This was the week of unrest at the U.S. Capitol and calls for social networks to do better in keeping their platforms safe from incitement to violence.
Silicon Valley responded in what appears to be coordinated action Friday evening. Here’s the latest:
Twitter “permanently suspended” President Donald Trump’s personal account, @realDonaldTrump.
The two tweets President Trump sent today were enough for Twitter to make the call to suspend him.
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
Twitter Statement
Twitter references their “Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Today’s tweets were seen by Twitter to potentially be seen and understood as encouragement to replicate the violent acts seen at the U.S. Capitol January 6.
Parler, an alternative social network similar to Twitter, is under the microscope tonight as well. Google suspended the app from their Play Store while Apple gives a 24 hour warning.
In a statement, Google pointed to posts in the Parler app that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.”
Google further said, “For us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.”
Reports say Apple gave Parler 24 hours to remove anything objectionable posted by their users. Apple, according to reports, is also asking Parler to share a plan to moderate content going forward.
