SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter and Facebook suspended President Trump’s accounts on Wednesday, preventing him from sending messages to his more than 88 million followers on Twitter and 35 million followers on Facebook after seeing a series of inaccurate and inflammatory messages in one day News had been published of violence in the nation’s capital.
The moves were an unprecedented reprimand from Mr. Trump by the social media companies that have long been megaphones for the president.
Twitter said Mr. Trump’s account would remain suspended for 12 hours and the ban could be extended if several of his tweets disapproving the election result and inciting violence are not deleted. Mr Trump’s account will be permanently banned if he continues to violate Twitter’s guidelines against violent threats and misinformation in elections, the company added.
Twitter said the risk of having Mr. Trump’s comment live on his website has become too high. “Our public interest policy, which has guided our enforcement efforts in this area for years, ends where we believe the risk of harm is higher,” said a spokesman.
Facebook later, followed by Mr Trump’s lockdown for 24 hours after discovering two posts violating company rules, Facebook spokesman said. Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing website, said it would also suspend Mr. Trump’s account for 24 hours.
The actions followed a flurry of criticism of social media companies for their role in spreading misinformation and acting as a megaphone for Mr. Trump after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Wednesday and halted the certification of electoral college votes . Mr Trump had built his influence for years by posting on Twitter and Facebook. Since losing the November election, he had used the platforms to question the election results and label them as fraudulent.
On Twitter, on Wednesday, users asked the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, to close President Trump’s account. Civil rights groups said actions by social media companies against calls for political violence were “long overdue”. Even venture capitalists who had made wealth by investing in social media urged Twitter and Facebook to do more.
“For four years you have been rationalizing this terror. Inciting violent treason is not free speech, ”wrote Chris Sacca, a technology investor who invested in Twitter, to Mr. Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “If you work in these companies, it’s up to you too. Shut it down.”
Twitter, Facebook and others had previously refused to crack down on Mr Trump’s posts and other toxic content, stating that the posts were in the public interest. While the platforms had taken more steps against political misinformation in the months leading up to the election, the platforms refused to remove Mr Trump’s messages and instead took half-measures, such as labeling his posts.
When violence broke out in Washington on Wednesday, longtime critics said it was the day the chickens came home to settle down for the social media companies. After the onslaught of criticism began, Twitter and Facebook removed several of Mr. Trump’s posts from their websites, including one in which the president falsely stated that “a holy landslide election victory” was “unceremoniously and viciously stripped.”
“We know the social media companies have been laconic at best,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, to keep extremism from growing on their platforms. “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. This is not a protected language. “
Renee DiResta, a researcher at Stanford Internet Observatory who studies online movements, added that the violence was the result of people engaging in closed social networks who believed the allegations of electoral fraud and election of Mr. Trump were stolen.
“This is a demonstration of the very real effects of echo chambers,” she said. “This was a remarkable rejection of the idea that there is an online and an offline world and that what is said online is in some way kept online. I hope this removes the notion from people’s minds. “
YouTube also said Wednesday that it would not tolerate calls for violence on its websites. Several live streams showing participants storming the Capitol building with firearms were removed from the video site. It also said it would increase authoritative news sources on its homepage, search results and in recommendations.
Mr. Zuckerberg said in an internal memo to staff that he was “saddened by this mob violence,” according to a copy checked by the New York Times. He said Facebook had increased moderation on Mr. Trump’s comments because the situation was “an emergency”.
“The peaceful transfer of power is critical to the functioning of our democracy, and we need our political leaders who lead by example and put the nation first,” wrote Zuckerberg.
Mr Trump also urged his supporters to go home in a video he posted on several social media sites on Wednesday afternoon. “You have to go home now. We must have peace. We must have law and order, ”he said, repeating false claims that the election was stolen from him.
Twitter later removed three tweets, including the video and the tweet from Mr. Trump falsely claiming a “holy landslide election victory” before putting his account on hold. YouTube deleted the video, as did Facebook, which also removed Mr. Trump’s misleading post on the “election victory”.
Critics said the steps taken by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were too little and too late after calls for violence and plans for protests had already spread across the platforms.
On Facebook, protesters had openly discussed what they were up to in Washington for weeks on a Facebook page called the Red-State Secession. The site had asked its approximately 8,000 followers to provide addresses of perceived “enemies” in the country’s capital, including the home addresses of federal judges, members of Congress and prominent progressive politicians.
Comments left on the page often included photos of guns and ammunition, as well as emojis suggesting members of the group were planning violence. A post on Tuesday said people should “be ready to use force to defend civilization”. Several comments below the post showed photos of assault rifles, ammunition and other weapons. Comments suggested “occupying” the capital and taking action to force Congress to reject the election results.
Facebook said it removed the Red-State Secession on Wednesday morning. Before it was removed, the page directed followers to other social media sites like Gab and Parler, which have gained popularity in right-wing circles since the election.
These alternative social media sites were full of Trump supporters organizing and communicating on Wednesday. #Stormthecapitol was a trending hashtag on Parler. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a false rumor that Antifa, a leftist movement, was responsible for committing violence during the protests.
“WAKE UP AMERICA IT IS ANTIFA and BLM Employees Committing the Violence, NOT TRUMP SUPPORTERS!” Said a Parler account member named @ Trumpfans100, providing no evidence to back up the allegations.
Parler officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, Facebook and Twitter had stepped up their efforts to moderate Mr. Trump’s account, even though they stopped deleting his posts. Twitter started adding labels to Mr. Trump’s false and misleading Tweets last year and has blocked users from sharing the posts to limit their spread. Facebook has also attached labels to some of Mr. Trump’s posts to direct users to reliable and accurate dates.
If Mr Trump leaves office, companies may have a freer hand. On Twitter, Mr Trump had largely enjoyed exceptions to his rules because the company had stated that contributions from world leaders are in the public interest. But Twitter has said that after Mr. Trump is no longer president, he will be treated like a normal user.
“This level of insurrection shouldn’t exist, be it on the president’s Twitter platform or on Facebook, which enables people to recruit and engage in such dangerous activities,” said Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, said in an interview.
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed to the coverage.
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