Read on Twitter
1/ The past 48 hours may come to be known as The Great Cancellation of 2021, as Silicon Valley companies remove or limit Trump’s access to a host of services following the violent insurrection against democracy he incited on Capitol Hill. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
2/ Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit Twitch, Apple, Discord, and even Shopify are among the platforms banning or restricting access to the President's accounts. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
3/ Reddit banned the subreddit forum r/DonaldTrump, as @sarafischer reported, “one of the company’s largest political communities dedicated to support for President Trump.” Twitch also disabled Trump’s channel following the insurrection. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
4/ Snapchat locked the President’s account indefinitely.
Apple and Google told Parler, the social media network favored by far right extremists and other supporters of the President, that it must start moderating its content. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
Apple and Google told Parler, the social media network favored by far right extremists and other supporters of the President, that it must start moderating its content. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
5/ Discord banned TheDonald server “due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence, plan an armed insurrection in the United States, and spread harmful misinformation related to 2020 U.S. election fraud." https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
6/ Shopify took down online stores affiliated with President Trump that sold “Make America Great Again” hats and merchandise, on the grounds that Trump violated its policy against promoting or supporting violence. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
7/ YouTube announced it would restrict channels posting videos that support the President’s false claims about the election, including Trump’s channel. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
8/ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday his company company would lock Trump’s accounts through Inauguration Day because “the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
9/ Restricting Donald’s ability to incite violence following the attack on the US Capitol is not only in the national interest, it is well within the rights of private companies whose terms of service permit them almost total discretion as to what transpires on their platforms.
10/ It is not, as the President and his supporters claim, a matter of free speech or the First Amendment. https://twitter.com/JameelJaffer/status/1347323586218872833
11/ No matter the harms averted, the President’s supporters will no doubt be enraged, and the President himself incandescent. They were already up in arms about "cancel culture"... https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1341087954719150083?s=20
12/ And these events will fit squarely in tired narratives from folks like Senator Ted Cruz & Fox News’s Tucker Carlson about Big Tech censorship, surely leading to another disingenuous, uninformed round of Republican calls to end Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
13/ Cancellation in this acute moment will further inflame the most dangerous of the President’s supporters. It will satisfy a number of conspiracy theories, including QAnon, which posits such bans are proof of its claims. (h/t @sheeraf): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/technology/qanon-believers-say-being-banned-from-facebook-is-proof-of-the-conspiracy.html
14/ Therefore, despite the absolute necessity of doing it, in the short term it is likely to make the country less safe, as already enraged extremists plot inevitable reprisals. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
15/ It will also invite danger to the executives of the tech platforms themselves, an unfortunate effect of having waited so long to confront a bully. https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1347859428620591106?s=20
16/ The sad reality is that no matter how hard Silicon Valley tries to sweep Donald Trump under the rug, the hatreds he fomented are still alive across its platforms. https://techpolicy.press/the-great-cancellation-of-2021/
17/ We’ll be contending with Trump’s disciples long after the Great Cancellation is forgotten- a challenge greatly compounded by the unwillingness of people like Mark Zuckerberg to act before today. No matter how hard they try to cancel Trump, they own whatever comes next.
If you liked this thread, go see this one https://twitter.com/peterwsinger/status/1347894965909778432?s=20
