Politicians could exploit Twitter's new safety tools to silence critics, legal experts warn
Twitter is testing a host of new features the social network says will boost user safety on the platform, but free speech advocates warn that the tools could be easily exploited by government officials to suppress dissent and limit access to their remarks online.
The rollouts include a "safety mode" tool that when enabled automatically detects and temporarily blocks accounts hurling insults or other "harmful language" at users to "reduce the burden on people dealing with unwelcome interactions." The company said Friday it's also testing a setting that lets users automatically "filter" or "limit" unwanted and harmful replies.
It's Twitter's latest effort to curb rampant harassment between users on its site, which has long been a criticism of the platform and its peers. The company is rolling out the features to a smaller group of users before making them available more broadly.
But any tool that filters harmful or violent speech can also capture constitutionally protected dissent. The company says it's aware the features could be used by government leaders to stifle opposing viewpoints, and so it's excluding politicians initially from tests.
"We want to keep in mind the potential for silencing of counter-speech, which is why we're excluding official political organizations, elected officials and political candidates from the initial test," Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy told The Washington Post.
Twitter plans to "explore ways to address this before making it available to everyone," Kennedy added.
Legal experts argue the automated tools could be abused by political leaders to more easily silence critics and bar them from reacting to and viewing their public comments, which would infringe on those users' First Amendment rights.
"If a public official is using their account as a public forum, then they can't block comments or users from engaging in constitutionally protected speech in that forum, even if it's convenient to do so using one of these tools," said Alex Abdo, litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, an organization that advocates for free speech online.
Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the safety feature "could be a really good thing for most Twitter users." But if used by political leaders acting in their public capacities, it would raise serious constitutional concerns, she said.
"Let's say the government announces a policy or tweets a picture of the new class of incoming [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Customs and Border Protection] agents . . . say that there's a massive response to that image that triggers safety mode because some of the language used makes safety mode think that it's abusive. That's what I'm worried about."
Twitter already allows users, including politicians, to block certain accounts. But Ruane said the automated tool could make it easier for them to block reactions from their constituents to controversial decisions, effectively silencing criticisms.
Politicians using the tool in that manner "triggers constitutional scrutiny and is likely going to fail constitutional scrutiny," she said.
The debate also raises a broader question: Why shouldn't political figures - many of whom are the targets of frequent harassment and even death threats on social media - have access to new technology that helps fend off online abuse?
Some studies have found Twitter to be an especially hostile place for women, and numerous prominent female politicians have complained about harassment on the site.
"It's because in that circumstance, that is a place where their . . . official office and their ability to make decisions that they have been elected to make are being discussed with their constituents, and all of their constituents should have the ability to reach that person," Ruane said.
It's a legal argument that's already been tested and notched major victories in the U.S.
A federal judge ruled in 2018 that then-President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account served as a "designated public forum" and that he violated users' constitutional rights by blocking them from viewing his profile. The Knight First Amendment Institute represented seven users - including political organizers, scholars, a comedic writer and an army veteran - blocked by Trump in the case.
The group filed another lawsuit against Trump for blocking users in 2020, but the case was dismissed by the Supreme Court in April, which ruled that the suit was moot after Trump left office and was permanently banned from Twitter.
While free speech advocates have largely gotten favorable rulings in those cases thus far, the Supreme Court hasn't settled the debate over whether government officials can block users yet, Abdo said. Both Abdo and Ruane predicted that if Twitter allows government leaders to use these tools, it could spawn more legal challenges against politicians.
Another key question for Twitter will be whether it excludes politicians from using the features only on their official government accounts, or whether they are excluded on their personal accounts, too.
The Knight First Amendment Institute successfully argued in their initial case against Trump that although users were blocked from his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, it still counted as a public forum because the former president often used it in an official capacity.
It could be harder to make that distinction stick for less-visible cases, such as a candidate running for political office at a lower level and using the tools from their private account.
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