Trump was banned on Twitter, why does Merkel want to "fight injustice"?
Text/Sun Jin (The author is a doctoral candidate at the Geneva Institute of Advanced International Studies)
The US social media giant Twitter unilaterally announced the ban on Trump's "title", but it quickly triggered a wave of doubts in many European countries across the ocean Many senior officials from Germany, France, and the European Union, including German Chancellor Merkel, have publicly expressed their opinions and objected to the practice of Twitter.
But European executives such as Merkel have strongly questioned this matter, which is different from the current status of "free speech" in the United States, which is hotly discussed on the Chinese Internet. They are concerned about the global hegemony of the US Internet oligarchs . This time, the "hegemonic behavior" of the US Internet giants such as Twitter has caused a bit of bitterness and sigh of the "weak country and weak people" in Europe, where the Internet giants are few.
"Young people do not speak morality" in the US Internet
In the information and communication technology industry, the US communications hardware market is open to the three major European telecommunications giants (ie Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent), and the European Internet market is also open to the US Internet The giant opened its arms. But there is a prerequisite for this open arms: American giants must abide by European rules , such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the General Data Protection Regulation.
Nowadays, Europe suddenly discovered that "young people do not speak morality" on the Internet in the United States. For example, French Finance Minister Le Maire stated on a radio program: "What shocked me was that Twitter (decided) to close his account. The supervision of the digital world cannot be done by digital oligarchs." European Commissioner Bray Dayton wrote: "It is puzzling that a company CEO can suddenly turn off the microphone of the President of the United States without any checks and balances. This not only confirms the power of these platforms, but also demonstrates the way the social digital space is organized. Deep weakness."
Obviously, they never thought that American Internet giants could turn off the microphone of the current elected president at will. In Western electoral politics, such an approach is tantamount to depriving the parties of their political rights and imposing targeted sanctions on political lynching . The American Internet giants are so arbitrary about their country’s incumbent president. If they do it in Europe in the future, what should they do? ? Does
Twitter title involve "freedom of speech"? There are different opinions on the legal issues involved in the
Twitter account. The focus of one type of controversy is the current state of "free speech" in the United States. Some people think that Twitter infringes Trump’s freedom of speech. In contrast, some people think that it just shows that freedom of speech has premises and boundaries, so it does not violate his freedom of speech.
What do you think of Europe? Europe’s questioning does not involve freedom of speech . Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression... and the freedom to receive and disseminate information and ideas without interference from public institutions”, which aims to protect individual expression from interference by public power. In fact, there are tens of thousands of precedents, and there is only one rule. To invoke the Human Rights Law, one must try to prove that although the defendant is a private enterprise, it is a public institution providing public services. The reason is "This is a public law, not a private law" .
and Twitter’s approach to Trump is related to the code of conduct of Internet companies in response to “hate speech”. This is first a private law issue. The two parties are individual users and Internet companies, both of which are civil entities and do not involve public authorities. It is possible to intervene only when it involves hate speech. Therefore, the public power must be cautious about this regulation. In this regard, the EU's regulatory framework is the "Code of Conduct for Combating Illegal Hate Speech Online" jointly signed by Internet giants and the "Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia" adopted by the European Union. But this decision is only a policy, not a law.
In the code of conduct, the Internet platform promises to review notifications requiring the removal of hate speech within 24 hours, and delete or prohibit access to content when necessary. However, I read the code of conduct and did not see that it can be "titled." It is not difficult to understand the concern expressed in the statement of the spokesperson of the German government on January 11.Worry: "(Merkel) Prime Minister believes that it is problematic for a (incumbent) president’s account to be frozen (unilaterally decided by Twitter’s management). (Such) basic rights are subject to interference, subject to the law Regulations. Its decision must be within the framework defined by the law, not from the management of the social media platform.”
Therefore, the focus of this civil dispute is whether the rights of social account holders have been infringed by the platform and what legal remedies are available. One way of thinking is that this is the category of private tort law, not the freedom of speech in public law. Therefore, the dispute is whether the Internet platform has the right to unilaterally stop account services based on hate speech censorship, and whether users can request the court to request the platform to resume account service. Another way of thinking is, since social account services have the characteristics of public service like tap water, can the court be asked to expand the interpretation of the meaning of "free from intervention by public institutions". It should be noted that, whether in Europe or the United States, the courts are often cautious about such expanded interpretations.
The freedom of speech under the American legal system is also generally the case, which is intended to protect citizens’ expressions from interference by public power, regardless of the words and deeds between civil subjects. The latter is mediated by civil law violations of reputation rights. Prior to 1996, the US case law rule was that the plaintiff could sue the defendant and its publisher to stop infringing on its right of reputation, and the publisher was obliged to review and joint compensation. The court held that Internet platforms and publishers were no different. Therefore, the Internet platform has not suffered less lawsuits. Internet giants vigorously lobbied the Clinton administration for public relations and passed Article 230 of the Communications Regulation Act. They formally obtained unlimited exemption privileges and were not responsible for content.
This time, Trump was "grouped" by the social media giants precisely because he continued to promote the suppression of the Internet giant . Last year, Trump, through the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, explicitly demanded to promote the abolition of Internet giants' privileges from civil lawsuits on the right to reputation. The executives of various giants were forced to attend congressional hearings and suffered humiliation and humiliation by members of Congress. During the period, stock prices plummeted, the crowd shouted and their public image plummeted. It is not difficult to understand why the giants are taking this opportunity to "report private revenge."
Trump's Twitter account was frozen
Why didn't Trump go to the court to "redress"?
If this is the case, why didn't Trump, who had "sue" in the past, not appealed to the court for justice this time? Twitter actually gave its own answer. The original text of Twitter on Trump's personal page is: "Accounts have been frozen, Twitter will freeze accounts that violate the "Twitter Rules"." The original English word for freezing is suspend, which literally means suspend. Here, Twitter specifically links the "Twitter Rules" in blue font.
"Twitter Rules" clearly states, "All individuals who access or use Twitter services must abide by the policies set out in these Twitter Rules. Otherwise, Twitter may take one or more of the following mandatory measures: requiring you to delete prohibited content first To create new posts again and interact with other Twitter users; temporarily restrict your ability to create posts or interact with other Twitter users; require you to use your phone number or email address to verify account ownership; or permanently freeze your account". Twitter’s rules further explain, “In order to ensure that people express different opinions and beliefs safely, we prohibit the abuse of cross-border behavior, including harassment, intimidation, or the use of fear to suppress the voice of other users.”, “ abuse And hateful behavior: Do not conduct targeted harassment of others, or incite others to do so... Do not conduct targeted harassment of individuals, groups, or protected categories or express hatred ."
, in other words, Twitter Think of its service as a conditional service agreement. When users register for Twitter, both parties conclude a contract with a civil relationship. If there are changes in the future, Twitter will also require customers to agree to the new Twitter rules as a supplementary agreement. If the user unilaterally violates the rules, Twitter will activate the content restriction function or even permanently freeze the account in accordance with the rules agreed by the user, which is equivalent to terminating the user service agreement.
Therefore, if Trump wants to go to court to bring justice, the first question is who the litigation counterpart is. Note that Trump cannot go to the court to invoke the First Amendment’s freedom of speech to sue the United States.The government of the United States, because it is not the US government agency that asked Twitter to do so. In the same way, he cannot directly use the First Amendment to sue Twitter, because Twitter is not a US government agency. In this way, if he sues Twitter, then the legal issue for Teplan’s legal counsel to assess is whether they can prove that Trump’s words and actions as a Twitter user do not constitute “abuse and hateful behavior”, or , Even if some of the words and deeds are slightly improper, but Twitter’s act of freezing accounts like this is illegal or can request the court to suspend the . Is there a simple way for
to understand this rule? some. Give two examples that are also accounts. An example around us is that we are tired of Internet platforms sending you spam messages every day, and various intermediaries and even fraudsters often call you to harass you. My personal feeling is that has very few spam messages in the United States and Europe, and a lot of spam emails . One of the reasons is that in the field of telecommunications, government agencies are very strict in law enforcement. If there is a complaint, the telecommunications operator will cancel the abused account. The text messages are archived by telecom operators, it is impossible not to know that this account is being abused. But why is there so much spam? Because Internet giants can use the 230 rule as an example, they are exempt from liability. Therefore, the European Union was very angry and passed the "General Data Protection Rules" so that every recipient can request to unsubscribe from mass mailing at any time.
gives another example of a bank account. You go to a European bank to open an account, and the bank will ask you to sign a user agreement, which is also available on the bank's official website. There is a sentence that you sign means that you agree that this account cannot be used for illegal purposes, such as suspected corruption, money laundering, and evasion of international sanctions. At the same time, you also agree that if the bank finds that the account has been used for illegal purposes, the bank has the right to terminate the service agreement and even freeze funds. If you don't sign, the bank won't open an account. You have opened an account. If the account is found to be used for illegal purposes, the bank can freeze it in the future according to a civil agreement agreed by both parties. Why so far no one has gone to court to challenge the rule of bank accounts? Because once the civil relationship is concluded, then it is "wind can enter, rain can enter, and the king can't enter" .
There is no shortage of excellent lawyers around Trump. They know these rules, so they haven't gone to the court to "redress grievances."
