"This Claim About Election Fraud Is Disputed"
Twitter's Outrageous and Petty Bias Against President Trump
Whenever President Trump mentions the 2020 election in a tweet, Twitter flags it. The flags look like this:
If asked about its practice of flagging the president’s tweets, Twitter will say that all it’s doing is providing context. The word “context” (noun) means “the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed” (New Oxford American Dictionary).
Ordinarily, context is good. In fact, the more of it, the better. A rational person forms a judgment only after gathering as much relevant information as possible. Some of this information will support the judgment; some of it will undermine the judgment—and perhaps support a contrary judgment. We say, quite reasonably, that people should hear “both sides of an issue” before making a decision (especially an important decision). It’s a tricky balance. We want to be open-minded enough to let in all relevant information, but not so open-minded that we let in irrelevant information, for that is a recipe for epistemic disaster, or what is colloquially known as “confusion.”
The problem is this: When Twitter says that all it is doing is providing context for the president’s tweets, it is being dishonest, for it is implying by its intrusive flags that (1) only certain claims, and not others, are disputed, and (2) only claims made by certain people (including the president) or groups (such as conservatives) are disputed. Both of these propositions are false.
What does it mean to dispute something? According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, the word “dispute,” when used as a verb, means “question whether (a statement or alleged fact) is true or valid.” If I dispute what you say, I question whether what you say is true (or valid). I call it into question. If I observe a discussion between two people, I may conclude that one of them (say, Matthew) is disputing (i.e., questioning the truth of) what the other (Sarah) says. I may express this by saying that Sarah’s claim is disputed (by Matthew). All it takes is one questioning person to make a claim “disputed.”
So when Twitter says that President Trump’s “claim about election fraud is disputed,” it is saying—assuming that it is speaking literally and not figuratively—that at least one (unnamed) person questions the truth of what he says.
We are now in a position to see why this is biased.
Every significant claim in science, philosophy, law, medicine, public health, foreign affairs, and economics is disputed, in the sense of being questioned by someone. Nothing, in other words, is undisputed, much less indisputable (which means “unable to be challenged or denied”). Consider the following claims, each of which is, as a matter of fact, disputed, either in a particular academic discipline (such as philosophy) or in society more generally:
God exists.
Utilitarianism is the correct normative ethical theory.
Egalitarianism is the correct normative political theory.
Every event, including human actions, has a cause. (This is known as determinism.)
Human beings have free will.
It is wrong to eat meat.
Everyone who has resources to spare (which is almost everyone) has a moral obligation to relieve famine to the point at which, by giving one more dollar, he or she becomes as bad off as those he or she is helping.
Infanticide (baby killing) is sometimes justified.
Torture is always wrong, even if, in a particular case, it will save thousands of innocent lives.
Originalism is the correct theory of constitutional interpretation.
Capital punishment violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
No philosophers are hypocrites.
There is too much economic inequality in the United States.
Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization.
Karl Marx is a philosopher.
Karl Marx is a good philosopher.
George Armstrong Custer was vainglorious.
George Armstrong Custer made bad judgments at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The North won the Civil War because it had better generals.
The North won the Civil War because it was in the right.
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.
Pete Rose is the best player in Major League Baseball history.
The Earth is spherical.
The Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
The Chinese interfered in the 2020 presidential election.
China is a threat to United States hegemony.
Mitch Bouyer, a half-breed scout for George Armstrong Custer, killed Custer.
Custer committed suicide.
Hydroxychloroquine is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19.
Masks are ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
There are intelligent aliens in outer space.
Richard Nixon lost the 1960 president election because of cheating in Chicago.
Arlington is the most livable city in Texas.
Donald Trump is a great president.
Donald Trump will be elected president in 2024 if Joe Biden becomes the 46th president.
Donald Trump got more legal votes than Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The Biden family is corrupt.
Hunter Biden sold access to his father while his father was vice president.
It is impossible to square the circle.
Human beings have souls.
Non-human animals have no souls.
Non-human animals are unconscious automata.
Jesus was God.
We live in a multiverse.
The existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of evil.
Barack Obama is a narcissist.
Barack Obama is a good husband.
Barack Obama is a good basketball player.
Adolf Hitler survived World War II and lived out his life in Argentina.
The Holocaust occurred.
The Holocaust was the worst calamity in human history.
No fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election.
Fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election, but not enough to affect the outcome.
Democrats are corrupt.
Republicans are corrupt.
There is a Deep State.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. sometimes engages in result-oriented jurisprudence.
Result-oriented jurisprudence is disreputable.
There are two systems of justice in this country: one for the wealthy and powerful and one for everyone else.
Twitter is destroying the American tradition of free speech.
Facebook should be broken up under the antitrust laws.
TikTok is a waste of people’s time.
(I could go on like this forever, but you get the idea.)
If Twitter were to apply its flagging standard consistently (i.e., non-arbitrarily), it would have to flag all of the claims just listed, indeed, all claims made on its platform, not just those made by President Trump about the 2020 election. Every claim made by Joe Biden is disputed, in the exact same sense in which President Trump’s claims are disputed. Why are Joe Biden’s tweets not, then, flagged? (To my knowledge, not one of them has been. Please correct me if I am wrong.) Is context bad in the case of Joe Biden but good in the case of President Trump?
I think you know the answer to my question, “Why are Joe Biden’s tweets not flagged?” Twitter is a left-wing, Trump-hating organization. It wishes to disparage President Trump’s tweets (thereby mocking and belittling him), but has no interest whatsoever in disparaging the tweets of the politicians (such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi) it likes. It’s as simple as that. I know of no other plausible explanation.
What can be done about this rather obvious bias by a major social-media company, one that has 330 million users (some 145 million of whom are active on a daily basis)?
Someone—preferably President Trump himself—needs to sue Twitter for violating his or her constitutional rights. Before you react in knee-jerk fashion by saying that this betrays a misunderstanding of law, hear me out.
The traditional view is that constitutional rights are possessed by individuals against the state (i.e., government). The First Amendment, in this view, protects you from being censored or punished by a city council, a state legislature, a governmental employer (such as a public university), or an administrative agency of the federal government, but it does not protect you from being censored or punished by your private-sector employer, your church, your neighborhood tavern, or Twitter.
This view of the law, like any other, can change. The question is whether it should change. I believe it should. I also believe that it will. All the United States Supreme Court has to do is rule that social-media platforms are the functional equivalent of town squares, in which individuals have always had the constitutional right to speak. This might be called the public-function (or public-forum) doctrine. Someone—such as President Trump—needs to hire top-flight attorneys to make the case. The case will lose until it reaches the Supreme Court, for there is no precedent in its support, but the Supreme Court can change the law, as it has done many times, however old that law may be. Sometimes law needs to “keep up with the times.”
If the First Amendment is held to apply to Twitter in the same way that it applies to the city in which you live, then you will have recourse against Twitter if it censors or punishes you. This does not mean that you can say literally anything on Twitter, for the usual exceptions to the First Amendment will continue to apply. You won’t be able to incite imminent lawless action, for example. You won’t be able to threaten unlawful violence against particular individuals. You won’t be able to defame people. You won’t be able to violate copyright laws with impunity. You won’t be able to post obscene material, child pornography, or state secrets. You can and should be banished from the platform if you do any of these things.
What Twitter can’t do in this new legal world is discriminate among users on the basis of the content of the views they express, which is exactly what it has been doing to President Trump (and many others).
If the law changes in the way I suggest, either by Supreme Court ruling or constitutional amendment, then you will be able to recover damages for having your constitutional rights violated. You will also be able to secure an injunction to prevent Twitter from censoring you or banishing you from its platform. Twitter, like most major corporations, is concerned first and foremost with its profits. Imagine how a legal change such as this will cut into Twitter’s profits—if it continues to be biased. Twitter’s corporate behavior will change overnight. People will be able to speak on whichever topics they please, expressing whichever views they please on those topics, without censorship or fear of punishment (which in the social-media world consists of banishment from a platform). Conservatives in particular will no longer be singled out for silencing by the left-wing goons who run places like Twitter.
I hope President Trump takes the lead on this, for three reasons. First, he has been more abused by Twitter than anyone, so he has a motive. Second, he’s a fighter. This trait is why many of us voted for him and remain loyal to him. Third, he has the necessary resources. A case such as this, with its novel constitutional argument, is going to require good lawyering, and good lawyering isn’t cheap.
President Trump loves the American people. I honestly believe that no president in American history has loved the people more than he does: ordinary, hard-working, God-fearing, patriotic people. What greater legacy could President Trump leave them than a free and fair Internet?