Cedars, Spring 2021

Spring 2021 11 to attend a different institution. Similarly, tech companies may require certain behavior from those who willingly sign up for social media. There can be consequences if you do not abide by that behavior. However, you remain free to take your speech to another platform instead. What about when considering the usage of social media by public figures? Is it acceptable that a former president of the United States has been permanently prevented from using Twitter as a platform? Smith would say yes, it is acceptable. “The president may have actually fewer rights than the average citizen when it comes to his use of social media,” Smith said, pointing out that the president may not block people or delete posts. Twitter laid out its standards and, according to these terms, President Trump violated those standards and could be removed from the platform. This, however, doesn’t mean that tech companies and social media are always correct or consistent in how they apply those standards. “If we’re honest about it, the left controls most of the heights in our culture,” Smith said, noting that the left is influential in most media outlets, educational institutions, social media, and Silicon Valley. The domination of one ideology in several American institutions has led many on the right to seek recourse elsewhere. For example, popular right-wing political commentator Steven Crowder has sued Facebook for removing his videos and livestreams, allegedly without sufficient justification. However, Crowder remains a public figure prominent in political discourse. Another remedy that has been proposed by politicians and activists on both sides of the political aisle is repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 removes liability from online platforms for material posted on their site, meaning, for example, Twitter cannot be sued for something that a person tweeted. It also gives those platforms the ability to filter content, such as pornographic or violent material. However, repealing Section 230 would not necessarily be beneficial in the way that it is intended. First, it might remove companies’ incentives to remove pornography and other objectionable content. Additionally, there might be economic implications to limiting big tech. “The real danger in reforming it is that you’re potentially shackling the most vibrant and maybe even the most profitable part of our economy,” Smith said. If not repealing Section 230, are there other government actions that could provide a solution to big tech inconsistency? Smith isn’t so sure, given that the government at any given moment in time has its own ideology in play. “I do think the tech companies would be very wise to try to at least put more safeguards in place to make sure they’re just not making these choices based on purely ideology,” Smith said. “I’m not sure that’s best to come from the government.” Regardless of all the political turmoil and division, our role as users hasn’t much changed. “It’d be nice if Christians could be a positive influence on social media ... in a way that suggests we’re different,” Smith said. “Scripture tells us that we’ll be known by our love for one another, and even on social media, we don’t love each other very well.” Lydia Switzer is a junior Political Science major and a captain for Cedarville’s debate team. She enjoys drinking coffee, going for walks on spring days, and constitutional law. “It is not a violation of First Amendment rights to have a social media platform limit your access or take down your posts or even freeze you out of the site altogether.” CENSORED