World leaders are blasting the suspension of President Trump’s Twitter account, with many calling it absolute censorship and a decision that should be left to the citizens and not to a private technology company.
French Junior Minister for EU Affairs Clement Beaune said he was “shocked” to see the social media platform attract Trump’s account.
“This should be decided by the citizens, not by an executive director,” he told Bloomberg TV on Monday. “But yes, I am shocked that it is now entirely in private hands. It can’t just be in private hands. ”
Beaune said there should be a “public regulatory framework” in which social media platforms can argue that certain content violates the law and that it should be removed or fines paid, but that should be decided. of citizens and the legislature.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said responsibility for regulating the content should lie with the state.
“The regulation of digital giants cannot be done by the digital oligarchy itself,” Le Maire said, adding that high technology was “one of the threats” to democracy.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said it was a “bad sign” that social media had the power to censor Trump.
“I don’t like anyone being censored or taking the right to post a message on Twitter or Facebook. I do not agree with that, I do not accept this “, Lopez Obrador declared at a press conference last Friday.
“A censorship court like the Inquisition to manage public opinion: this is really serious,” he said.
A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she considered Trump’s ban “problematic”.
“This fundamental right can be intervened, but in accordance with the law and within the framework defined by lawmakers – not in accordance with a decision of the management of social platforms,” spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Monday.
“From this point of view, the chancellor considers it problematic that the US president’s accounts have now been permanently blocked,” he said, adding that the president should have the ability to express his opinion.
Acting Australian Prime Minister Michael McCormack has said Trump’s blockade is tantamount to censorship.
He wondered why Twitter failed to remove a fake photo showing an Australian soldier beheading an Afghan child, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“I would tell Twitter owners that if you want to reject comments about who the American president is still, you have to think about the photo, the doctoral image, which shows a soldier, allegedly an Australian digger, with a child in his arms, about to “It hurts that child,” McCormack said. “This has not been eliminated and this is wrong.”
Twitter branded the image as “sensitive” after it was sent by The Post in November.
Eduardo, the son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has expressed similar concerns about the Twitter treatment of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.
“A world where Maduro is on social media, but Trump is suspended, cannot be normal” Bolsonaro said on Twitter.
He changed his Twitter profile photo to Trump.
With Post threads