Why Facebook banning President Donald Trump is way too little, too late
Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that Facebook and Instagram were blocking President Donald Trump for at least the next two weeks, until President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.
On Wednesday, Twitter locked Trump’s account for 12 hours.
Well look who found their courage.
Way too little, way too late.
“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg said in a post. Last 24 hours? How about the last four years? Lately Trump has done little but make false claims about the election being fraudulent. Time after time and on every platform available to him, Trump has carried on with the dangerous fantasy that somehow the election was stolen from him. Social media, as well as some in TV news — looking at you Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs — have done little to try to stop him.
Why the sudden change of heart? Oh, right, insurrection
So why the sudden change of heart?
Well, there’s the matter of Trump inciting an angry mob that marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol, stormed the building, breached security and made its way inside. And following that with a bizarre video he posted on social media — after Biden addressed the nation in a speech that could only be characterized as presidential — in which Trump not only refused to discredit the mob’s actions, but told its members they were special and he loved them. After again claiming the election was stolen, of course.
News organizations aired the video immediately, though some couched it, saying at least it included a call for the mob to go home. CNBC’s Shepard Smith stopped it in the middle, saying, “That is not true, and we are not airing it.” Others removed it after Twitter took it down.
A few more lie-filled tweets and finally Twitter had had enough, locking Trump’s account for 12 hours and threatening to do so permanently if he continued to violate its “Civic Integrity Policy.”
What a joke. More than any other media platform, even television, Trump has used Twitter as a vehicle to spread repeated lies, not just about the election but about the spread of COVID-19 and his lack of response to it and so much more.
It’s true that Twitter has for a while now put labels on Trump’s misleading tweets about the election. As if that made a difference. Once the fox has eaten all the chickens it’s a little late to ban him from the henhouse.
After the disgraceful events of Wednesday, people are jumping off the Trump train like it had caught fire. In a way it had. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s “enough is enough” floor speech late Wednesday in which he finally stood up to the president was a remarkably weird bit of TV, watching someone who had gone out of his way to praise Trump at every turn seemingly come to his senses. Not a Frank Capra movie moment, but it’ll do.
Now media are finding their courage, but it’s way too late
Remember the quaint days when media fought about whether they should call Trump’s lies just that — lies? It seems like some are finally getting the message. Brian Kilmeade, a co-host of “Fox & Friends,” for years a welcome haven for Trump to call in and spread lies without fear of pushback, on Thursday morning’s show said, “Since Nov. 3, or when we got the verdict by Nov. 5, the president’s behavior has been terrible.”
Right. Since Nov. 3. Or Nov. 5. Wake up, pal. His behavior has been terrible for a long time. He telegraphed every action that took place Wednesday, and has for a long time.
Don’t start with censorship claims or how this is a First Amendment issue. When you sign up for Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, you agree to a set of standards. If you don’t follow them, you get punished. It’s a pretty simple equation.
Yes, the platforms are notoriously inconsistent in how they apply those standards and to whom they apply them. That can be maddening.
It’s also the only reason Trump didn’t get his account locked before now. It’s a tragedy it took such a violent, deadly insurrection to finally make it happen.