Trump’s return to social media is a serious threat

After several months of censorship, former US President Donald Trump announced that he will return to social media. This, after Twitter permanently blocked his account for breaching the terms of service of the platform.

The ex-president announced that he will create a new platform that "will completely redefine the game" and will attract "tens of millions of new users," said the @MediaBuzzFNC account. However, the creation of this new platform only for the followers of Donald Trump brings its advantages and disadvantages to society.

There are several doubts about the platform. Will it have feedback possibilities? Will it have terms and conditions?;  Will Trump himself manage it?; Will it allow for dissenting speech? … the uncertainty and the risks are various.

Also read: Why isn't Donald Trump planning to form a new party?

One of the main risks is that within this new platform, hate speech from the extreme right will be rewarded or facilitated, but also conspiracy theories that have found good reception in a large number of followers of the Alternative Right (Alt Right) or simply Fake News. All this, within an audience that does not allow dissent or challenges to this type of malicious speech.

Why not return to Twitter? (The paradox of tolerance).

The debate is whether a private platform like Twitter or Facebook or any other can have the power to block or censor any account that violates what they consider inappropriate. Then the paradox of tolerance appears. This theory of Austrian philosopher Karl Popper suggests that if all kinds of discourse are tolerated within a community (or social network), intolerant discourses will end up destroying that tolerance. Popper argues that society must be intolerant of tolerance in order to respect and accept different positions. This is what Twitter and other social media try to do by not allowing hate speech.

In addition, Trump's case is perhaps the most iconic and famous, but hundreds of accounts from both the right and the left, liberal or conservative have been canceled by the platforms. For example, recently Twitter canceled the accounts of several leaders of the FARC guerrilla

Let us remember that these companies not only have a moral duty to control language and discussions, but also a legal obligation to ensure the well-being of the community. This is why illegal content such as pedophilia, incitement to violence, and discrimination is canceled by legal orders.

So it is nothing new, the debate is on the gray area in which some politicians maneuver and that, which they take refuge in to be able to reproduce their speech despite not complying with regulations and laws.

Precisely, it will be interesting to see the new idea with which Trumpism will arrive and to be able to identify if it will end up creating greater ideological bubbles that feed off similar truths, facts and positions. But also, of lies or half-truths.