After the “storming of the Capitol” on January 6, 2021 in Washington DC, political scientist Jan Rau and media lawyer Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann on the role the media play in this. And whether something like this could also happen in Germany.
American society is divided. Some celebrate the newly elected President Joe Biden like a savior, others do not want to recognize his election victory. A conflict between two realities that culminated in the storming of the Capitol on January 6th. In the US Parliament, the official count of the electoral vote in Congress was scheduled for that day. This final certification of Joe Biden as the new US President wanted to disrupt the demonstrators.
Not to blame (only) on the media
The storming of the Capitol was a shocking, but by no means surprising event, says political scientist Jan Rau. The polarization of American society did not happen overnight, but has been smoldering for many years. He considers the popular accusation that the digital media, with their flood of fake news, to be to blame for the polarization to be too brief. Rather, it would have been due to the inability of conservative politicians to keep the demagogue Trump out of their ranks. Rau also sees the duty of conservative forces in Germany to position themselves clearly against anti-democratic tendencies.
Trump und Twitter
Twitter was Trump’s favorite platform for communicating with the people. His tweets regularly caused outrage. On election night in November 2020, the company reacted for the first time and provided some of its tweets with warnings about false statements. After the storm on the Capitol, Twitter deleted the incumbent president’s account. This decision was at the same time correct, too late and highly problematic, comments Matthias Kettemann about the ban. This decision reflects many debates and problems surrounding the power of platform operators.
Anyone who complains that Twitter would curtail Trump’s freedom of expression is at least wrong under current US law, because Trump has no right to freedom of expression against Twitter, says Matthias Kettemann. Citizens in the USA enjoy this freedom only in relation to the state. Private companies are not obliged to grant these freedoms. In Germany, the legal situation is different: Here, private actors who have a significant influence on public communication (e.g. stadiums, airports, social networks) are bound by certain basic rights.
Links
Jan Rau’s blog post on the subject
Matthias Kettemann on the Twitter deletion of Trump on Deutschlandfunk
Jan Rau
Matthias Kettemann
Johanna Sebauer
Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute
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