Will Twitter ban Trump if Joe Biden wins? POTUS to lose immunity given to world leaders as to violation policy
If President Donald Trump fails his reelection bid, his favorite mode of communicating to the public, his Twitter account, could be deactivated. The Republican president is currently covered by a policy that provides world leaders free reign to tweet anything without being banned from the platform, however, that may soon change for Trump depending on the outcome of the 2020 election.
Trump's tweets could reportedly be removed and his account deleted post-January if Biden wins the presidential election. A similar measure was taken against conspiracist radio host Alex Jones in 2018, when he tweeted baseless allegations of Democrats plotting a civil war.
President Trump, ever since polls closed on Tuesday, November 3, has been consistently making baseless allegations of voter fraud and how Democrats are attempting to "steal" the election from him. The microblogging site, instead of taking down his Twitter account, has been flagging his tweets and issuing warnings, preventing his unfounded messages from being shared on the platform. The Republican's account, however, could be deleted if he continues to tweet misleading claims after Biden clinches victory.
Twitter, in a statement last year, had said: "A critical function of our service is providing a place where people can openly and publicly respond to their leaders and hold them accountable. With this in mind, there are certain cases where it may be in the public’s interest to have access to certain tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules."
Trump had taken to Twitter on Thursday morning, November 5, after an unusual silence to declare that any vote that came in after the Election day "will not" be counted. Within seconds of the Republican's tweet, Twitter flagged the message, saying: "Some or all content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process." The tweet, after a few minutes, was altogether removed. It was not clear whether the president deleted the tweet himself or the popular micro-blogging site removed it.
The incumbent's tone appeared different in the tweet, where instead of stating that the votes should not be counted, he was assertive, as he declared in all caps that they "will not be counted". "ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!" he tweeted, minutes after his prior tweet where he wrote: "STOP THE COUNT!"
Trump, with his political rival Joe Biden edging closer to win the White House, has stated that he wants to put a stop to the vote count of mail-in votes. He first made his objection clear early Wednesday morning, November 4, while addressing the nation post-Election Day, falsely claiming victory in the presidential polls despite millions of votes yet to be counted.
Trump's tweet came hours after his campaign, in an unusual move, declared victory in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, November 4, at a time when a large number of votes remained uncounted. The campaign also vowed to sue the state and Michigan, calling for a stop in counting citing lack of transparency. Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien said that he was "declaring victory in Pennsylvania” with less than 80 percent of the vote being counted at the time. His announcement was followed by a similar one from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the president's younger son Eric Trump. The premature announcement of the state victory appeared to be a coordinated attempt to disrupt the counting of legitimate ballots in the state where Trump's lead is dramatically narrowing.
Currently, with nearly 99 percent of the votes counted in Pennsylvania, Biden has gained a lead of 9,752 against the incumbent.