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Donald Trump on the phone: social media channels as presidential megaphones
Photo: LEAH MILLIS / REUTERS
Shortly before the end of Donald Trump's term of office, what has actually happened on the Internet and has been demanded for years: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have blocked Donald Trump's social media accounts - accounts with which the US President is concerned For a long time, especially on Twitter and Facebook, it has been able to allow things for which other users would have quickly been blown off the platform.
Trump spread numerous fake news, insulted other politicians and posted violent acts such as "If Iran wants to fight, it will be the official end of Iran" or the historically charged saying "When the looting begins, the shooting begins".
In the wake of the storm on the Capitol, in which thousands of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists wreaked havoc in one of the most symbolic places in the US capital Washington on Wednesday, the services decided, Donald Trump, the most powerful initiator of the protests, to switch off his digital megaphones .
For now.
Twitter has blocked Trump's account, which is followed by 88 million users, for twelve hours - because of messages in which Trump spread false allegations about the election result and played down the events at the Capitol.
If there are more problematic posts, he is threatened with a permanent account lock, according to Twitter in a statement.
On Facebook and Instagram, posts by Donald Trump should no longer appear for 24 hours.
The time limits give the impression that billions of companies still do not seem to have a strategy for how things should go on with Trump and his channels from Thursday.
Officially, the president is still in office for a good two weeks.
A big controversial topic internally
Tech companies have long argued about how to deal with Trump's hate speech and false claims - sometimes bitterly.
On Wednesday, according to employees, internal debates in a Facebook forum on the question of whether Trump should be removed from the platform immediately were stopped.
Three forum discussions on the topic were ended by administrators by temporarily freezing the posts, reports "Buzzfeed".
Mark Zuckerberg, who in the spring publicly opposed fact checks by politicians' news and thus scored points with Donald Trump, later wrote in an internal email about a "dark moment in our country's history."
Looking at what happened on Wednesday, the company boss said that Facebook was treating the situation "as an emergency".
The companies' confrontation with Trump's dangerous rhetoric is now reaching its preliminary climax.
On social media, however, the entrepreneur has always been a troll who never seemed particularly interested in constructive debates.
But Donald Trump was also a presidential candidate and later US president, whose statements are of worldwide interest.
Special rules apply to some users
Twitter let him go through some things with reference to his "exceptions in the public interest".
"In general, we take action on Twitter when tweets violate our rules," says this rule overview of the platform.
"We recognize, however, that it is sometimes in the public interest to allow users to view tweets that would otherwise be deleted."
In other words, when someone as important as Trump breaks the rules, it is more important to Twitter to document it for posterity than to counter the problematic news.
Despite such rules, Twitter, Trump's long-time favorite platform, began adding fact-checking tips to some of the President's tweets last May.
Trump was annoyed, he responded, among other things, with the demand that the US liability rules for platforms urgently need to be revised - naturally in his favor.
Shortly before and after the US election in November, a considerable part of Trump's account consisted of tweets that were flagged as problematic.
Trump nevertheless continued to test his limits, so that since then one question has come more and more to the fore: How much incitement, how much campaign against democracy can social media platforms let the outgoing president get away with?
A video that no one can share
In particular, Twitter's handling of Trump postings now seems like a stimulus-reaction game, in which both stimuli and reactions become increasingly intense.
When Donald Trump uploaded an alleged appeasement video for his followers on the platform on Wednesday, Twitter reported within minutes that the allegation of electoral fraud he maintained was being challenged: "Due to a risk of violence," the tweet could not be liked, retweeted or commented on It was also said.
Social media was still allowed for Trump at that time, but without the social.
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Trump tweet with warning: In the meantime, the video message has been deleted
Soon after, Twitter decided to suspend Trump's account and block the video, as did two other recent Trump postings.
Facebook and YouTube have also taken the president's video message offline.
According to "Engadget", YouTube referred to its rules on postings relating to the US election.
Facebook manager Guy Rosen said Facebook removed the video because they believed it would promote rather than reduce the risk of persistent violence.
"For four years you rationalized this terror"
Chris Sacca, investor, on Twitter
The next few days are likely to be extremely uncomfortable for Twitter and Facebook.
Company bosses and their auditing departments will have to make difficult decisions unless Donald Trump suddenly goes through a change of heart and radically changes his social media strategy - which probably nobody believes in.
If the companies throw Trump off their platforms entirely or block him for longer, they will be met with the resentment of millions of Trump fans in their own networks.
However, if the president continues to ignite online, the services cannot shirk their responsibility: what Trump's words could trigger has long been apparent.
After the storm on the Capitol, however, it can no longer be discussed away.
The investor Chris Sacca, known from “Shark Tank”, the American equivalent of “The Lions Den”, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, addressed to Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg: “There is blood on your hands.
For four years you rationalized this terror.
Incitement to violent betrayal is not free expression. "
Alex Stamos, former head of security at Facebook, wrote on Wednesday shortly before the account bans that at that time there was only one final reason to leave Trump's account open at all: the possibility that he would try the ghost he had called put back in the bottle.
"But as many expected, that's impossible for him," Stamos stated, looking at Trump's video message, which was later deleted.
"Twitter and Facebook have to turn it off."
Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who himself was in the evacuated Capitol on Wednesday, appeals to Twitter that the twelve-hour lockdown is too little.
Trump is "a danger to our democracy," according to Manchin: He should be banned from Twitter for the next 14 days - that is, until he is no longer president.
Icon: The mirror
