I. Ask the world who is the king
After some demonstrators stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, the social media platform Twitter announced that it had “permanently banned” Trump. Twitter explained that the reason for permanently banning Trump is that he “risks further incitement to violence” and violates the Twitter platform’s ban on glorifying violence.
When Trump called for demonstrations, he advocated a ‘peaceful, patriotic approach’ and his further call was for people to walk to Capitol Hill, not for demonstrators to storm and occupy. The Twitter platform is ‘mouth with the constitution of heaven’, there is neither questioning nor defense from lawyers of both sides, and there is no hearing from netizens and participants of demonstrations, ‘decapitation’ of Trump’s platform account, who is the king? Who is the king? Who is the ‘dictator’, it is clear.
Is the platform depriving just one particular internet user of his right to speak? No, its severity can be described as a book burning in the online kingdom, it ‘burned’ more than 36,000 messages sent by Trump in four years, so that 88 million users followers can not receive new tweets from Trump, which seems to be a ‘pit’ of a person. It is also depriving more than 80 million people of the right to receive information freely, while the name it uses is to prevent violence against the state. Just one trumped up charge is all it takes to put someone on death row?
Twitter may not realize that it is committing cyber violence by blocking others on trumped up charges, glorifying its bullying as a restriction on public power or banning internet users from glorifying violence in cyberspace. While Trump’s ‘glorification of violence’ has been found to be unsubstantiated, Twitter’s bullying of internet users has become a fact.
When the Internet first emerged, people discussed whether technology was king or content was king. Should we now discuss whether netizens should be king, stockholders should be king, or CEOs should be king? Platform technology has been invisible, and content is created by the interaction of netizens. It can be said that Trump is the chief netizen of the Twitter platform for four years, bringing rich content and huge traffic to the platform, but the political stance determines the attitude, and platforms such as Twitter ostensibly represent social justice, but in fact represent the group interests of international capital and high-tech platforms, and have implemented bullying against Trump.
Second, the platform is taking the blame or for the sake of power?
Twitter CEO said: ‘You don’t like our platform rules, you can choose another platform.’
This is a kind of power or even robber baron logic, factories if randomly fired on workers, trade union organizations can help defend their rights, that is, trade union organizations become the defender of individual workers’ rights, when the platform is bigger, can bully any netizen, clause 230 and added to protect the platform, at this Time, the mainstream society should consider more is how to check and balance the most powerful.
This is the fundamental reason for the platform to block the dissenters, that is to say, the platform has transformed into a political platform of a certain party, and has the privilege to kill or kill the speakers. Trump and his supporters switched to the PARLER platform and were immediately hunted down and killed, with Facebook, Apple, Amazon and others joining the hunting party. The plutocrats, like the warlords, began to dictate one side and threaten the world.
The aesthetics of acceptance holds that it is the recipient who co-creates the classics. The media platform is not a private club platform; the billion-dollar audience has become the main part. Blocking one person is actually blocking the right to receive the attention of countless individuals.
The defender says that the state, Section 230, protects the platform and he can do so. Since Section 230 helps platforms avoid the risk of liability, why should platforms take the blame? Trump’s speech if illegal, anyone with the platform can legally appeal, if the audience is worried about being compelled, you can blue label tips, or the obvious incitement to tweets to delete, can effectively prevent extreme situations appear, the platform to Trump account a letter, obviously extreme behavior, the purpose is not to take responsibility, but to take power, the platform to take power, but not subject to the law, it becomes a totalitarian, even if the stock market fell, the A large number of registered users fled, the economy suffered such a heavy blow, decision makers still insist that it is the right decision, obviously, their political will and interests have been above all.
Platform Community: Freedom and Democracy
The platform has formed a virtual society with hundreds of millions of registered users, which is essentially a digital kingdom. Interaction and sharing are the signs of online freedom and platform democracy, and many customary laws have been formed in the virtual space, so rational users know what may be discriminatory and violent language, and what behaviors are illegal.
The creation and adaptation of platform users to the platform community is formed over time, forming a human ecology or language ecology and a special community relationship between people. So platform users who are blocked, not only a right to speak is deprived, their own online community is also destroyed. If you are not satisfied with the platform, it is possible to go to a new space to register, but what about interpersonal relationships, what about the original content? The blockers obviously did not pay attention to the dignity and community rights of the original people who are the subjects of the community.
The reason why the platform enjoys Section 230 protection is that it is a growing and developing space, and without the protection of national laws, it will be caught in unlimited legal disputes and cannot grow into a big tree. By the same token, personal space should also be protected by the platform, because the humility of individuals, it is difficult to defend their rights, and the platform is arbitrarily blocked for political reasons, which of course is blocking the freedom of speech and destroying the democracy of the virtual community.
The fall of the stock market and the flight of netizens is a kind of counterattack, and the vocal criticism of dignitaries and media is also a kind of constraint, but these are still far from enough. Between workers and factories, there are union organizations to constrain, which is an organizational force that cannot be replaced by law and media, and between platforms and platform users, what is missing is an organization of netizens, which is a negative response when Trump claims to build another platform, and platform users or audiences to build organizations and have a team of lawyers, both to work on modifying or repealing the original Article 230 and to establish a convention with the platform giants. Platforms bind netizens, and netizen organizations bind platform managers. The platform rules we see now are unilateral rules, and all interpretations are on the platforms themselves.
The new hegemony formed by the big platforms and related high-tech companies has both the hegemony in the virtual world and supranational borders in the real world. It not only places itself above the president of the country, but also ignores the rights and interests of tens of millions of consumers, and with the special laws of the country added to its protection, it can be said that it is invincible and invincible to all. Therefore, it is important to consider and respond to the issue of limiting the influence and control of the totalitarian power of data as a big issue, so that there will be true freedom and democracy and rule of law in the virtual kingdom.
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