When I turn my column in each week to newspapers, editors decide whether it will be published.
I have no constitutional right to see my thoughts appear in the paper or any other publication.
My First Amendment rights are great. But they are no greater than those who own and manage newspapers.
Similarly, President Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights should be no greater than the rights of any business, such as Twitter.
In reality, the president has more power and a much bigger voice than the rest of us. As president, he has the attention of the media and the resources of the federal government. He does not, however, have a constitutional right to punish people or businesses because he disagrees with them.
That, in fact, is what the First Amendment is about. Its free speech provisions were not meant to protect the president from mean things people might say. The First Amendment was intended to protect people from mean things government might do to shut them up.
Trump’s threats to punish Twitter are another instance in which he has broken with historic norms. They came after Twitter labeled one of his tweets. The label was a link to a fact-check of the president’s claims about election fraud and mailed ballots.
Trump earned a second label a few days later. That was after he threatened to shoot looting protesters in Minneapolis.
To be clear, Twitter is not treating the president as it would other users. Most other users with Trump’s record of false claims, name-calling and threats would have had posts deleted and their accounts suspended or banned.
But Twitter’s executives think the president’s tweets – and those of others who hold important positions – should be handled differently. About a year ago, after repeated complaints from Trump’s critics about unequal enforcement of the rules, Twitter announced it would label material posted by high-ranking officials that violated its standards.
And although the president subsequently flouted those standards, Twitter refrained from doing anything until the false posts on voter fraud. Then, the company did not delete Trump’s tweets. It did not change them. It did not say they were false. It did not punish the tweeter. It gave readers a way to check the validity of Trump’s claims.
Trump responded by threatening to eliminate federal protections that exist for companies that do business on the internet. Those protections are known as Section 230.
A piece in MarketWatch explains Section 230 like this: It “… shields companies that can host trillions of messages from being sued into oblivion by anyone who feels wronged by something someone else has posted – whether their complaint is legitimate or not.
“Section 230 also allows social platforms to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in ‘good faith.’ ’’
The president argues there is no good faith. He claims Twitter and other social media companies treat conservatives unfairly. That’s more of a rallying cry than a fact. But, even if true, Trump’s punitive reaction seems ironic, counterproductive and unAmerican.
Ironic because Trump’s tweets are precisely the kind of content that is protected by Section 230.
Counterproductive because more litigation will stifle voices while making lawyers richer.
And unAmerican because it’s the kind of vindictive use of power our founders tried to guard against.
A Plains View 