America, in case you haven’t heard, is broken again. Following protests against the results of the 2020 presidential election, which saw the Capitol stormed by protestors and politicians evacuated, current president Donald Trump has been banned from social media.
Which is the first time this has happened. Previously, Trump was left alone no matter what inflammatory content was posted to his accounts. Then, around the time of the November 2020 election, both Twitter and Facebook were fact-checking Trump’s social media posts. And now, claiming that Trumps posts were inciting or inflaming protest tensions, Facebook and Twitter have issued a ban on Trump’s social media accounts.
Donald Trump’s ban
This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021
Trump tweeted support for the mob that swarmed the Washington Capitol, a move that saw Twitter issuing a twelve-hour ban on the president’s Twitter account. The ban would be lifted after Trump deletes the offending tweets, but he also faces a permanent ban if the tweets in question aren’t deleted.
We've assessed two policy violations against President Trump's Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time.
— Meta Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) January 7, 2021
Facebook took similar steps, blocking Trump from posting to either Facebook or Instagram for a period of 24 hours, based on “two policy violations”. This follows concerns from Facebook around the violence, when the company “…removed from Facebook and Instagram the recent video of President Trump speaking about the protests and his subsequent post about the election results. We made the decision that on balance these posts contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence.”
