Tech platforms block Trump, with Facebook's Zuckerberg saying risk 'too great'

[webfact]

Tech platforms block Trump, with Facebook's Zuckerberg saying risk 'too great'

By Elizabeth Culliford and Katie Paul

 

FILE PHOTO: Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, U.S., October 23, 2019. REUTERS/Erin Scott/File Photo

 

(Reuters) -Facebook Inc said it would block U.S. President Donald Trump's accounts for at least the next two weeks and perhaps indefinitely with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying the risks of allowing him to use the platform were "simply too great."

 

The block by Facebook, which was joined by live-streaming platform Twitch and photo-sharing service Snap Inc, is the most significant sanction of the president by a major social media company. Tech giants have been scrambling to crack down on the president's baseless claims about the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election after hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in unrest that resulted in four deaths.

 

"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," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Thursday. (Post: https://bit.ly/2Lc6Xj1)

 

He said the action on Trump's Facebook page, which has 35 million followers, would last at least until President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20 and would also apply to Facebook-owned Instagram.

 

The decision by Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat to temporarily lock President Trump's social media accounts, spurred by the Capitol violence, may have ramifications behind the scenes for the tech giants. Matthew Larotonda reports.

 

Twitter Inc temporarily locked Trump's accounts on Wednesday. Twitter said its freeze of @realDonaldTrump, which has more than 88 million followers, would last until 12 hours after Trump removes three tweets. Trump has not tweeted since the being blocked.

 

Amazon.com Inc's Twitch also said on Thursday it had disabled Trump's channel due to the "extraordinary circumstances and the president's incendiary rhetoric." A spokeswoman said it would reassess Trump's account after he leaves office.

 

E-commerce platform Shopify also said on Thursday it was shutting down service for stores affiliated with Trump for violations of its "acceptable use" policy, prompting e-commerce sites for both the campaign and the Trump Organization to go offline.

 

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Social media companies have been under pressure to police misinformation about the U.S. election on their platforms, including from the president. Trump and his allies for months have amplified baseless claims of election fraud and the president told protesters to go to Capitol Hill, with both Republicans and Democrats saying he was responsible for the resulting violence.

 

In a video posted to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on Wednesday, which was later deleted by the platforms, Trump repeated election fraud claims as he told protesters to go home.

 

"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 U.S. and around the world," said Zuckerberg in his Thursday post.

 

Civil rights groups including Color of Change have called for social media companies to permanently ban Trump from the platforms, where he has repeatedly violated policies.

 

The Anti-Defamation League praised Facebook's move, calling it "an obvious first step," while the NAACP in a statement said the move was a "long overdue" gesture that "rings hollow."

 

Facebook has previously been blasted by lawmakers and employees for not acting on inflammatory posts from Trump, including those that have been labeled by Twitter.

 

Facebook has drawn criticism for exempting politicians' posts and ads from its third-party fact-checking program and repeatedly said it does not want to be "the arbiter of truth." The company has in recent months started labeling some of Trump's statements.

 

Some Facebook employees joined calls for Trump’s accounts to be shut down on Wednesday, according to internal posts seen by Reuters.

 

Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement he was "deeply frustrated that it took a group of domestic terrorists storming the Capitol" for Facebook to take action and wondered "if the decision was an opportunistic one, motivated by the news of a Democratically controlled Congress."

 

Democratic Senator Mark Warner, incoming chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he was glad social media was cracking down on Trump's false claims but the actions did not go far enough.

 

"These platforms have served as core organizing infrastructure for violent, far right groups and militia movements for several years now – helping them to recruit, organize, coordinate and in many cases (particularly with respect to YouTube) generate profits from their violent, extremist content," he said in a statement.

 

YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc's Google, said Thursday any channel that posts videos with false claims about the election results will be temporarily restricted from uploading or live streaming.

 

YouTube did not respond to a question about whether it would ban Trump's account in the same manner as Facebook, while a Twitter spokesman said it was continuing to "evaluate the situation in real time, including examining activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter." He said Twitter would inform the public if an "escalation" in its approach was necessary.

 

Violent rhetoric ramped up significantly in the past three weeks on major social networks as well as alternative platforms like Parler and pro-Trump site TheDonald.win, as groups planned for the rallies, according to researchers and public postings.

 

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York and Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California; Additional reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Paresh Dave in Oakland, California; and Munsif Vengattil and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-08

 

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[sammieuk1]

Covfefe consigned to be the 45th one term epic failure its all over bar the shooting  ???? 

[Odysseus123]

It should have been done some time ago....

[Kadilo]

It’s all falling apart.....shame. 

Even Boris is now putting the boot in. Pity he didn’t have the balls before and waited until he has one leg out the door. 

[Tug]

Good it’s about time after this latest fiasco trump is much diminished as are his enablers ehhh mr Cruz what an abomination of a president beggers belief 

[Justgrazing]

Must be a bit of a record that .. getting turfed offa fb and Instagram at the same time and on top of the 12 hr Twitter shutdown .. be a bit like digital cold turkey for him .. 

 

 

[simple1]

17 minutes ago, Justgrazing said:

Must be a bit of a record that .. getting turfed offa fb and Instagram at the same time and on top of the 12 hr Twitter shutdown .. be a bit like digital cold turkey for him .. 

 

 

 

More relevant, trump is the first president since 1932 to loose re-election, the House and  the Senate - trump - a three time loser

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/06/trump-set-be-first-president-since-1932-lose-reelection-house-senate/

[mr mr]

i blame trump.

[Jeffr2]

He's back....

 

Incredible video he just posted on Twitter.  Must have been a request by his lawyers.  NOTHING like what Trump would say if he wasn't told to.  Coward.

[Dagfinnur Traustason]

What a sad story! The first country in the world, with a president that has been banned on social media. Hilarious!

[mtls2005]

He'll wither into a dried orange sack without the life-affirming force of his twitter account.

 

 

[Emdog]

Freedom requires responsibility. Without that, it is anarchy & that is what you have with Trump and his backers that stormed the capitol

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, simple1 said:

More relevant, trump is the first president since 1932 to loose re-election, the House and  the Senate - trump - a three time loser

 

Impeach him a second time.

 

That'll set a benchmark even josh hawley or ted cruz can't beat?

 

 

[Jeffr2]

19 minutes ago, Emdog said:

Freedom requires responsibility. Without that, it is anarchy & that is what you have with Trump and his backers that stormed the capitol

Watch some of the interviews with these terrorists.  Wow!  Not very smart and fully bought into the lies of Trump, and the insane conspiracy theories on social media.  They need to see professional help.  Seriously.

[WineOh]

Donald Trump is a disgraceful human being. A monster, made that way by his father Fred Trump and his numerous enablers throughout his privileged life.

However, that is all about to come crashing down.

As with many greedy business men his day of reckoning is coming.

 

I expect his later years to be lived out inside a supermax jail cell. 

 

Good riddance, Donald. You have been an atrocious president. 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Liverpoolfan

[Rimmer]

A troll post and a reply have been removed

[rosst]

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

The slippery slope just got steeper 

[Sujo]

Just now, rosst said:

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

The slippery slope just got steeper 

They own it, they can decide who can and cannot use their platform. Trump can say what he likes, but not n their sites, their rules and no one forces him to use it.

[Meat Pie 47]

7 hours ago, Odysseus123 said:

It should have been done some time ago....

you mean 4 years ago?

[placeholder]

4 minutes ago, rosst said:

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

The slippery slope just got steeper 

The First Amendment prohibits government censorship only. Or do you think a Satanist has the right to preach in a church?

[Tropicalevo]

But you keep saying that you are only a platform!

Pay your taxes dude.

[placeholder]

3 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

But you keep saying that you are only a platform!

Pay your taxes dude.

Are you under the impression that Facebook is tax exempt? And if they pay too little in taxes, Trump is at least partially responsible for that.

[overherebc]

20 minutes ago, Sujo said:

They own it, they can decide who can and cannot use their platform. Trump can say what he likes, but not n their sites, their rules and no one forces him to use it.

Very true.

Letting someone with obvious mental problems post on their platform is a no-no.

[onthedarkside]

Several posts of disallowed social media content have been removed.

 

Please note the following forum rule:

 

18) Social Media content is not to be used as  source material unless it is from a recognized or approved news media source,  the source of any such material (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube  etc.) should always be shown

[welovesundaysatspace]

34 minutes ago, rosst said:

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship

No, some Internet forum banning a raging teenager for violating the netiquette (and potentially even laws) is not censorship. Happens every minute thousands of times around the world. You gotta do your homework before posting. 

 

34 minutes ago, rosst said:

and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

The fact that it’s their website. 
 

 

[welovesundaysatspace]

I’m wondering if Facebook & Co. can be held liable for not acting fast enough. It’s their obligation to remove not only child porn and ISIS propaganda but likewise domestic terrorist propaganda and defamation. 

[scorecard]

How he will complain about the election being stolen without specific verifiable proof?

 

Will he ever Tweet again?

 

[Berkshire]

1 hour ago, Sujo said:

1 hour ago, rosst said:

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

The slippery slope just got steeper 

They own it, they can decide who can and cannot use their platform. Trump can say what he likes, but not n their sites, their rules and no one forces him to use it.

Amazing that people throw the word "censorship" around without even knowing what it means.

[mtls2005]

1 hour ago, rosst said:

I am no fan of the man but this is censorship and what gives these people the right to decide what he may want to say? 

 

Quoting from the popular The First Amendment twitter feed:

 

The First Amendment
@USConst_Amend_I
·
Jan 6
I protect you from the government. Twitter is not the government. Therefore, I don’t protect you from Twitter.
 

 

 

[Sujo]

4 minutes ago, Berkshire said:

Amazing that people throw the word "censorship" around without even knowing what it means.

And as if trump is censored, he has a press secretary and can appear on tv on a whim. So no, he isnt censored.

 

But being a law and order guy, rules are rules, he must agree he broke their rules.