Private businesses, including tech companies, have a First Amendment and property right to determine who and what type of speech they host on their platforms - a view that has been upheld by the Supreme Court, Fallows said, particularly by conservative judges who ruled in favor of the businesses.īut the same protection did not apply to Trump's own Twitter account when he blocked several users because it was considered a public political forum to which First Amendment protections applied.
Trump and many of his allies have called for a repeal of Section 230 to curb the power of social media companies, but Fallow points out that a repeal would "ironically" hurt their own cause, especially if Trump does follow through by starting his own social media platform.įor instance, with Section 230 in place, Trump-friendly platforms like Parler - which is increasingly being used by Trump and his supporters after the president was suspended from Twitter - are shielded from liability over the speech of its users so they don't have to regulate it.Īccording to experts, platforms like Parler helped create echo chambers for violence and extremist views and also provided a platform for some of the coordination of last week's attack.īut social media companies also have legal grounds for making a First Amendment argument in defense of their policies, including the decision to suspend Trump's account - or anyone else's. Meanwhile, social media companies are protected under federal law by Section 230 - a provision of the 1996 Communications and Decency Act, which shields platforms from being held liable in court for the speech of users, unlike traditional media companies Top Democratic congressional lawmakers released a report in October about the dominance Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, stating, "To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."
Antitrust laws apply to other big companies and in a new world dominated by social media, lawmakers on both sides have argued that anti-trust laws need to be overhauled to rein in big tech.
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