Facebook and Twitter’s decision to suspend Donald Trump is, legally speaking, fairly clear-cut. Both are private companies which set the rules on who is – and isn’t – allowed to use their sites. Even if you’re the leader of the free world you have no automatic right to a Twitter account.
The same logic applies to Parler – the self-described ‘unbiased’ social media platform – which has been booted off Google’s app store over its refusal to remove ‘egregious content’. As with Facebook and Twitter, Google Play is perfectly within its rights to select what apps it will and will not host.
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be serious consequences that arise from these decisions. Frustrations from both sides of the political divide have boiled over in response to the president’s social media ban. Republican senators and the American Civil Liberties Union are unhappy at the decision to suspend Trump. Even self-described socialist and Bernie Sanders supporter Emily Ratajkowski has lambasted the decision as one that could put left-wing groups at risk of being banned in the future.
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