Social media companies take Trump offline
Capitol violence spurs lockouts of accounts
After years of treating President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric with a light touch, Facebook and Instagram are silencing his social media accounts for the rest of his presidency.
The move, which many called long overdue after Wednesday’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, is a reminder of the power that social media platforms can wield when they choose.
Facebook and Instagram said Thursday they will bar Trump from posting at least until the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
A 12-hour lockdown of Trump’s account ended Thursday and the president used his restored account to post a video in which he acknowledged for the first time that his presidency will end soon.
It remains unclear how the platforms will handle Trump once he leaves office and is no longer shielded from enforcement of most rules by his status as a world leader. And some critics saw the moves as cynical efforts by the companies to position themselves for a postTrump future.
“They no longer have to fear Donald Trump,” said Rashad Robinson of Color of Change, a group that has
pushed tech companies to do more to rein in hate speech.
He said Facebook’s action was “in the best interest of Facebook” and a way to curry favor with the incoming Democratic president and Congress.
In announcing the move, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the risk of allowing Trump to use the platform is too great after the president’s incitement of a mob on Wednesday. Zuckerberg said Trump’s account will be locked “for at least the next two weeks” and possibly indefinitely.
Trump has harnessed the power of social media to spread falsehoods about election integrity and the results of the presidential race. Platforms like Facebook have occasionally labeled or even removed some
of his posts.
Because of Wednesday’s riot, Zuckerberg said a more aggressive approach is needed.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, will block Trump’s ability to post on its platform.
Youtube, owned by Google, announced more general changes that will penalize accounts spreading misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election, with repeat offenders facing permanent removal. Snapchat on Wednesday locked Trump’s account “indefinitely.”
Twitch, the livestreaming site owned by Amazon and used by Trump’s campaign to stream speeches, disabled Trump’s account until he leaves office, saying it didn’t want to be used “to incite further violence.”
Companies outside the social media world also scrambled to take stock of how they had been used by those who swarmed the Capitol. E-commerce company Shopify shut down two online Trump memorabilia stores for promoting people or organizations “that threaten or condone violence to further a cause.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email that “it’s incredibly ironic, yet not surprising, that when the President spoke to the country at a critical time Big Tech chose to censor and block him from doing so.”
It was Twitter where Trump was likely to feel the effects most. A company spokesman said Twitter could take further action as it kept track of “activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter.”