Facebook and Instagram prevent Trump from posting on their system
In fact, Facebook and Instagram would become the first prominent social media platforms to prevent US President Donald Trump from publishing on their system, that silence him for at least the next two weeks until the achievement of the presidential transition.
The Chief Executive Officer decision, Mark Zuckerberg, comes after Facebook declared, on Wednesday, that it would block Trump’s account for 24 hours, while technology experts depress on his unfounded claims about the presidential election and hundreds of Trump supporters entered the US Capitol.
Zuckerberg related in a Facebook post on Thursday: We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.
Indeed, about Wednesday’s uprising, Zuckerberg stated that a more aggressive approach is needed. He also said: The current context is now fundamentally different, involving the use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.
Zuckerberg related to Trump’s account would be locked for at least the next two weeks but could remain locked indefinitely.
On his part, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram tweeted on Thursday that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, would also block Trump’s capacity to publish on its platform indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks.
Furthermore, Twitter Inc and Snap Inc also momentarily locked Trump’s accounts on Wednesday. With the siege of the Capitol intensified, civil rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change appealed for social media companies to suspend Trump’s accounts forever.
Otherwise, there was pressure towards the social media companies to police misinformation about the US election on their platforms, including from the president. For months Trump and his allies, have increased unfounded alleges of election fraud, which leads to the organizing for Wednesday’s protest.
Trump repeated these alleges as he informed protesters to go home in a video published to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on Wednesday, and then was later removed from the platforms.
Lawmakers and employees previously criticized Facebook for not acting on provocative posts from Trump, with those that have been described by Twitter.
A Syracuse University communications professor and an expert on social media, Jennifer Grygiel, stated that Wednesday’s events in Washington, D.C. are a direct result of Trump’s use of social media to extent propaganda and disinformation and that the platforms should bear some responsibility for their inaction.
