SAN FRANCISCO – Image-centric social network Snapchat yesterday said it has permanently banned United States President Donald Trump from the platform, as voices are raised against keeping him off the internet stage.
Trump’s access to social media has been largely cut off since a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington DC in a deadly attack on January 6.
Operators fear that Trump could use his Snapchat account to foment more unrest in the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“Last week, we announced an indefinite suspension of president Trump’s Snapchat account,” Snapchat said in response to an inquiry.
“In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently terminate his account.”
After the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, began to bar him from using their platforms.
Google and Apple pulled Parler apps from their shops for digital content shops, stating that the right-leaning social network is allowing users to promote violence.
Amazon Web Services later ousted Parler from its data-centres, essentially forcing the social network offline due to lack of hosting services.
“I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here,” Twitter chief Jack Dorsey wrote in a tweet yesterday.
“After a clear warning, we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter.”
The actions angered ardent defenders of Trump, who was impeached by the House of Representatives yesterday for inciting “insurrection”.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton yesterday said he is demanding that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter explain why Trump is not welcomed on their platforms.
Paxton maintained that the “seemingly coordinated de-platforming” of Trump “silences those whose speech and political beliefs do not align with leaders of Big Tech companies”.
The state attorney issued administrative subpoenas calling on the technology companies to share their policies and practices regarding content moderation, as well as for information directly related to Parler social network. – AFP, January 14, 2021
