In the wake of the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol and tech giants Twitter and Facebook’s subsequent decision to permanently ban former president Donald Trump from their social media platforms, a contingent of conservative voices and Trump supporters expressed outrage over the companies’ actions and called foul, citing a violation of free speech as the basis for their outrage.
Five days following the capitol insurrection, conservative leaning social media internet application Parler, a microblogging alternative to Twitter, filed a lawsuit against Amazon Web Services after the company announced on January 10 that “(It) was not confident Parler could properly police its platform regarding content that encourages or incites violence against others” and subsequently pulled the plug on the social network’s web hosting services.
As detailed in the text for a civil action for injunctive relief filed on January 11, “When Twitter announced two evenings ago that it was permanently banning President Trump from its platform, conservative users began to flee Twitter en masse for Parler. The exodus was so large that the next day, yesterday, Parler became the number one free app downloaded from Apple’s App Store.”
As recently reported by the Associated Press, a federal judge ruled against a plea to reinstate Parler, the social media app favored by followers of former President Donald Trump, rejecting its argument that Amazon violated antitrust laws and conspired with Twitter.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said Parler, which brands itself as “the solution to
problems that have surfaced in recent years due to changes in Big Tech policy influenced by various special-interest groups,” had fallen short in demonstrating the need for an injunction forcing it back online.
But even before the ruling against Parler, conservatives and internet users took to social media to denounce big tech’s efforts to silence Trump, asserting that the former President’s free speech protections were being violated. Fox host San Hannity, a frequent supporter of Trump stated, “I’ve spent my entire career fighting for free speech, even for those I strongly disagree with. We stand with Parler in the fight for free and open dialogue.”
I am not Constitutional scholar by any means, but what most of the people missed in their defense of Trump’s First Amendment protection, is that the first Amendment’s guarantee of free speech has never been absolute, dating back to the Sedition of Act of 2018, the Supreme Court’s subsequent establishment of the “Clear and Present Danger” as a legal standard and more recently landmark decisions concerning political speech.
James Walker, Professor of Political Science at Wright State University, points out in an article printed in The First Amendment Encyclopedia, an online repository of The Free Speech Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy center, In Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), “the Supreme Court established that speech advocating illegal conduct is protected under the First Amendment unless the speech is likely to incite ‘imminent lawless action.'”
I would say a violent attack on the nation’s capital which left five people dead qualifies as imminent lawless action.
The jury is still out on whether Trump will face any damaging, long lasting political consequence following the Senate’s upcoming impeachment trial, it seems unlikely. But there appears to be little doubt, despite rhetoric to the contrary, that big tech’s sanctions and banning of the former president were legal actions taken following historical legal precedent. The same can be said of Parler which, in the wake of Amazon revealing violent content and death threats which led to the social media’s suspension, has lost credibility in their arguments alleging their suspension was primarily politically motivated.
Ariel Carmona Jr. is the Managing Editor of the Lake County Record-Bee.
