election was rigged. Republicans criticized it as a violation of Trump’s free speech.

The First Amendment protects individuals from government censorship. Social media platforms are private companies and can censor what people post on their websites as they see fit. But given their growing role in public discourse, it’s important to ask ourselves – what exactly are their censorship policies?

Both Facebook and Twitter have, in the past, contended that content posted by elected officials deserves more protection than the material from ordinary individuals, thus giving politicians’ speech more power than that of the people. Plenty of evidence that hateful speech from public figures has a greater impact than similar speech from ordinary users has proved them wrong in recent days.

Clearly, though, these policies aren’t always applied evenly around the world. After all, Trump is far from the only world leader using social media platforms to foment unrest.

Though there are certainly short-term benefits to banning Trump, the decision raises another question, namely, who should have the right to decide what we can and can’t say? And what does it mean when a corporation can censor a government official?

Despite what some Republicans keep repeating, there is nothing requiring these platforms to be neutral, nor should there be. If Facebook wants to ban Trump – or photos of breastfeeding mothers – that’s the company’s prerogative. The problem is not that Facebook has the right to do so, but that its users have little choice but to deal with increasingly problematic rules and automated content moderation.

Social media platforms need to ensure that their users have the tools to remedy wrong decisions, and should also stick to their existing commitments to responsible decision-making, ensuring the decisions they make about speech are in line with human rights standards, rather than making up rules as they go.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg in particular, has for years shown himself to be a poor judge of what is or isn’t appropriate expression. From the platform’s ban on showing women’s breasts to its tendency to suspend users for speaking back against hate speech, there’s simply no reason to trust Zuckerberg and other tech leaders to get these big decisions right.

Earlier last year the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that the agency would seek to regulate social media platforms at the behest of the Trump administration’s executive order.

Pai said in a statement that “social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters.”

The answer may lie in creating competition. This is where the Biden administration should focus its attention in the coming months. And those efforts must include reaching out to content moderation experts from both advocacy and academia, to understand the range of problems faced by users globally, rather than simply focusing solely on the debate at home.

While many of us may be celebrating Trump without Twitter, we need to be aware, that it could just as easily be one of us barred from using our favorite platform unless new, fair rules and regulations, as well as new platforms, are instituted.