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WASHINGTON: The decision by tech companies to clamp down on President Donald Trump’s ability to speak to his supporters through major social media may force him to use more traditional communication methods or more isolated conservative online channels during his last days in office, experts say.
Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc took their strongest actions yet against Trump to limit his reach, fearing continued violence stemming from his posts after his supporters attacked. the United States Capitol building last week. They were joined by smaller tech companies including Twitch, Snapchat, Reddit, Shopify, and TikTok.
Trump, who has challenged without evidence the validity of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s November 3 election victory, praised and encouraged his supporters before they besieged the Capitol on Wednesday, where lawmakers certified the Electoral College vote for Biden. . Five people, including a Capitol police officer, were killed in the assault.
Apple, Google and Amazon have suspended Parler, a pro-Trump app where users have threatened further violence, from their respective app stores and web hosting services, a set of measures that can seriously hamper service.
The platform has 12 million users and Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric are active on it, but now it will have to find a new web server to replace Amazon to stay in business.
HOW CAN TRUMP REACH YOUR FOLLOWERS?
In the immediate aftermath of the ban on Twitter, a platform the president has been obsessed with since he first ran for office and where he spoke regularly to his 88 million followers, Trump vowed that “he would not be SILENCED!” and promised a “big announcement soon”.
Trump also tweeted from the @POTUS Twitter account shortly after the ban, criticizing the tech company, Democrats and a law protecting internet companies called Section 230, saying he was considering building his own networking platform. social. His tweets were almost immediately deleted by the company.
But attacking on your own will take time. For the moment, Trump, who leaves office on January 20, is left with alternatives such as the conservative online platform Gab, a freedom of expression network with almost no censorship rules, which has much less reach.
Attendees and supporters are already turning to Gab and the MeWe platform to amplify their messages in the coming days, experts said. Other possible outlets are the Rumble video platform and the DLive video streaming service, along with alternative news sites such as American Media Periscope, said Monica Stephens, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo whose research focuses on topics that include the social networks.
“I don’t think Trump is joining these smaller platforms himself. He is more likely to create something on his own rather than join something subject to someone else’s controls,” he said.
In the meantime, you can take advantage of pro-Trump networks like Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax to spread your message. The other underused option is the White House press office, experts said. You can continue to hold briefings or distribute statements and videos until the end of your term.
WHAT ARE YOUR FOLLOWERS AND SUPPORTERS SAYING?
In the immediate aftermath of the Twitter ban, backers such as Angela Stanton-King, a Republican supporter of the conspiracy group QAnon who ran in November to represent Georgia’s fifth congressional district, and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie began sharing their accounts of Parler on Twitter, encouraging his followers to move. there.
Others, like conservative media host Rush Limbaugh, deactivated their Twitter accounts.
Numerous Republican lawmakers denounced the decisions of social media companies as an attempt to suppress conservative voices, arguing that the measures would further polarize the country.
“Now we live in a country where four or five companies – not elected, not accountable – have the power, the monopoly power to decide, we are going to kill people, we are simply going to erase them from any type of digital platform” Senator Marco Rubio said on Fox News.
Some liberal free speech activists also felt uncomfortable with the measures. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, defended the right of Twitter and others to “select their platforms,” but called for more transparency and consistency in decision-making.
The American Civil Liberties Union said that “it should be of concern to all when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield unlimited power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable to the speech of billions.”
CAN ONLINE PLATFORMS SILENCE TRUMP AND ITS FOLLOWERS?
Silicon Valley companies have tried frequently, often without much success, to go after those who sell harmful content, from electoral disinformation to hate speech to violent threats, but their actions in recent days have been the harshest yet.
The First Amendment guaranteeing free speech does not generally apply to private sector businesses, allowing them to moderate speech that incites violence on their platforms.
“I think there was a legitimate public policy interest over the last four years in keeping the president and his voice on Twitter and other platforms. But clearly, what he has done has outweighed any reasonable public policy interest,” Chris Krebs said. former director of the Infrastructure Security and Cybersecurity Agency.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and David Shepardson in Washington; Edited by Chris Sanders and Peter Cooney)
