Free speech has been, and probably always will, be a contentious issue when it comes to the internet, especially in social media. There are people who assert that free speech means just that--free speech. Meaning anyone should be allowed to say whatever they please no matter the controversy it stirs. Others maintain a stance that anyone should be banned from social media no matter who the person is if said person is intentionally stirring violence. Furthermore, social media companies are a privately-owned business and First Amendment rights to free speech extend only on public property. Therefore, the right to free speech falls solely on social media, not the federal government. Social media’s protection is based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a clause that protects social media platforms from being liable for defamation lawsuits over content that users publish. As a result, social media platforms are not liable by the public or the federal government to remove content on their website. The decision to remove controversial content lies solely on the company of the platform it is published. Twitter’s, and other social medias but particularly Twitter’s, decision to permanently ban Trump from its platform did not come lightly. For years, even before Trump’s election in 2016, people have been calling for the proponent social media service to ban him from the platform because of numerous tweets they pointed out explicitly violated the terms of service. But Twitter always maintained Trump had special status over his identity as the President of the United States, or even a presidential candidate. Even after Trump used the platform to threaten nuclear war in 2017 if his demands were not met, Twitter still maintained that stance. Finally, when Trump used his platform to encourage his supporters to voice their minds literally. He encouraged them to rat out the Democrats for to prevent the president-elect Joe Biden from being elected president. When his protestors did storm the capitol building, Trump posted a video asking his supporters to leave and finished saying, “We Love You”. Twitter took it down because it did not help deter the violence. They then suspended Trump’s account for 12 hours. Then permanently. When I first thought about the issue in the first couple of years since Trump announced his candidacy, I remained conflicted on the issue of deplatforming public figures that incite violence and proponents of xenophobia. I initially remained indifferent if political pundits such as Alex Jones should be allowed to post videos on YouTube if they post content that called the Sandy Hook shootings a Democratic conspiracy to eliminate the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. The decision to ban a political pundit or a world leader that spread harmful conspiracy theories lied solely on social media platforms and was not the public’s or the federal government’s decision to make, so I felt either decision was sufficient because free speech is subjective. But calling for racial violence and stoking racial tensions is a moral line that cannot be crossed. When it became increasingly apparent that a world leader like Trump could use a popular social media platform like Twitter to incite violence, I realized that Twitter had a moral obligation about their role in world events. They had to express that their platform is used for people to share their opinions and not express incite violence. Social media companies have a moral obligation to maintain civility on their platforms even if users inciting violence and touting harmful conspiracy theories are world leaders looking for attention. CITATIONS: Barry, Dan, and Sheera Frenkel. “‘Be There. Will Be Wild!’: Trump All but Circled the Date.” The New York Times, 8 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html. Legal Information Institute. “47 U.S. Code § 230 - Protection for Private Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material.” LII / Legal Information Institute, 1996, www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230. Newton, Casey. “It’s Time to Deplatform Trump.” The Verge, 7 Jan. 2021, www.theverge.com/2021/1/6/22217894/deplatform-trump-twitter-ban-facebook-youtube-congress-capitol-riots.

I do not agree that social media companies should *ban* users as this word implies permanence. Although bad behaviour must be reprimanded, it is too extreme to completely remove someone's social media presence. Instead, it would be more beneficial to *reprimand*. Comparatively, in our contemporary society, when someone commits a crime we do not take away their life through the death penalty but instead (temporarily) take away their freedom through prison sentence. Removing someone from social media access temporarily would give them time to reflect upon their behaviour and improve for the better. Moreover, in the way that reform has better effects than punishment, it would be more beneficial to educate the people in question instead of cast them off through total banning.

Social media should ban users for bad behavior, not because of any legal rule or ethical or theological philosophy, but because it indicates a possible social violation that needs to be looked at. I think back on an episode that John Oliver did a while back about public shaming. He made the claim that a limited amount of public shaming is appropriate and good because it reinforces the norms we want to see in society. Though he also states that too much public shaming has led to a cancel culture that is toxic to public life. I qualify banning public figures, and ordinary users, as a form of healthy shaming. This isn't a universal rule though, because people will debate whether the behavior was actually 'bad.' But that debate is **essential** to healthy public life. If someone is called out for bad behavior it allows society to look closer - regardless of whether the banning was right or wrong. Banning can be a powerful tool to establishing healthy public life and civic engagement.