Tech sector reacts to Trump social media bans
Facebook, Instagram and others moved to limit US president’s social media access after the violence in Washington DC, but experts have condemned them for acting too slowly, while disinformation about the riots persists
Share this item with your network: By Published: 08 Jan 2021 15:45
Internet experts have welcomed the bans placed on US president Donald Trump by major social media platforms following his incitement online of the mobs that invaded the US Capitol, but they remain critical of these firms’ role in allowing disinformation and other harmful content to spread.
On 6 January 2020, right-wing protestors, in support of Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud, stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the election certification process from taking place.
âBe There. Will Be Wild!â: Trump All but Circled the Date
Inside Trump supportersâ online echo chambers, the chaos of Jan. 6 could be seen coming. People posted their plans to come to Washington â and showed the weapons they would carry.
âWe will never concede,â President Trump said at a rally on Wednesday.Credit.Pete Marovich for The New York Times
Published Jan. 6, 2021Updated Jan. 8, 2021
For weeks, President Trump and his supporters had been proclaiming Jan. 6, 2021, as a day of reckoning. A day to gather in Washington to âsave Americaâ and âstop the stealâ of the election he had decisively lost, but which he still maintained â often through a toxic brew of conspiracy theories â that he had won by a landslide.
Subsequently, Trump posted another tweet saying, These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
Guy Rosen, Facebook s vice president of integrity, tweeted: This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump s video. He added: We believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.
Twitter had posted on its Twitter Safety account that the platform was monitoring the ongoing situation and taking action proactively to protect the health of the public conversation occurring on the service.
Kate Conger, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times
Published: 07 Jan 2021 06:53 AM BdST
Updated: 07 Jan 2021 06:53 AM BdST President Donald Trump visits supporters outside of a campaign event in Rochester, Minn., Oct. 30, 2020. As pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol building in Washington on Wednesday and halted the certification of Electoral College votes, the role of social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in spreading misinformation and being a megaphone for Trump came under renewed criticism. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
On Twitter, users called on Wednesday for the company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, to take down President Donald Trump’s account.
Twitter and Facebook Lock Trumpâs Accounts After Violence on Capitol Hill
The moves came after critics and even some allies of the social media companies said they had failed to prevent the misinformation that led to chaos on Wednesday.
Twitterâs chief executive, Jack Dorsey, testifying during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in November.Credit.Pool photo by Hannah McKay
Published Jan. 6, 2021Updated Jan. 14, 2021
Update: Facebookâs chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said on Thursday that President Trump would be blocked from its platforms
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SAN FRANCISCO â Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday locked the accounts of President Trump, which prevents him from posting messages to his more than 88 million followers on Twitter and 35 million followers on Facebook, after he published a string of inaccurate and inflammatory messages on a day of violence in the nationâs capital.