TheQuartering [1/8/2020]
Very scary times to be a content creator who doesn’t toe the line, and I am so thankful for all of you.
Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have been accused of having “blood on their hands” after the riots at the Capitol building.
As a group of Trump supporters made their way into the building – after a rally largely organized on social networks, and featuring supporters of a number of conspiracy theories that have grown on the internet – technology executives and investors turned to the role that companies such as Facebook and Twitter had played in the violence.
Those social networks eventually took action: at the time of publication, Facebook and Instagram had banned Mr Trump “indefinitely”, while Twitter said that any new posts that flout its rules would lead to a ban on its site.
But many experts asked why such censure had not arrived before, given that Mr Trump has repeatedly broken social media site rules throughout his presidency.
That had included Mr Trump’s many posts in which he had seemed to encourage those who may be considering violence on 6 January: on 19 December, for instance, he instructed followers to “be there, will be wild!”. That post remains live on Twitter, and has been shared 75,000 times.