At the time he was reasonably well-known to US mainstream media, but outside of
America his name was not
as recognisable to the average person.
However it was only once Senator Barack
Obama stood in the 2008
Democratic presidential primaries
and then became
the Democratic candidate
in the 56th American presidential election that
the rest of the world began to really notice Trump.
However, much of the coverage of his views came second-hand in the mainstream media until May 2009.
By
then Donald Trump had become a parody of his younger self, but did
not at first glance appear
to be highly dysfunctional. He
came across as an eccentric and egotistical individual fond of
conspiracy theories – especially if those theories supported his
aversion to the idea of an African-American being President of the
United States of America.
His
open dislike of Barack Obama raised his own social media profile and he
became adept at using Twitter
and
Facebook
to express his personal world view.
Sometime
between 2008 and 2012 Donald Trump began to flirt with the idea of
running for US president himself, but it wasn’t until 2015 that he fully
committed to the idea of standing in the Republican presidential
primaries.
First
as a political candidate
and then in 2016 as
president-elect Donald Trump was allowed a lot of latitude by social
media platforms and he began to use social media as a weapon against all those he perceived as enemies.
There was so little pushback by management of the social media platforms that he frequented that by
the time he became president I’m sure he saw himself as
unassailable and, in many
respects as the highest office holder in the United States he was.
In May 2020 his personal Twitter account reportedly had over 80 million followers, even though by then it was filled almost entirely with self-praise, blatant lies, insults, threats and political conspiracy allegations.
Then
came his political defeat in the 2020 presidential election and a
growing realisation that no matter how hard he tried he could not
reverse the will of the people or the Electoral
College votes.
It
was then, when he thought he had nothing left to lose, that he became
even more vengeful and recklessly destructive, setting in motion the
events of 6 January 2021 when pro-Trump domestic terrorists violently
forced their way into the US Congress in an effort to stop a joint
sitting of the House of Representatives and Senate formally recording
the Electoral College vote count that confirmed Joe Biden as the new
president-elect who would be inaugurated on 20 January 2021.
Before
that Wednesday ended the giants
of the Internet began to show Donald J. Trump that even he could go too far
and began to starve him of what political oxygen he had left.
First
Twitter
pulled the plug on his incitement of violence and sedition with a
12-hour suspension which quickly turned into the permanent expulsion of his
account @realDonaldTrump. Then the list began to grow until 16 social media platforms/Internet services have slammed the door in his face, or the faces of his supporters, to date.
Axios,
7
January 2020:
Platforms
are rapidly removing Donald Trump’s account or accounts affiliated
with pro-Trump violence and conspiracies, like QAnon and
#StoptheSteal.
Here
is a running list:
REDDIT:
WHAT:
Reddit has banned the subreddit group "r/DonaldTrump," a
spokesperson confirmed to Axios on Friday.
COMMENT:
"Reddit's site-wide
policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages,
glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or
individuals. In accordance with this, we have been proactively
reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to
offer support or resources as needed," a spokesperson tells
Axios.
CONTEXT:
While not an official group or page hosted by the president, it's one
of the company's largest political communities dedicated to support
for President Trump.
TWITCH:
WHAT:
Twitch disabled Trump's channel, citing the move as a "necessary
step" to protect its community and "prevent Twitch from
being used to incite further violence."
COMMENT:
“In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have
disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel. Given the current
extraordinary circumstances and the President's incendiary rhetoric,
we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and
prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence," a
spokesperson told Axios.
CONTEXT:
Twitch was one of the first platforms in June to temporarily ban
Trump's channel for hateful content around the Black Lives Matter
protests over the summer.
SHOPIFY:
WHAT:
Shopify took down two online stores affiliated with Trump — his
organization and his campaign's merchandise sites — for violating
its policies on supporting violence.
COMMENT:
"Shopify does not tolerate actions that invite violence. Based
on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President
Donald J. Trump violate our acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits
promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that
threaten or condone violence to further a cause. As a result, we have
terminated stores affiliated with President Trump." - a
spokesperson told The
Financial Times.
CONTEXT:
Shopify had until Friday gone the farthest in actually de-platforming
Trump, as his stores were permanently removed, not temporarily
disabled.
TWITTER:
WHAT:
Twitter announced Friday the platform will permanently ban President
Trump's account effective immediately.
COMMENT:
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump
account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the
account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,"
Twitter said in a statement.
CONTEXT:
It's Twitter's strongest-ever action against the president's account
and comes in response to the "risk of further incitement of
violence," per the social media company.
GOOGLE:
WHAT:
Google has pulled Parler, a social media app for conservatives and
far-right extremists.
COMMENT:
"In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our
longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated
content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes
egregious content like posts that incite violence," a Google
spokesperson said.
CONTEXT:
Google’s move immediately suspends Parler, going further than
Apple's earlier decision to remove the app unless it submits a
content moderation plan.
YOUTUBE:
WHAT:
YouTube is accelerating its enforcement of election misinformation
and voter fraud claims against Trump and other channels.
COMMENT:
"Due to the extraordinary events that transpired yesterday, and
given that the election results have been certified, any channel
posting new videos with these false claims in violation of our
policies will now receive a strike, a penalty which temporarily
restricts uploading or live-streaming. Channels that receive three
strikes in the same 90-day period will be permanently removed from
YouTube," Alex Joseph, a YouTube spokesperson, told Axios.
CONTEXT:
YouTube is typically slow to take action on bad content and accounts.
Its response, while swift, was somewhat benign compared to
competitors removing or disabling Trump's account. YouTube did remove
the video Trump posted Wednesday that addressed the Capitol violence
without fully condemning it.
FACEBOOK:
WHAT:
Facebook banned Donald Trump from posting on his Facebook accounts
for at least the next two weeks until the transition of power to
President-elect Joe Biden is complete.
COMMENT:
"We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to
use our service during this period are simply too great," CEO
Mark Zuckerberg said in a post Thursday.
CONTEXT:
On Wednesday, Facebook did remove the video Trump posted Wednesday
addressing the violence without fully condemning it before taking
greater action against Trump on Thursday.
INSTAGRAM:
WHAT:
Instagram banned Donald Trump from posting on his Facebook accounts
for at least the next two weeks until the transition of power to
President-elect Joe Biden is complete.
COMMENT:
"We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to
use our service during this period are simply too great,"
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post Thursday.
CONTEXT:
On Wednesday, Instagram's parent Facebook did remove the video Trump
posted addressing the violence without fully condemning it before
taking greater action against Trump on Thursday.
SNAPCHAT:
WHAT:
Snapchat disabled Trump's Snapchat account Wednesday because it
believes the account promotes and spreads hate and incites violence,
a spokesperson said.
COMMENT:
"We can confirm that earlier today we locked President Trump's
Snapchat account," Snap spokesperson Rachel Racusen told Axios.
CONTEXT:
Snapchat was one of the first major social platforms to take serious
action on Trump's account for threats to democracy in June when the
company said it stopped promoting his account in its "Discover"
section, which features professional content and other prominent
people.
TIKTOK:
WHAT:
TikTok is removing content violations and redirecting hashtags like
#stormthecapitol and #patriotparty to its community guidelines.
COMMENT:
"Hateful behavior and violence have no place on TikTok. Content
or accounts that seek to incite, glorify, or promote violence violate
our Community Guidelines and will be removed," a TikTok
spokesperson said.
CONTEXT:
Other hashtags like #stopthesteal and #QAnon have been redirected
since last year.
APPLE:
WHAT:
Apple on Friday threatened to remove right-wing-friendly social media
app Parler from its App Store if Parler doesn’t lay out a plan to
moderate its content.
COMMENT:
"We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable
content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler app was
used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in
Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to
loss of life, numerous injuries, and the destruction of property,”
Apple wrote to Parler in an email obtained by BuzzFeed
News. “The app also appears to continue to be used to plan and
facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.”
CONTEXT:
Apple is flexing its power to try to get Parler to moderate its
content. [on 10 January 2021 Apple suspended the Parler App from its online store. This means the app can no longer be downloaded to an iPhone]
DISCORD:
WHAT:
Discord says it has banned server The Donald, per journalist Casey
Newton.
COMMENT:
"While there is no evidence of the server being used to organize
the Jan 6 riots, Discord decided to ban the entire server today due
to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence
and plan an armed insurrection in the United States," per Mother
Jones' Ali
Breland.
CONTEXT:
The Discord account was connected to the pro-Trump social network
TheDonald.Win and the r/theDonald subreddit that was banned Friday.
PINTEREST:
WHAT:
Pinterest has been limiting hashtags related to pro-Trump topics such
as #StopTheSteal since around the November election, a spokesperson
said.
COMMENT:
"Pinterest isn’t a place for threats, promotion of violence or
hateful content," a Pinterest spokesperson said. "Our team
is continuing to monitor and removing harmful content, including
misinformation and conspiracy theories that may incite violence.”
CONTEXT:
Trump doesn't have a Pinterest account, and the platform has tried to
stay away from political content, but Pinterest hasn't been able to
squelch it completely.
The
bottom line:
Trump is quickly losing access to all the platforms where he once was
able to spread his message freely, but groups of his supporters will
still be able to gather online. [my red annotations]
Donald
Trump joined
Triller
(an
American
video making & social networking platform) in mid-2020 but this
site is yet to announce its position.
However, Twitch affiliate PornHub Update recently announced it too was banning Trump.
When
Twitter removed Donald Trump’s personal account it
appears to have cut off an est. 88,770,584 social media users
from receiving his views directly into their timelines each day.
Gary
Corby,
the Trump campaign’s digital director tried to give Trump his
account. Twitter
promptly suspended him.
Twitter
has also removed the Team
Trump
account and is
selectively removing attempts by Donald Trump to place tweets on
@POTUS
which violate Twitter’s
terms and conditions.
Individual Trump supporter accounts such as @linwoods, @FightBackLaw and @TheRISEofROD have been suspended for either spreading untruths about the 2020 presidential election or advocating lethal violence members of the US Congress.
According to Techcrunch, PayPal has been deactivating the accounts of some groups of Trump supporters since last week, who were using the money-transfer fintech to coordinate payments to underwrite the rioters’ actions on Capitol Hill. PayPal has been increasingly banning some political accounts, banning a far-right activist in 2019 and also banning a spate of far-right organizations in the wake of violent protests in Charlottesville in 2017. These bans so far do not appear to extend directly to the president himself.
Parler which apparently refuses to moderate its platform is also full of such threats - including incitement to assassinate the current US Vice-President for his perceived failure to support Donald Trump - according to Input. On Sunday 9 January 2021 alarmed at the proliferation of violent images and posts on this platform Amazon Web Services announced it would cut Parler from it cloud hosting as of 11:59pm, US Pacific Time (6pm Sydney Time, Monday 11 January 2021). Parler is then potentially offline for up to a week until it rebuild its website.
The naked violence that Donald Trump unleashed on 6 January which left five people
dead is still a very real threat…….
"Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021." [Twitter Inc, 8 January 2021]
 |
Parler, 6 January 2021
BACKGROUND
|
