Trump ban does not impress privacy chief

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards has criticised the Twitter and Facebook bans on United States President Donald Trump, as ‘‘arbitrary and cynical’’, and described the social media platforms as ‘‘conflicted’’.

Edwards, who has strongly butted heads with social media platforms in the past, indicated he believed bans should be subject to new laws and left to regulators.

‘‘The Twitter and Facebook bans are arbitrary, cynical, unprincipled and further evidence that regulation of social media platforms is urgently required,’’ Edwards tweeted. ‘‘We should not be abdicating responsibility for the tough policy decisions required and delegating responsibility for our community standards to conflicted corporates.’’

Twitter said in a blog post on Saturday that it had permanently suspended Trump’s Twitter account, which had 88 million followers. Both Facebook and Twitter indicated their bans were prompted by a concern for public safety. Twitter explained it believed two tweets from Trump risked inciting further violence.

Those tweets stated that Trump would not attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20 and said ‘‘patriots’’ who had voted for him would not be disrespected. Twitter said it determined the two tweets were likely to inspire people to replicate

Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol building, which has been blamed for five deaths. ‘‘There are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so,’’ it said.

‘‘Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17,’’ it also said in its explanation.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg also said it had banned

Trump from its platform at least until after Biden’s inauguration because the ‘‘risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great’’.

‘‘Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labelling his posts when they violate our policies,’’ Zuckerberg said. ‘‘We did this because we believe the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,’’ Zuckerberg said.

Edwards said ‘‘much worse has been allowed and is still present on both platforms’’ than the posts to which the two companies referred.

‘‘Lawmakers should grasp the nettle and make rules for social media, rather than leaving it to each platform to set their own and police them, which they do [at the moment] very inconsistently.’’

Former National Party MP Brett Hudson disagreed, saying the bans were triggered by a breach of the social media firms’ terms and conditions, rather than being a question of ‘‘community standards’’ or freedom of speech.

‘‘I don’t think the state should seek to set those specific rules. An accessible means to ensure the platforms’ policies are administered fairly and consistently seems attractive though,’’ he tweeted.

‘‘Lawmakers should grasp the nettle and make rules for social media.’’

John Edwards

Privacy Commissioner