THREAD on Fuentes, Ye, @elonmusk and a critique of Twitter’s First Amendment policy: “Free Nick Fuentes”

How the Commentator’s Latest Twitter Ban Starkly Underscores the Wide Gap Between Musk’s Aspirations for the Platform and Realityhttps://t.co/3Q3d8Cxruh

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

2) The Fuentes incident – and how it was managed by Twitter’s operators – demonstrates the still-rigid boundaries along which speech is regulated on a platform that, at least under Elon Musk, has otherwise made repeated overtures to upholding the First Amendment as its guiding…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

3) The response to Fuentes’ short-lived comeback came just a day after Musk dressed down a BBC reporter for, among other things, being hostile to free speech and specifically criticism over how Twitter under Musk’s leadership has made it a priority, at least in principle, to…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

4) Notably, the accounts of once banned high-profile users such as @realDonaldTrump, @Cobratate, @RogerJStoneJr, and @LauraLoomer have been reinstated with apparent impunity to use the platform as they please. But for every Trump and Tate, there remains the still banned Fuentes…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

5) Even more tragic are the potentially thousands of smaller accounts which remain censured, without apparent rhyme or reason, who lack the massive followings of the higher profile cases, thus making the appeals process – to the extent any real process exists – even more…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

6) Whatever aspirations he might have for free speech, while undoubtedly well-intentioned, they mean nothing if not backed by real action. The First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, licenses virtually all speech, excepting a few, well-defined carve outs, such as…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

7) In the case of Twitter, to the extent that accounts are banned indiscriminately and without sufficient notice – delineating specific reasons as to why a particular tweet violates Twitter’s speech policy, which, in its ideal formulation, would axiomatically track the First…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

8) An ideal speech policy would also include an opportunity for an appeal for every censored account, replete with crystal clear procedures for appealing that are easily understandable, responsive, and transparent to the community at large.

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

9) Never should a user be forced to have to wait for weeks without a response from a human being, which is not just unprofessional from a business perspective, but also a miscarriage of justice that also equates to a fundamental constitutional rights violation.

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

10) Twitter has yet to devise precise guidelines, which should have been the main priority as soon as Musk became CEO, to describe what its policy for speech is, how it aspires to track the constitutional requirements, and how it differs from the obviously unconstitutional…

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

11) Exceptions to the rule should be few and far between; rarely, if ever, should full blanket bans of the sort leveled against Fuentes, Ye, and thousands of other anons, be part of any policy.

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023

12) In an ideal world, only ever would tweets, not whole accounts, be subject to censorship – and that censorship would always be tailored to very specific, well-defined situations, available for comment and debate by the community at large.

— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) April 29, 2023