SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook announced on Thursday that it would block President Trump on its platforms until at least the end of his term in office on Jan. 20, as the mainstream online world has vigorously sought to curtail the president after years of inactivity.
Mark Zuckerberg, the executive director of Facebook, said in a post that the social network had decided to turn Mr Trump off because a rampage by pro-Trump supporters in the capital of the country, requested by the president the day before, showed that Mr Trump was Trump “intends to use his remaining term in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transfer of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.”
“We believe the risk that the president will continue to use our service during this time is simply too great,” wrote Zuckerberg. As a result, Facebook and its photo-sharing website Instagram would expand the blocks first set up on Wednesday for Mr Trump’s ability “until the peaceful transfer of power is complete”.
The move was part of an increasing revolt by social media companies against Mr Trump, who has used the sites throughout his presidency to anger his followers and harass his enemies.
Twitter said Wednesday it would put Mr. Trump’s account on hold for 12 hours for posting multiple tweets violating his rules of calling for violence and discrediting the vote. Snap, the maker of Snapchat, has also blocked access to Mr. Trump’s Snapchat account. And YouTube on Thursday introduced a stricter electoral fraud misinformation policy to make it easier to suspend the president for posting false electoral claims.
The actions were a remarkable change for a social media industry that has long refused to remove Mr. Trump’s posts, which were often filled with falsehoods and threats. Facebook and Twitter positioned themselves as advocates for free speech and public discussion, saying it was in people’s best interest to see what world leaders posted, even when critics attacked them for allowing misinformation and toxic content to flow freely let.
Lawmakers and even company employees said the platforms waited too long to take serious action against Mr Trump. At Facebook, dozens of employees found the company suspended Mr Trump only after the Democrats secured the presidency and control of the Senate, according to people familiar with the internal talks.
“I am pleased that social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are taking long belated steps to combat the president’s continued abuse of their platforms to sow discord and violence. However, these isolated actions are too late and by far not enough.” said Senator Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia.
The spotlight is now falling on Twitter and what it will do to Mr. Trump’s account. The social media service has been Mr. Trump’s megaphone of choice, having more than 88 million followers compared to 35 million on Facebook. Wednesday’s Twitter account lockout on Mr. Trump’s account was due to be lifted Thursday after he complied with the service’s request to delete multiple tweets.
Twitter said in a statement that it is continuing to evaluate the situation and whether “further escalation of our enforcement approach is necessary”. On Wednesday, the company said the risk of having Mr Trump’s comment live on its website had become too high.
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Jan. 7, 2021, 12:58 p.m. ET
Derrick Johnson, the president and chief executive of the NAACP, praised Facebook’s decision to suspend Mr. Trump’s account and urged Twitter to do the same.
“The president’s social media accounts are a petri dish of disinformation designed to share and fuel violence at all costs,” said Johnson.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the past few months, Twitter and Facebook had begun rolling back the president’s posts and adding fact-checking labels to some of his most dangerous statements. Mr Trump returned, signed an executive order removing legal protections from social media companies, claiming they were censoring conservative voices.
On Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg and other executives had given Mr. Trump considerable leeway on his Facebook account, so that the president’s false statements could often remain on the network despite heavy criticism.
Mr Zuckerberg said repeatedly that he did not want Facebook to be “the arbiter of truth” in political discourse and that he firmly believed in the protection of language on Facebook, the platform he founded and now used by more than three billion people worldwide becomes.
“We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speeches, even controversial speeches,” Zuckerberg said in his contribution on Thursday.
“The current context is now fundamentally different and includes the use of our platform to instigate violent uprisings against a democratically elected government,” said Zuckerberg.
Daisuke Wakabayashi and Sheera Frenkel contributed to the coverage.
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