Twitter suspends Trump amid Capitol violence
In an unprecedented step, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account for 12 hours Wednesday after he repeatedly posted false accusations about the election after his supporters stormed the Capitol following a Trump rally.
Twitter said future violations by Trump would result in the permanent suspension of his account, which has 88 million followers.
Earlier in the day, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed a short video from Trump in which he urged those supporters Wednesday to “go home” but repeated falsehoods about the integrity of the presidential election.
Trump posted that video more than two hours after protesters entered the Capitol, interrupting lawmakers meeting in an extraordinary joint session to confirm the Electoral College results and President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, said Wednesday on Twitter that the video was removed because it “contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
“This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’ s video ,” Rosen said on Twitter.
Twitter initially left the video up but blocked people from being able to retweet it or comment on it. Only later in the day did the platform delete it entirely.
Trump opened his video saying, “I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now.”
After repeating false claims about voter fraud affecting the election, Trump went on to say: “We can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”
Said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement: “The President has promoted sedition and incited violence. More than anything, what is happening right now at the Capitol is a direct result of the fear and disinformation that has been spewed consistently from the Oval Office.”
On Twitter, users had called for thecompany’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, to take down Trump’s account. Civil rights groups weighed in, saying action by social media companies against calls for political violence was “long overdue.”
And even venture capitalists who had reaped riches from investing in social media urged Twitter and Facebook to do more.
“For four years you’ve rationalized this terror. Inciting violent treason is not a free speech exercise,” Chris Sacca, a tech investor who had invested in Twitter, wrote to Dorsey and Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. “If you work at those companies, it’s on you too. Shut it down.”
Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory who studies online movements, said the violence was the result of people operating in closed social media networks where they believed the claims of voter fraud and of the election being stolen from Trump.
“This is a demonstration of the very real-world impact of echo chambers,” she said.