World

Fallout from President Trump’s Twitter ban

Published

5 months ago

Monday, January 11, 2021

President Trump’s Twitter ban has been getting plenty of flak, particularly from friends, family, hard core supporters and advisors. Twitter banned the president from the platform on Friday after his supporters stormed the US Capitol building. But those supporting the president say the ban amounts to an assault on free speech by “radical leftists”.

Ironically they aired their grievances… on Twitter.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, posting on his personal account, said… “Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years.”

US Republican senator Ted Cruz, and chief cheerleader for the incumbent president, claimed the decision by Twitter was “absurd & profoundly dangerous”.

But it wasn’t just Twitter that has banned or severely restricted postings from President Trump’s official accounts. Eight other platforms have also taken a similar stance, including Facebook and YouTube.

“Why should a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires have a monopoly on political speech?”

Yes, even those messages were made on Twitter, the social network of choice for President Trump and his preferred means of communicating with the public and his supporters.

Last Friday, amid widespread condemnation after egging on his is supporters before an unruly mob stormed into the US Capitol in a bloody and chaotic farrago, Twitter banned him permanently. But not before he got one more Tweet out, which was quickly deleted, that spoke of the President, soon to be the former-President, creating his own platform “in the near future”. No other details were forthcoming.

Twitter said they were taking the rare measure of banning President Trump… “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitch followed suit suspending Trump’s accounts.

Reddit, one of the more liberal (in the real sense) platforms and generally permissive of broad political views, also closed a forum popular with the President’s fans, saying the forum “was inciting hate”.

So where do the President’s cheer squad turn to post and share their love?

Fearing he would be next in line with Twitter’s Friday banathon, Donald Trump Jr asked his followers to send him their email contacts to keep them abreast of news.

Conservative platforms Parler and Gab, have drawn growing numbers of users as far-right supporters turned to the platforms to spread their messages. Launched in 2016, Gab says it promotes “freedom of expression” but is most famous for its extreme far-right user base. But Gab, too, has been partially gagged, by PayPal, Visa and the Apple and Google app stores.

Parler has a broader political audience and was launched in 2018 and had record days of growth on Friday and Saturday as President’s Trump’s keyboard warriors switched their attention to the alternative platform. But now it’s also been removed from the Google Play Store too.

But these newer platforms have a tiny audience, compared to the 88 million followers the President enjoyed on his Twitter account.

The President’s advisors say he will spend this next week raging at Twitter and social media. For now he’ll have to do that the old way, through papers, TV and news sites.

Trump and Republican allies have long railed against social media companies accusing them of bias against conservatives, even alleging that social media platforms secretly “shadow ban” prominent Republicans.

But there is little doubt the bans and restrictions will severely limit the President’s ability to push out unfiltered information any more. Trump still faces the threat of more resignations from within his administration and Democrats are readying an article of impeachment against the President, with some Republican lawmakers openly considering supporting those efforts.

Over the next 8 days left in his term, Trump is also expected to issue a raft of pardons, travel to the border wall, sign some executive orders and deflect criticism of his role in last week’s attack on the Capitol building. And certainly he’ll be screaming about his ban from Twitter and the other social media. But he’ll have to do all that the old way too.

Fallout from President Trump's Twitter ban | News by Thaiger

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21 Comments

Buttaxe

Monday, January 11, 2021 at 9:46 am

Rubicon crossed. They can even silence a sitting US president now. This was the real coup that happened last week. It’s irrelevant if you love or hate Trump and conservatives, the precedent has been established and when power shifts from Left where it s now, to Right, it will be your leader and your voice that will be silenced.
Free speech is dead in the USA.

Reply
- Gordon
  
  Monday, January 11, 2021 at 2:31 pm
  
  Trump is a disgrace to humanity and should be locked up. Preferably with Tommy Robinson and a bar of soap. Good riddance.
  
  Reply
  - Brian
    
    Monday, January 11, 2021 at 8:10 pm
    
    I think the same of you.
    
    Reply
- Niko
  
  Monday, January 11, 2021 at 4:47 pm
  
  Not really It was crossed the minute they started puting (i) on most of his messages basicaly calling him a bullshiter. They were testing the waters and like the fool he did nothing sending the message that he was unable or unwilling to do anything about it other than complaining.
  
  He should have send his police and do a raid on Twitter HQ and charge them with whatever crime. That would scare the shit out of not twitter but everyone else.
  
  Reply
  - Issan John
    
    Monday, January 11, 2021 at 7:57 pm
    
    “whatever crime”.
    
    What “crime”?
    
    Not publishing whatever someone wants to say on privately owned website?
    
    Isn’t that the same crime as not letting someone stick signs up around your own house saying whatever they want?
    
    Reply
  - Saverio Cannata
    
    Monday, January 11, 2021 at 10:28 pm
    
    Agree with you!
    
    Reply
- jesus monroe
  
  Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 2:53 pm
  
  Free Speech is a myth………Our freedoms have been attacked and eroded for years in so many ways. You lucky your not living in North Korea, there you wouldn’t be even able to make your comment.
  
  Reply
- JJ
  
  Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 2:35 am
  
  It’s led to a religious-like cult. Not solely by itself but it nearly crippled democracy. Social Media isn’t government run, it’s private. I understand the slippery slope between censorship and free speech, but spreading verifiably false conspiracy theories from the office of the presidency has brought the US 50 years back in time.
  
  Reply
Jack Dorescuck

Monday, January 11, 2021 at 9:51 am

For the chaos that happened on January 6th, a good portion of the blame goes to Twitter. The President issued a statement early in afternoon to tell everyone its time to go home and to be peaceful. Twitter deleted that message and its crazy that they closed his account all together.
I hope the FCC hits Twitter with a multi-million dollar fine (even though it may not hurt their bank). If that was one major avenue of the President’s method of reaching the American public and had an urgent message or emergency, it would violate the “Emergency Broadcast System” rules.
It just goes to show that big tech wants to control the way you think and by censoring.
There is no freedom with censorship.

Reply
- Slugger
  
  Monday, January 11, 2021 at 2:30 pm
  
  Then dont participate. I dont and my life is no less rich.
  
  Reply
- Issan John
  
  Monday, January 11, 2021 at 8:02 pm
  
  About as true as the election being “stolen”.
  
  He made the statement, reportedly after a lot of urging, AFTER the attempted coup he’d instigated.
  
  A bit late …..
  
  Reply
- Saverio Cannata
  
  Monday, January 11, 2021 at 10:32 pm
  
  No fine.best think is to ban twitter, face, you tube, instagram. No member no money!
  
  Reply
Rado

Monday, January 11, 2021 at 1:19 pm

Twitter – shitter – who even use it???

Reply
Mike

Monday, January 11, 2021 at 9:37 pm

Good job Twitter.

Reply
Ben

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 8:59 am

Twitter has a policy if you tweet to incite violence then you will be shut down. Trump knew the rules. He just thought he was above those rules just like he thinks he’s above the law. He found out he isn’t.

The first amendment is as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So it protects it citizens from the government restricting free speech. Last I checked Twitter and Facebook are not governmental entities. Trump complaining about his first amendment rights is another lie that people like Buttaxe believe. Twitter just took away his big bullhorn. He can still go on Fox or Newsmax whenever he wants to say something.

Reply
Roger C

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 10:48 am

Twitter is for twats.

Reply
Jeff T.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 7:09 pm

“Ironically they aired their grievances… on Twitter”

What absolute morons are writing this drivel?

Reply
Marcus

Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 4:05 am

Yes, Twitter is a private company and has the legal right to kick anyone out of their platform without any specific reason. With that said, questions comes to mind;

1) What IF they use this right to steer towards a political agenda, and/or silence specific voices not in line with such agenda – fair game? Or a threat to free speech/democracy?

2) What if in the future – Would YOU silently accept being kicked out your rights to use Internet – which is largely controlled by US companies such as being locked out from your iOS/Android phone, Dropbox and Onedrive, not allowed to use Intel, AMD, Nvidia cpu, or any rights to use GPS, is that ok in pursuing specific political opinions?

3) When does the people understand that tech companies completely and utterly control your right to have a life in this society? Is that ok?

No, people would scream like babies, not being able to face their own hateful opinions because that would hurt the brain too much.

Reply
Ben

Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 11:14 am

People that criticize Twitter as being left are just sore because Trump violated their rules and got booted. Twitter is not a political company and the sole reason they are there is to make MONEY. They were exercising risk management as they can be held civilly liable for allowing tweets that incite violence to remain on their site. Jack Dorsey prefers to be a billionaire versus a hero on the left or right any day.

Reply
jesus monroe

Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 3:00 pm

Someone as a joke repeated many of trumps inflammatory comments he made earlier in his career and were kicked off within hours……say know more

Reply
JJ

Thursday, January 14, 2021 at 2:27 am

The results of Donald Trump’s Twitter ban has resulted in 50% increase in critical thinking and use of brain cells

Reply