Donald Trump: Can Twitter dump the US President?
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House of Cards creator Beau Willimon has called for Twitter to shut down US President Donald Trump's account because it is a "threat" to national security.
It was sparked by Mr Trump's latest allegation — on Twitter — that then-president Barack Obama "wire tapped" Trump Tower before the 2016 US election.
"Today's tantrum is just the latest example of why @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS must be removed from @Twitter," he wrote.
The man behind the American political drama series then articulated his reasons in a 16-tweet thread. (You can read the entire thread at the end of this article.)
After remarking that the President's presence on Twitter comes with "supreme and unique responsibility unlike any other user," Mr Willimon said Mr Trump's tweets have a "real and significant impact".
"Trump has consistently made misleading claims, attacked the judiciary and threatened sovereign states, the press and pubic," he wrote.
"Even as a private citizen it is arguable that he has violated Twitter rules regarding violent threats, harassment and hateful conduct."
Twitter has been contacted for comment.
Should Twitter interfere in political processes?
Associate professor at the QUT school of law Nicolas Suzor agrees there is an argument to be made that the President's tweets do breach "Twitter's standards of acceptable behaviour".
"Twitter has the power to block the President and they have the legal right to block him," he said.
"Many have suggested that Twitter should enforce its terms of service against the President. It has in the past, in very rare occasions, blocked quite high-profile users from Twitter for repeatedly breaching terms of service."
But Professor Suzor warns that Twitter has to think carefully about what the consequences might be if they were to take this "very big intervention".
"We've seen social media platforms heavily criticised for interfering in political processes or even thinking about interfering in political processes," he said.
"When Facebook employees asked whether they should have a role in influencing the US election, that was met with quite some worry. So, [Twitter is] in a difficult position.
"What makes it even more complicated is that each of these platforms already influences politics in a huge way ... [and] there's no real precedent for what these firms should do and they are all trying to work it out as they go along, I think."
Free speech vs human rights
Doctor Suzor said private social-media networks were not democratic spaces.
"So, we don't have a way to ensure that the way they enforce their rules is legitimate, equal, fair and certain," he said.
"And this is the challenge of our age — the governance of online social spaces. We need to find ways to make sure that the rules that do effect us online are enforced in a way that is fair — and we just don't have that yet."
The problem that Twitter faces is that some of its users advocate for free speech, putting those who are subjected to abuse offside.
"Twitter's historical roots and a large section of its user base benefit from very loose enforcement of its policies," he said.
"Twitter used to call itself the free-speech wing of the free-speech party and it was really committed to this almost 'anything goes' view of freedom of speech on its network.
"That's really important to certain sections of its user base but it has also meant it has alienated other people who would suffer abuse at the hands of other people on their network.
"So Twitter is caught between competing interests that it does benefit from the masses of people who flock and who do use Twitter to direct abuse at other people. At the same time, if it doesn't act it does face serious consequences for growth."
Topics: donald-trump, government-and-politics, world-politics, social-media, internet-culture, information-and-communication, united-states
