Name? Donald Trump
Westphalian identity? United States American
Name? Donald Trump
Westphalian identity? United States American
Age? 73
Why is he in the news? We really wanted to avoid this, but we have to start the week with Trump. While the images of institutional racism and the violent responses are disturbing, their impact on International Relations is relatively minimal. That said, Trump’s conflict with Twitter has more international impact than you think. We have a privately owned multinational company that marked the Tweet of a democratically elected President as factually questionable.
Why do we care? This incident is setting a precedent and a statement to everyone who was not convinced that multinationals do not play a role in the world of IR.
Why should you care? Whether you like it or not, Trump is correct with his statement about Twitter influencing the US election. With this move, Twitter is taking away what helped Trump so much in the last 4 years. Previously, we received our updates about the executive from the news, filtered, and cut down into little pieces. There was no real direct communication between the politicians and the population. No message would reach us without context. By using Twitter and making it his preferred form of communication, Trump took this filter away and reached millions of households directly. Twitter is taking this away from him and, at the same time, giving up their comfortable “We are only the platform provider” position. But, with great power comes great responsibility. Why is Twitter not taking down Tweets of Ayatollah Khamenei? He is regularly practising hate speech and there are no barriers to what he types.
Who else cares? Mark Zuckerberg. A few months ago he told the EU that it was impossible to delete hate speech as Facebook is only a provider and not responsible for the content on its platform. Maybe Mark will finally need to alter his business model and give in to regulations?
Any further comments? This conflict is by no means over. Trump will do anything to preserve his filterless platform. Social Media on the other hand needs to finally answer some uncomfortable questions about the impact they have on societies all around the globe.
