Journal of Free Speech Law: “The First Amendment Meets the Virtual Public Square,” by Allison Stanger
The article is here; the Introduction:
On January 6, 2021, with the encouragement of President Donald Trump, a motley crew of “Stop the Steal” zealots stormed the U.S. Capitol, destroying lives and property. In response, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook took the unprecedented step of deplatforming a freely elected U.S. president. Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account, Google’s YouTube shut him down indefinitely, and Facebook closed his account but referred its decision to Facebook’s newly assembled Global Oversight Board for review. Yet two years later, in January 2023, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account, and Facebook announced the lifting of Trump’s ban, without any public explanation. There was no public outcry.
At the time of Trump’s social media silencing, there had been considerable public debate over whether such dramatic action had been warranted. For liberal elites, it had happened far too late. For red-state America, the very idea of censoring a freely elected president was unacceptable. Both sides of this discussion had a point but were asking the wrong questions, and in doing so, lost the plotline of the real story. Things had gone too far so that every choice at the time was a bad choice. Rather than asking if Big Tech should have silenced Donald Trump after Januar
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