Social media platforms Facebook and Twitter made an unprecedented move to stop the spread of violence and misinformation.
What We Know:
- After chaos ensued at the U.S. Capitol roughly 3 hours earlier, President Donald Trump tweeted statements and a video praising rioters after repeating illegitimate claims and conspiracy theories that the election was taken from him.
- According to NBC News, Twitter initially prohibited the posts from being retweeted or replied to, adding a tag to the post that read, “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, retweeted, or liked due to a risk of violence.”
- Twitter subsequently deleted three tweets from President Trump’s personal account and suspended his account from posting for 12 hours. Through one of its company accounts, Twitter stated that if Trump removed the tweets, his account would be unlocked, but warned that further violations of Twitter’s rules “will result in permanent suspension” of his account. Trump’s official government account on Twitter remains active.
- Facebook and YouTube also removed the video from Trump’s personal accounts. YouTube stated that the video was removed due to “policies regarding content that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome.” Facebook said it would be blocking the president’s account from posting for 24 hours due to policy violations. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, also locked Trump’s account for an indefinite amount of time.
- Facebook’s vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, tweeted: “This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
- Twitter and Facebook have implemented fact-check labels on some of Trump’s posts in the past but have never abruptly de-platformed the president to prevent further acts of violence.
Despite prior hesitancy to curb the speech of the president, it is evident that social media holds immense power in our political atmosphere that needs to be regulated before this happens again.
