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 American 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.
However, the focus of strong doubts by European executives such as Merkel and other European leaders is different from the current status of "free speech" in the United States that 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 European telecommunications giants (ie Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent), and the European Internet market is also open to the US Internet giants Opened his 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 a practice is tantamount to depriving the parties of their political rights and committing political lynching with targeted sanctions. 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. How does
look at Europe? The question of Europe does not involve much 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 that provides public services.
and Twitter’s approach to Trump involves internet companies’ code of conduct for “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 concerns expressed by the German government spokesperson’s statement on January 11: "The Chancellor (Merkel) believes that the account of a (incumbent) president has been frozen (unilaterally decided by Twitter management).There is a problem. (Such) basic rights can be interfered, but the law must be followed. Its decision must be within the framework defined by the law, not from the management of the social media platform. "Z3z
Therefore, the focus of this civil dispute is whether the rights and interests 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 lies in Does the Internet platform have the right to unilaterally stop account services based on hate speech censorship? Can users 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 services like tap water, can they request the court? Expansion of the meaning of “free from public agency intervention.” What needs to be explained is that, whether in Europe or the United States, courts are often cautious about such expanded interpretations. Z3z
The freedom of speech under the American legal system is also generally the same, and it is intended to protect Citizen expression is free from interference by public power, regardless of the words and deeds between civil subjects. The latter is mediated by civil law violations of the right of reputation. Before 1996, the US case law rule was that the plaintiff could sue the defendant and its publisher Stop infringing on its reputation rights, and publishers are liable for censorship and joint compensation obligations, and the court held that Internet platforms and publishers are no different, so Internet platforms have not lost lawsuits. Internet giants vigorously lobbied the Clinton administration for public relations and passed the " According to Article 230 of the Communications Regulation Act, they formally obtained unlimited exemption privileges and are not responsible for the content.
This time, Trump was "grouped" by social media giants precisely because he continued to promote the suppression of Internet giant . Last year Trump, through the newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, clearly demanded to promote the abolition of Internet giants’ privileges from civil lawsuits on the right to reputation. Executives of the giants were forced to attend congressional hearings and suffered humiliation and humiliation by congressmen. During the period, the stock price plummeted and the masses Everyone shouted and beaten, and the public image plummeted. It is not difficult to understand why the giants have to take the opportunity to "public revenge".
Trump's Twitter account has been frozen
Why didn't Trump go to the court to "redress"?
So, why didn’t Trump, who had been "sue" in the past, not appealing to the court for justice this time? Twitter actually gave his own answer. The original text of Twitter on Trump's personal page is: "Account has been frozen , Z6zTwitter will freeze accounts that violate the "Twitter Rules"." The original English text of the freeze is suspend, which literally means suspend. Here, Twitter links the "Twitter Rules" with blue fonts.
"Twitter Rules" clearly states, "All Individuals who access or use Twitter services must abide by the policies set out in these Twitter rules. Otherwise, it may cause Twitter to take one or more of the following mandatory measures: requiring you to delete prohibited content before you can create new posts and interact with other Twitter users; temporarily restrict your ability to create posts or interact with other Twitter users; You are required 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 safely express different opinions and beliefs, we prohibit abuse of transboundary behavior. Including harassment, intimidation, or the use of fear to suppress the voice of other users", " abuse and hate behavior: do not conduct targeted harassment of others, or incite others to do so...Do not affect individuals, groups or victims The protection category conducts targeted harassment or expresses hatred . "Z3z
In other words, Twitter regards its services as a conditional service agreement. When users register for Twitter, the two parties conclude a contract with a civil relationship. If there are future changes, Twitter will also require customers to agree to the new Twitter rules as a supplementary agreement. If the user unilaterally violates the rules, then 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 To go to court for justice, the first question is who the litigation counterpart is. Note that Trump cannot go to court to invoke the First Amendment’s freedom of speech to sue the US government, because it is not a US government agency that requires Twitter to do so. For the same reason, he cannot directly use the First Amendment to sue Twitter because Twitter is not a US government agency.If he sues Twitter, then the legal issue that Teplan’s legal counsel will assess is whether they can provide evidence that Trump’s words and deeds as a Twitter user do not constitute “abuse and hateful behavior”, or, Even though some of the words and deeds are slightly improper, Twitter's act of freezing accounts like this is illegal or can request the court to suspend . 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 spamming 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 very good lawyers around Trump. They know these rules, so they haven't gone to the court to "redress justice".
