President Trump has finally been kicked off of the social media platforms where he’s dominated the conversation over the past four years through inflammatory posts.
The outgoing President will, at least temporarily, be banned from communicating with his 88 million Twitter followers and 35 million Facebook followers, after violence ripped through the US capitol Wednesday.
You Can’t Post With Us
- Twitter banned @realDonaldTrump for a minimum of 12 hours, extending the ban for failing to remove the tweets deemed inflammatory and promoting false information about election results.
- Facebook and Instagram kicked Trump off their platform until “at least” the end of his term in office.
- YouTube removed the video Trump posted amidst the riots where he lied about the election results, while asking his supporters to go home peacefully.
Too Little Too Late
Critics say the social media giants are moving way too slow to police misinformation spread by the President and his supporters. Since the November election alone, Trump has made multiple posts, across platforms, questioning the election result, which are said to have led to Wednesday’s riots.
- Even Twitter investor Chris Sacca has harsh words for CEO Jack Dorsey.
Free Speech?
Trump supporters are calling the bans "attacks on free speech". While a spox for the Anti-Defamation League draws the line saying “freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. That is not protected speech.”
Big Picture: While Trump’s term in office comes to a close on January 20th, he certainly won’t be leaving politics. Social media platforms will continue to make tough calls on what to allow and what to ban from him and others.
