Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1117/31884
From The Socialist newspaper, 20 January 2021
Trump Twitter ban: only independent workers' voice can defeat right
James Ivens, East London Socialist Party
First the election, now his Twitter account - it's bad news all round for bigot-in-chief Donald Trump. But the ousted US president's eviction from social media is also a warning to workers and young people in struggle.
His ban followed the notorious events at the Capitol building on 6 January. As with any political action in the internet age, social media was a key tool of Trump and his supporters.
Two days later, Twitter announced his permanent suspension. Facebook, YouTube and others followed suit. Right-wing social media platform Parler has also been 'deplatformed'.
Twitter cited the "horrific events" at Capitol Hill and Trump's "glorification of violence". But Trump has based his whole presidency on whipping up division, bigotry and violence from day one, and not just on social media.
Some suggest the courts or legislature should regulate online speech. Others that the tech bosses themselves should take action, as happened in this case. Some even suggest using anti-monopoly law to break up platforms into less influential competitors.
Socialists oppose Trump's reactionary rhetoric and policies. But we do not support his banning from social media. The tech bosses took action this time under pressure from the capitalist establishment for whom Trump had clearly gone too far, assaulting the authority of the state itself and damaging its ability to effectively defend the capitalist system.
But with the capitalists in control there is one free speech for them and another for us. Republicans and Democrats alike can glorify far more 'horrific events': murderous policing, military adventure, profit-driven pandemic negligence, without any action being taken against them.
Big tech is already known for arbitrary suspension of anti-capitalist accounts. On the same day Twitter banned Trump, for example, it temporarily suspended the account of the Committee for a Workers' International, the world socialist organisation the Socialist Party is affiliated to.
False credentials
Meanwhile, Trump's social media ban does not strip him of his billions or remove him from more traditional media channels. It can even burnish his false credentials as an opponent of the establishment.
Most importantly, it does nothing about the worsening social cond-itions and lack of a working-class political voice which allowed him to build support.
The desire to defeat Trump's anti-working-class propaganda is right. But inviting the bosses or their state to suppress it risks making things harder for the workers' movement. Whatever the legal rules are, the capitalist state and its mouthpieces will always apply them to divide workers and suppress the left.
It's not a question of regulating the economic and ideological monopoly of social media but taking it out of the hands of the billionaires who control it, through nationalisation under democratic workers' control and management.
And to challenge the lies of the right, the working class needs its own, independent voice.
The growth of the 'alt-right' is not some automatic consequence of racist YouTubers. In a world of capitalist chaos, people are desperate for alternatives.
Despite commentators' anxieties about 'filter bubbles', people exist in the real world where the biggest impact on public ideas comes from.
The answer to social media charlatans and Trumpism is pulling together a mass workers' party which can show millions that class struggle is not just another idea on the internet.
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In The Socialist 20 January 2021:
News
Make the super-rich pay, not the poorest
Bosses profit out of 'starvation' food parcels
Teachers: On the front line, in their own words
Peace and Justice Project - no way forward for socialism
Millionaire tendency regains control of Scottish Labour
Covid-19
The Tory blame game: scapegoating the working class - 100% pay for all now
Covid: Bosses chase profit and put workers in danger
Vaccine confidence - a worker's response
Life in lockdown - being home from school when you're poor is hard
NHS
Black Lives Matter
Police use Covid laws to intimidate BLM protesters
New Cross Gate fire 40 years ago
International News
USA in crisis - the need for a socialist alternative
Trump Twitter ban: only independent workers' voice can defeat right
Workplace
PCS Broad Left Network conference
Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick factory future secured following strike action
Morrisons - £10/hr headline hides divisive pay offer
A day in the life of an agency worker
Students
Plymouth rent strike continues
Scrap fees, refund rents and pay a living grant
Campaigns
London's May elections: Tories and Labour's Khan both vying to slash public services
Socialist Party national women's meeting
Why I joined the Socialist Party
Christmas Crossword Competition
Readers' Opinion
Books that inspired me: The Road to Wigan Pier
Obituary
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