In their contribution to JuWiss, media lawyers Martin Fertmann and Keno Potthast discuss whether Donald Trump's Twitter ban heralds a change in the previously privileged treatment of public officials on digital platforms.
Read the article here (in German)
Abstract
After soon-to-be former US President Trump incited supporters to storm the US Capitol on 6 January, also via social media, and then relativised it, numerous platforms have taken action against Trump. Facebook Inc. suspended Trump from its Facebook and Instagram accounts "indefinitely, but at least until the end of his presidency", as did Snapchat and the streaming platform Twitch, TikTok removed videos of the president's speeches (the president does not have an account there for well-known reasons), and his favourite platform Twitter initially suspended his account @realDonaldTrump temporarily, only to follow suit after the other platforms became aware of the permanent suspensions "because of the risk of further incitement to violence".
Fertmann, M.; Potthast, K. C. (2021): Digitale time-outs für Trump: Der Anfang vom Ende der privilegierten Behandlung von Amtsinhaber*innen durch soziale Netzwerke? [Digital Time-Outs for Trump: The Beginning of the End of Privileged Treatment of Incumbents by Social Networks?]. In: JuWissBlog No. 5/2021, 18.01.2021, https://www.juwiss.de/05-2021/.
