After years of treating President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric with a light touch, Facebook and Instagram silence his social media accounts for the remainder of his presidency. The move, long overdue for many after Wednesday’s deadly uprising at the Capitol, is also a reminder of the tremendous power that social media platforms can wield if they choose to do so.
Facebook and Instagram said Thursday that they will stop Trump from posting until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
A 12-hour freeze on Trump’s account ended Thursday, and the president used his recovered account to post a video acknowledging for the first time that his presidency will soon end.
It remains unclear how the platforms will treat Trump once he leaves office and is no longer protected from enforcement of most of the rules because of its status as a world leader. And some critics saw the moves as cynical attempts by the companies to position themselves for a future after Trump.
“They no longer need to fear Donald Trump,” said Rashad Robinson of Color of Change, a group that has pushed tech companies to do more to curb hate speech. He said Facebook’s move was “in the best interest of Facebook” and a way to gain favor with the upcoming Democratic president and Congress.
Announcing the unprecedented move, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the risk of allowing Trump to use the platform is too great after the president’s incitement to a crowd on Wednesday. Zuckerberg said Trump’s account will be locked “for at least the next two weeks” and possibly indefinitely.
“The shocking events of the past 24 hours clearly show that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transfer of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Trump has repeatedly used the power of social media to spread lies about the integrity of elections and the results of the presidential race. Platforms like Facebook have occasionally tagged or even removed some of its posts, but the overall response has failed to meet a growing number of critics who say the platforms have enabled the spread of dangerous disinformation.
However, in light of Wednesday’s riot, Zuckerberg said a more aggressive approach is needed because of “using our platform to incite violent insurgency against a democratically elected government.”
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is also blocking Trump’s ability to post on its platform. Google-owned YouTube has announced more generalized changes that will penalize accounts spreading misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election, permanently removing repeat offenders. Snapchat locked Trump’s account “indefinitely” on Wednesday.
Twitch, the Amazon-owned livestream site used by Trump’s campaign to stream speeches, shut down Trump’s account until he left his office, saying it did not want to be used “to incite further violence.” Companies outside of the social media world also tried to take stock of how they had been used by those who swarmed the Capitol. Ecommerce company Shopify has shut down two online Trump memorabilia stores to promote people or organizations “who threaten or condone violence to achieve a good cause.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email that “it is incredibly ironic, but not surprising, that when the president spoke to the country at a critical time, Big Tech chose to censor and block him. . “
It was Twitter where Trump was likely to feel the effects the most. The company blocked his accounts for 12 hours after he repeatedly made false allegations about the integrity of the election. More than a decade ago, Trump embraced the platform’s immediacy and scale to rally loyalists, berate enemies, and spread false rumors.
In his video posted to his recovered account on Thursday, Trump condemned the violence in the Capitol and reversed the position he took in a video from Wednesday.
A company spokesperson said Twitter could take further action as it “tracks on-site activities and statements outside Twitter.”
The platforms continued to receive criticism from users who partially blamed them for creating an online environment that led to Wednesday’s violence.
“Today is the result of allowing people with hatred in their hearts to use platforms that should be used to bring people together,” singer and actress Selena Gomez wrote to her 64 million followers on Twitter. “You have all failed the American people today, and I hope you will fix things in the future.”
Senator Mark Warner, the new chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee, on Thursday called Facebook, Twitter and Google “collaborators” in Trump’s attack on American democracy. “And their 11-hour conversion to suddenly delete Trump’s Facebook or Twitter feed is far too late,” the Virginia Democrat said during an Aspen Digital online forum.
The platforms’ actions followed years in which they surrounded and hit about the dangerous disinformation and violent rhetoric that Trump and his supporters have spread, adding to Wednesday’s violence.
On Wednesday, the companies focused on a video Trump posted more than two hours after protesters entered the Capitol, where lawmakers gathered in an extraordinary joint session to confirm the results of the Electoral College and the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Republican lawmakers and former government officials had begged Trump to make a statement to his supporters to quell the violence.
While Trump told his supporters that “you have to go home now,” he also reiterated false claims about voter fraud that affected the election. Then he added, “We cannot play into these people’s hands. We need peace. So go home. We love you. You are very special. “
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube all said they removed the video on Wednesday, citing misinformation or dangerous rhetoric.
In a statement Thursday morning, Trump said there would be an “orderly transition on January 20” and acknowledged defeat in the election for the first time. His aides posted the statement on Twitter because the president’s account remained suspended.
Monica Stephens, a professor at the University at Buffalo who studies social media, said it made sense for Facebook and Twitter to try lighter forms of reducing disinformation in the months leading up to the election. “They’re getting anti-aircraft guns from both sides of the political aisle,” she said.
Trump’s ardent supporters have flocked to Parler, Gab and other “free speech” social media sites that capitalize on conservative voices. Some were used by the people who stormed the Capitol. If mainstream platforms send the discussion of violence and social protest to more marginal sites, Stephens said, “it will still happen; it’s just going to happen where it’s not as read. “
Now that platforms have severely restricted Trump, companies like Facebook and Twitter may find it harder to fend off calls to ban other political figures inciting violence, said Shannon McGregor, an assistant professor of journalism and media at the United States. University of North Carolina. “Because they resist and resist, but now that they’ve done it, it’s hard to walk that back,” she said.
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AP writers Mae Anderson, Tali Arbel, Barbara Ortutay, Frank Bajak and Joseph Pisani contributed to this report.