Citing “severe violations” of their nebulous and one-sided community guidelines, social-media giants Twitter and Facebook finally did what they’ve wanted to do for years and removed President Trump from their platforms. The removal is temporary, although Twitter threatened a permanent removal of the president’s account should he not comply in removing the offending Tweets.
Social media censored Trump for allegedly inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol, despite the fact that the president called for peace and urged protesters to go home and respect law and order.
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube all removed a video in which Trump asserted that he believed the November general election was “fraudulent” and was “stolen” from him but also called for law and order and peace.
In the video, Trump offered condolences to his supporters who are rightly incensed at the numerous election irregularities which occurred in the 2020 election, especially in key swing states. But never once did he call for violence. In fact, the opposite is true.
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side,” Trump said in the removed video.
“We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country,” Trump said.
“You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order and respect our great people in law enforcement,” Trump said in the video, adding, “We love you, you’re very special.”
The president called on his supporters to “go home in peace.”
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This was not good enough for the social-media thought police, who claimed that Trump was somehow inciting the chaos at the Capitol.
“As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” Twitter’s statement read.
“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 said, adding, “Future violations of the Twitter rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”
Twitter also removed a tweet that the president put out just after 6:00 p.m., which read, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Facebook and Instagram — which is owned by Facebook — followed Twitter’s lead in suspending Trump from his account for 24 hours. In a statement, Facebook said, “The violent protests at the Capitol today are a disgrace. We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these rules.”
It’s hard to see how telling protesters to “go home in peace,” as Trump did, incited any violence. Nevertheless, Facebook stuck to its guns, with Guy Rosen, the company’s vice president of integrity, saying, “This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
YouTube, owned by Google, also removed the Trump video because in their estimation it “violated policies on spreading election fraud.”
But election fraud — not Donald Trump — is exactly what spurred the protests at the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6. Attempting to shift that blame onto Trump instead of where it belongs — on a corrupted election process and a cowardly judiciary who refused to hear evidence about the obvious fraud that occurred — won’t calm things in the long run.
Largely because of Trump, the American people have finally awakened to the putrid stench of corruption that comes directly from Washington, D.C. Wednesday showed that many are angry. From that anger needs to come the necessary resolve to regain control of our country.
