Did Twitter Overlook Trump's Platform Policy Violations

Roose, K. (2021, January 8). The president is losing his platforms. The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/technology/trump-social-media.html

According to this article, Donald Trump has lost his social media platforms after several wrist slaps. The author says that Big Tech executives have been treating Trump with kid gloves and allowed him to continue posting on the platforms despite violating their rules over and over again. The platforms have been giving gauzy speeches defending free expression and have written special policies to justify their inaction to avoid backlash from Trump and his allies. The author says that after the riots at the Capitol on January 6, the social media platforms took their strongest action against Trump. Facebook said it’s locking Trump accounts until at least the Inauguration Day stating that there were risks of allowing Trump to continue posting. Twitter locked Trump’s account first for 12 hours and stated that it would permanently ban him if he violated more policies. The author says that two tech writers, Casey Newton and Ben Thompson whose opinions hold sway among Big Tech executives have both called for Trump’s ban from social platforms. Facebook’s former security chief Alex Stamos said that he one opposed the decision to ban Trump from Facebook on free speech ground but he changed his mind after the Capitol riots. The author says that the most obvious move by Trump after losing his Twitter and Facebook accounts would be to move to one of the alt-platforms such as Gab or Parler. However, these platforms are small and wouldn’t satisfy Trumps desire for a mass audience that Twitter and Facebook offered.  

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