Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

The problem inevitably has flared up: Twitter's head of integrity leading this push has previously tweeted that Trump is a Nazi and accused the flyover states of being racist.

https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1265463081997484032

This isn't going to end well, and unless Twitter is going to exercise this impartially (which is impossible given a human is involved), they are going to lose their platform status, and justifiably so.

What’s “platform status”?

You can either be a 'platform' for other people to speak, where you aren't held responsible for the content you host, or you can be a 'curator' where you control the content and are responsible or what you host.

The trouble with Twitter (in some people's view) is that they play both sides- they're just a public platform when there is something illegal that they're hosting, but they're a curator when they don't like what you've posted.

You can also be both.

Like every newspaper website that has a comment section. They are responsible for the parts they publish but not the user generated comments. There is no legal requirement to be one or the other.

For whatever reason, most people seem to get this backwards.

Here is the relevant legal code Section 230 C1: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service, a platform, shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

There is nothing in the law that says a publisher is responsible for user generated contact (even if they moderate it). In fact the law says just the opposite.

Edit: added note in parenthesis