Supreme Court dismisses case against Trump for blocking Twitter accounts
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In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the dismissal but said it was “rather odd to say that something is a government forum when a private company has unrestricted authority to do away with it.”
“The disparity between Twitter’s control and Mr. Trump’s control is stark, to say the least. Mr. Trump blocked several people from interacting with his messages. Twitter barred Mr. Trump not only from interacting with a few users, but removed him from the entire platform, thus barring all Twitter users from interacting with his messages. Under its terms of service, Twitter can remove any person from the platform—including the President of the United States—’at any time for any or no reason,'” continued Thomas, a George H.W. Bush nominee, referring to Twitter’s ban of Trump in early January, while the Republican was still in office.
“The petitions highlight two important facts. Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors. Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties,” he added.
“We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.”
Clarence Thomas is right that the court needs to address the issue of Big Tech censorship. Thomas appears to be the most courageous member of the court these days in dealing with the abuse of power by tech monopolies.
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