Photo: Chriss Keane/Reuters. Twitter Spittle: me
If you try to find Trump on your favorite social networks, you’re in for a surprise. Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Snapchat, and others have banned Trump and Trump-related accounts and networks. Networks are cracking down on the lame duck president.
What happened? Was it the many years with many calls for violence? His blatant Islamophobia and racism? Was it because he shared a post saying, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” again? Nope! Instead, it was something you likely heard about already. The result of his actions over the past decade or more, since he started his career in politics with the racist accusation that Obama wasn’t an American citizen. A seditious riot took control of the Capitol on behalf of Trump, an attempted coup. They waved Confederate flags, white nationalist flags, and Thin Blue Line flags, even as they killed one officer and injured others. They trashed the place. Rioters prepared to take hostages. Some wore “Camp Auschwitz” hoodies. But they were all there for the same reason: to overturn the results of a fair election to benefit Donald Trump.
They were there because Trump asked them to be there.
During the insurrection, Trump shared a post and a video across his social networks. At first, it seemed he was calling for peace, but then seemed to explain away the dire nature of the situation, seemingly siding with the rioters. People pointed out it was encouraging the insurrectionists.
People warned Twitter and Facebook for years that Donald Trump’s hate speech and encouragement of violence would lead to violence. Now it has happened again, like it did during the Unite the Right rally. This time they took the Capitol, a building that hasn’t been taken by enemies of the United States since the War of 1812. Networks finally took action.
Twitter removed his two posts that encouraged the rioters. They suspended him, saying he’d have to delete the posts to have his account reactivated. They’d later ban him permantly. Facebook, on the other hand, banned him outright, and stated he would not be back on the network before the end of his term as president, if ever.
It’s finally a time of reckoning for Trumpists, but is it too little, too late from our social networks?
In This Article:
Facebook’s Ban
“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden. His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence. Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.”
– Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
Most news stations have said that “Facebook and Instagram” have separately banned Trump. I’m including them together because, at least of this writing, the two are one and the same. Often they’re in the same building, even.
The honeymoon with Facebook is over, it would seem. Photo: Donald Trump, via Twitter
Facebook is where much of Trump’s supporters go for news and discussion. While Twitter may be Donald Trump’s favorite social network, his base loves Facebook. This is thanks to the way that Facebook gives them an ideological bubble for hate speech, discrimination, and, as it turns out, discussions about insurrection.
Facebook has been the cause for violence and political unrest around the world. Now, it seems, it has come to a head in the United States, and they finally care enough to do something.
Twitter’s Flip-Flopping and Ban
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970430062485505?s=20
Twitter may have been the most interesting ban in this group. They started out simply suspending Trump for his video and a tweet that was positive towards the insurrectionists at the Capitol. They hid his tweets and suspended his account for 12 hours, saying he would be allowed back after he deleted them. Eventually, he came back and tweeted a video again, this time a little less aggressive and seemingly committing to a peaceful transfer of power (though stopping short of a concession). However, his following tweets were more problematic, and Twitter banned him.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1347684877634838528?s=20
Even before becoming the president, Trump loved Twitter. It’s what helped him gain a following during his racist “birther” movement, which claimed Obama wasn’t an American citizen, based off of his race. In many ways, Trump owes his political career to Twitter. Now, Twitter may have finally damaged his ability to mount a future political campaign to recover after losing the 2020 election.
One troubling note ended Twitter’s blog post on Trump’s ban. That section is below.
“Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”
– Twitter Security
Plans of a future attack could be why social networks finally decided to take action. Hopefully the FBI, National Guard, and Capitol Police will actually do something with this information this time.
More than 300 employees signed an internal petition on Friday, demanding Twitter remove Trump from the platform. By that evening, Twitter finally took action.
Twitch Ban
The PogChamp emote wasn’t the only thing Twitch banned. However, interestingly, Twitch banned the PogChamp emote before Trump. They banned poggers because the face used in the emote belonged to a radical right-wing personality, and Twitch has now distanced themselves from him. For similar reasons, Twitch banned Donald Trump’s account for an indefinite amount of time. Violence and extremism just don’t belong in games.
…
Well, unless you’re fighting Nazi zombies, I guess.
Snapchat
Yes, Donald Trump had a Snapchat. I can’t say if he used it personally, or if it was simply a tool to try to recruit a younger base. Snapchat had already stopped showing Trump’s videos in the “Trending” section, as a way to limit his influence. Now, however, Snapshot’s co-founder and CEO, Evan Spiegel, has spoken out. According to him, Snapchat “simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform.” With that, they banned Trump, making Snapchat and perhaps the rest of the world a little bit safer.
YouTube
Hate speech spreads on YouTube in an insidious way. The platform hosts numerous well-known neo-Nazis, alt-right personalities, and other bigots. It’s famous for using suggestions to send users down a rabbit hole. Viewers will start with a video that may be innocent, but it’s about politics or philosophy. Soon, they’ll have far-right video suggestions and find themselves awash in alt-right propaganda.
However, even YouTube had to draw a line. They removed the video Trump uploaded seemingly coddling his rioting followers. The Google-owned company is now limiting Trump’s channel, and also carefully watching other channels publishing election disinformation. YouTube will give YouTubers who upload falsified information about the election will get a strike and an immediate 1-week ban. Trump can’t resist lying, and will likely face a suspension or ban shortly.
Reddit and Discord Too!
Okay, Trump didn’t have a Reddit account, but his followers had made subreddits for him (think of it like a topic message board, non-Redditors). The largest subreddit dedicated to Trump fell a while ago. First it was quarantined, making it harder to view and access. When the board never got under control, Reddit banned it. Today, they did the same for the last remaining popular Trump-focused subreddit. Though others will likely pop up and fall.
As for Discord, they finally removed the “The Donald” Discord server, which was attached to the former subreddit by the same name. Discord, being a more private group setting, was where many Trump followers felt comfortable sharing their more abhorrent thoughts. Now they’ll have to find someplace else for that.
Trump Tries to Sidestep Bans
Trump’s deranged tweets were deleted. They’re also horribly misinformed. He was removed because he was causing violence, and without section 230, no website will survive, not just Twitter.
Trump has now twice (as of this writing) attempted to sidestep his Twitter ban. First, he tried to use the @POTUS account, the official presidential account that Trump rarely uses, to complain about his Twitter ban. Twitter left the account active, but deleted the tweets. Circumventing a ban is, after all, against Twitter’s guidelines.
Trump also attempted to post the same message above on the @TeamTrump account. This isn’t a government account. Twitter suspended it without hesitation.
Gary Coby, Trump’s digital director for Trump’s campaign, also tried to hand his twitter over to Trump. He set it up with Trump’s face and name, and tweeted that he was texting Trump his login details. Not only would this be a huge security issue (the president using an unsecured, shared account), but it’s also against Twitter’s rules. Twitter suspended Coby’s account.
A New Direction For Social Networks?
A slur in his merch and hate speech in his videos, but YouTube allows Steven Crowder to stay. Social networks still have a long ways to go to eliminate hate.
In some countries, the display we saw this week isn’t uncommon. Fake news, hate speech, and ignorance on social networks comes to a head in a violent uprising. Facebook triggered the genocide in Myanmar. Germany has found that Facebook access is directly related to hate crimes committed against Muslims after tracking Facebook outages and hate crimes. These networks have always been instigators of violence and bigotry.
But now it happened on U.S. soil, and it’s clear who’s to blame: Donald Trump and the seditious Republicans who tried to overturn an election and encouraged their followers to do so as well.
However, their encouragement for violence? Their hate speech? These words of sedition, treason, and bigotry? That came over networks like Facebook and Twitter. Facebook intentionally spreads such content because, as it’s scandalous, it causes users to engage on the platform. That’s more money.
If all of Facebook and Twitter’s users, conservative or liberal, politician or not, were treated equally, there would be almost no conservatives on either site. Their very views scoff at any ideas of decency, and certainly break the rules made to uphold decency, equality, and fairness. Trump’s Facebook post calling to ban all Muslims should have gotten him banned from Facebook before the 2016 election even happened!
Perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess now if Facebook had banned him then.
Hate speech silences others’ free speech.
Social networks have come to the realization that the hate they spread has consequences on U.S. soil. And, apparently, that’s the only soil that matters to them, because they’re finally taking some action. Remember, while Trump was the primary agitator here, many other Republican politicians, including Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley went along with his coup attempt, and have spread disinformation during and after the insurrection. No social network has responded by banning them.
This was an effort to save some face after being the vehicle for hate over the past decade. But maybe this coup attempt will be enough to convince politicians that it’s time to force Facebook and Twitter to enforce their own guidelines and follow certain rules. Perhaps even ban hate speech, calls for violence, and intentionally-crafted disinformation altogether. That could change discourse in the country and improve security online and in our cities.
We’re still a long way from any progress on our social networks, and there are still many bad actors on them looking to further damage this country. They’ll likely succeed. But maybe those wins will be short-lived.
Sources:
- Julia Alexander, The Verge
- Karissa Bell, Engadget
- Sara Fischer, Axios
- Nathan Grayson, Kotaku
- Michael Grothaus, Fast Company
- Charlie Hall, Polygon
- Sean Hollister, The Verge
- Jacob Kastrenakes and Makena Kelly, The Verge
- Makena Kelly, The Verge
- Adi Robertson, The Verge
- Catherine Shu, TechCrunch
- Stephen Warwick, Android Central