Twitter Locks Trump’s Account After Violence on Capitol Hill
Kate Conger, Mike Isaac, Sheera Frenkel
9-11 minutes
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/technology/violence-election-capitol-hill-social-media.html
The move came after critics and even some allies of companies like Twitter and
Facebook said they failed to prevent the misinformation that led to chaos on
Wednesday.
• Jan. 6, 2021Updated 7:25 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter on Wednesday locked the account of President Trump,
which prevents him from posting messages to his more than 88 million followers,
after a day of violence in the nation’s capital and a string of inaccurate and
inflammatory posts from the president.
The move was an unprecedented rebuke of Mr. Trump by Twitter, which has long
been a preferred megaphone for the president. Twitter said Mr. Trump’s account
would remain locked for 12 hours and the ban could be extended if Mr. Trump did
not agree to delete several tweets that rejected the election results and
appeared to incite violence. The company also said it would permanently suspend
Mr. Trump’s account if he continued to violate its policies against violent
threats and election misinformation.
This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours
following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the
account will remain locked.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021
Twitter’s action followed a torrent of criticism aimed at social media
companies for their role in spreading misinformation and being a bullhorn for
Mr. Trump as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday and
halted the certification of Electoral College votes.
On Twitter, users had called for the company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, to
take down President Trump’s account. Civil rights groups weighed in, saying
action by social media companies against calls for political violence was “long
overdue.” And even venture capitalists who had reaped riches from investing in
social media urged Twitter and Facebook to do more.
“For four years you’ve rationalized this terror. Inciting violent treason is
not a free speech exercise,” Chris Sacca, a tech investor who had invested in
Twitter, wrote to Mr. Dorsey and Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.
“If you work at those companies, it’s on you too. Shut it down.”
For years, Mr. Trump had built his influence with rapid-fire tweets and by
reaching out to millions of people on Facebook. Since losing November’s
election, he had used the platforms to challenge the election results and call
them fraudulent.
Twitter, Facebook and others had long resisted cracking down on Mr. Trump’s
posts and other toxic content. While the platforms had started taking more
steps against political misinformation in the months before the election, they
declined to remove Mr. Trump’s posts and instead took half steps, such as
labeling his posts.
So when violence broke out in Washington on Wednesday, it was, in the minds of
longtime critics, the day the chickens came home to roost for the social media
companies. After the onslaught of questions began, Twitter and Facebook started
proactively removing several of Mr. Trump’s posts from their sites, including
one where the president falsely said that “a sacred landslide election victory”
had been “unceremoniously & viciously stripped away.”
“We know the social media companies have been lackadaisical at best” at
stopping extremism from growing on their platforms, said Jonathan Greenblatt,
director of the Anti-Defamation League. “Freedom of expression is not the
freedom to incite violence. That is not protected speech.”
On Tech with Shira Ovide: Your guide to how technology is transforming our
lives — in the time of coronavirus and beyond.
Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory who studies
online movements, added that the violence was the result of people operating in
closed social media networks where they believed the claims of voter fraud and
of the election being stolen from Mr. Trump.
“This is a demonstration of the very real-world impact of echo chambers,” she
said. “This has been a striking repudiation of the idea that there is an online
and an offline world, and that what is said online is in some way kept online.
I hope that this eliminates the conception from people’s minds.”
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube said on Wednesday that they were reviewing the
situation and would not tolerate calls for violence on their sites. In a
statement, Twitter said it would take action against tweets that violated its
policies and was “exploring other escalated enforcement actions.”
YouTube said it removed multiple live streams that showed participants storming
the Capitol building carrying firearms. It also said it would elevate
authoritative news sources on its home page, search results and in
recommendations.
“The violent protests in the Capitol today are a disgrace,” added Andy Stone, a
Facebook spokesman. “We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our
platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these
rules.”
Mr. Trump also told his supporters to go home in a video that he posted on
multiple social media sites on Wednesday afternoon. “You have to go home now.
We have to have peace. We have to have law and order,” he said, while repeating
false claims that the election had been stolen from him.
Twitter later added a label to Mr. Trump’s video, saying its claims of fraud
were disputed and could lead to violence, before removing it entirely and then
taking down the tweet where Mr. Trump inaccurately referred to a “sacred
landslide election victory.” YouTube also deleted the video, as did Facebook,
which also removed the misleading post by Mr. Trump on the “election victory.”
Guy Rosen, a Facebook executive, said the social network took down the video
because it was “an emergency situation” and the video “contributes to rather
than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
Critics said the statements by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were too little,
too late, after calls for violence and plans for protests had already spread on
the platforms.
On Facebook, protesters had openly discussed what they aimed to do in
Washington on a Facebook page called Red-State Secession for weeks. The page
had asked its roughly 8,000 followers to share addresses of perceived “enemies”
in the nation’s capital, including the home addresses of federal judges,
members of Congress and prominent progressive politicians.
Comments left on the page often featured photos of gun and ammunition, along
with emojis suggesting that members of the group were planning for violence.
One post on Tuesday said people should be “prepared to use force to defend
civilization.” Several comments below the post showed photos of assault rifles,
ammunition and other weapons. In the comments, people referred to “occupying”
the capital, and taking action to force Congress to overturn the results of the
elections.
Facebook said it removed Red-State Secession on Wednesday morning. Before it
was taken down, the page directed followers to other social media sites like
Gab and Parler that have gained popularity in right-wing circles since the
election.
Those alternative social media sites were rife with Trump supporters organizing
and communicating on Wednesday. On Parler, one trending hashtag was
#stormthecapitol. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a
false rumor that Antifa, a left-wing movement, was responsible for committing
violence at the protests.
“WAKE UP AMERICA, IT’S ANTIFA and BLM operatives who are committing the
violence, NOT TRUMP SUPPORTERS!,” said one Parler account member called
@Trumpfans100, offering no evidence for the claims.
Officials at Parler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Whether Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will do more is unclear. Over the past
year, some of the companies have stepped up efforts to moderate Mr. Trump’s
account, though they have stopped short of taking down his posts. Twitter began
adding labels to Mr. Trump’s false and misleading tweets last year and has
prevented users from sharing the posts to limit their spread. Facebook has also
attached labels to some of Mr. Trump’s posts, redirecting users to reliable and
accurate data.
When Mr. Trump leaves office, the companies may have a freer hand. On Twitter,
Mr. Trump has enjoyed exceptions to its rules because the company has said it
considers posts from world leaders to be in the public interest. But Twitter
has said that after Mr. Trump is no longer president, he will be treated like a
regular user and have his tweets subject to deletion.
Before then, the pressure remains on the tech companies.
“This level of insurrection should not exist, whether it is on the Twitter
platform from the president, or whether it’s on Facebook, which allows people
to recruit and carry out these types of dangerous activities,” Derrick Johnson,
president and chief executive of the N.A.A.C.P., said in an interview. “This is
an example of where both our democracy is being undermined and where people are
not being kept safe. They must suspend the president’s account immediately.”
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed reporting.
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