Andy Harrison
The man in the White House is upset that Twitter is attaching fact-checking links as context to posts he made. Of course, nobody likes to be told that they’re wrong on the facts; and maybe that man thinks that these contextual links are unfair or inaccurate on the merits, or that they are being selectively or unfairly applied. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that he might even be right about that.[1] If he were — well, that’s tough. The President of the United States still has no authority whatsoever to strongly regluate, or close … down
social media platforms for treating him unfairly, or for treating other conservative voices
unfairly.
If you think the Constitution of the United States matters, then the President of the United States has no authority to ignore what the First Amendment to it has to say when it comes to abridging the freedom of the press, even if he thinks he could get fairer or more favorable press by doing so. If you don’t think the Constitution of the United States matters, then we are all entitled to ignore what the second Article of it says about the President, and the man in the White House has no authority to do anything at all above and beyond what any other person in any other house is entitled to do. In either case, if that man doesn’t like how Twitter formats or contextualizes his posts, he can suck it up like the rest of us and use a blogging platform other than Twitter. That might, indeed, do some positive good for the world.
- [1]He isn’t. Or if he is, he’d need to provide better evidence than he has.↩