Donald Trump Blocked by Twitter and Facebook - Newslibre

Donald Trump Blocked by Twitter and Facebook

Donald Trump found himself suspended from both Twitter and Facebook as the two social media platforms initiated a lockdown on his accounts for tweeting with supporters who attacked the US Capitol recently.

In a social media message to protesters, he said “I love you” before telling them to go home. He also repeated false claims about election fraud which forced Facebook and Twitter to take action respectively.

According to Twitter, it required the removal of three tweets for “severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy”. The company said the president’s account would remain locked for good if the tweets were not removed.

It also further stated that “Future violations of the Twitter Rules… will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account”.

By the time of this posting, Donald Trump’s account now states that three of his tweets are “no longer available because [they] violated” its rules. The platform only uses this specific notice in cases when account holders have deleted the post themselves.

Although Twitter has declined to comment on the matter, this indicates that Mr Trump or one of his associates may have taken the action required to get the account restored after a 12-hour ban ends.

Dan Scavino, White House director of social media, has used his own account to publish a statement on the President’s behalf.

“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” it quoted Mr Trump as saying.

“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”

Meanwhile, Facebook and Instagram have banned Donald Trump for 24 hours while YouTube took the liberty to remove a certain video that violates its policies. Snapchat followed suit by also stopping Trump from creating any new posts though the company has stated whether it would end the ban.

According to BBC, Facebook said: “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”

His supporters stormed the seat of US government and clashed with police, leading to the death of one woman. The violence brought to a halt congressional debate over Democrat Joe Biden’s election win.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram join forces in blocking Donald Trump

In the House and Senate chambers, Republicans were challenging the certification of November’s election results and wanted to have them revoked in reference to voting fraud which Trump and his administration claim happened during the elections.

Despite losing on many fronts, and trying his level best to have the election results revoked, President Trump still believes he has more cards under his sleeves to pull and won’t give up the fight.

Before the violence broke out, President Trump had told supporters on the National Mall in Washington that the election had been stolen. It was hours later that things went out of hand as violence erupted inside and outside the US Capitol.

He later appeared on video and repeated the false claim about the elections being stolen. He told protesters “I love you” and described the people who stormed the Capitol complex as “patriots”. YouTube immediately took action by removing the video which was found to be in violation of its terms.

YouTube said it removed the video because it “violated policies on spreading election fraud”.

However, Twitter took a different approach to the video. The social media giant initially didn’t take it down but instead removed the ability for users to retweet, like and comment on it and another tweet. It was moments later that Twitter removed them, and suspended the outgoing president.

Twitter said: “We have been significantly restricting engagement with Tweets labelled under our Civic Integrity Policy due to the risk of violence”.

Facebook told the BBC: “The violent protests in the Capitol today are a disgrace. We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these rules.”

Facebook also said it is currently looking for and removing content that incited or supported the storming of Capitol Hill.

YouTube already had the policy to remove fake news about mass election fraud, which it applied to the president. The march was partly organised online, including on Facebook groups and pages.

It’s likely President-elect Joe Biden will look to crack down on conspiracy theories and extremism on social media when he takes office.

Source: BBC

 

Also read: “I’m doing great,” Says Hospitalized Dr. Dre

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