Zoe's Blog

On January 2nd of this year, Twitter confirmed that Marjorie Taylor Greene was permanently suspended from their platform. According to the social media company, the Georgia Representative had repeatedly violated their misinformation policy in regards to COVID-19.  This resulted in a permanent suspension of Greene's personal account, @mtgreenee.  The ban came with uproar from Greene as well as backlash from other conservative representatives. Republican Kevin McCarthy criticized Twitter for trying to "silence" Greene. According to The Hill , the House Minority Leader stated that, "It is clear any speech that does not fit Big Tech's orthodoxy gets muzzled".  This situation and the response to it from conservatives has raised questions about Twitter's right to censor people on their platform. As explained by Andrew Geronimo to Vox , Twitter is still considered a private business and because of that, does not have to be subjected to entertain any specific ...

 In December of 1965, three students of a Des Moines high school and middle school were sent home and suspended after wearing black armbands in protest against the Vietnam War. Upset that the school was taking away their freedom of expression, the parents of these students sued the school district. This case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District , would finally be settled by the Supreme Court in 1969. The court ruled in a 7-2 decision that students do not lose their First Amendment right to speech on campus and that the school would have to prove that their actions would interfere with the school. This "test" would be called the Tinker Standard. This case set a precedent for how schools determined what was harmful to their students' environment.  However, during this time, all expressions of speech occurred either in person or in print. In the modern era, it is necessary to understand how freedom of speech can be protected or taken away on social med...