Will Twitter follow Facebook, Instagram in banning Trump? Zuckerberg says risk of giving POTUS access too high
After the storming of the US Capitol building on Wednesday, in Washington DC, a number of President Donald Trump's tweets were pulled down by Twitter. He was accused of inciting the violent march of his supporters towards the Capitol and this had led to speculations about Trump being banned from Twitter and Facebook. Initially, the microblogging website and social networking site had banned access for 12 hours that many did not agree with. Turns out, Mark Zuckerberg is one of them. A day after the march, the CEO of Facebook shared in a blog post, "The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden. His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect -- and likely their intent -- would be to provoke further violence."
He then added, "Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms. Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government."
He expressed that Facebook believed that the risks of letting Trump continue to use their platform was high and said, "We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete."
So far though, Twitter has not extended the ban and it raises the question as to whether they will just continue to remove Trump's tweets and mark them for spreading false information.
Before the march to the US Capitol, something that Trump had told his supporters was, "After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down, anyone you want but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness."
Something Trump had said at the rally which led his supporters to believe that he would also be a part of the march was, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections, whether or not they stand strong for our country."
