Thursday, March 23, 2023

Twitter and Facebook Freeze Trump Accounts After Congress Onslaught | News from the United States and Canada

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Facebook also said it would find and remove content that praised the assault on Capitol Hill or encouraged violence.

Social media giants Twitter and Facebook have temporarily locked US President Donald Trump’s accounts as they work to crack down on his baseless claims about the US presidential election after his supporters stormed the Capitol American in Washington, DC and temporarily forced a stay.

Twitter went into hiding and demanded the removal of three of Trump’s tweets “due to the unprecedented and ongoing situation of violence in Washington, DC,” after supporters of the president attempted to force Congress to block the appointment of President-elect Joe Biden.

While urging his supporters to “go home,” Trump also hailed the crowd as “special” and told them they were “loved.”

“Future violations of Twitter’s rules, including our civic integrity policies or violent threats, will result in the @realDonaldTrump account being permanently suspended,” Twitter officials said in a statement. The social media pseudonym used by the president is followed by some 88 million people.

Twitter said Trump’s account will be locked for 12 hours and that if the offending tweets are not deleted, “the account will remain locked.”

In a rapidly changing sequence of events, Facebook and YouTube have also removed videos posted by the president.

“This is an emergency and we are taking appropriate emergency action, including the removal of President Trump’s video,” Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen said. in a tweet.

“We removed it because, overall, we believe it contributes rather than reducing the risk of continued violence.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s Instagram account, with 24.5 million subscribers, remains active. Instagram is owned by Facebook.

Baseless attacks

YouTube also removed a video of Trump repeating his baseless attacks on the integrity of the election he lost in November, following his policy of banning claims contesting election results.

“As the situation unfolds on the United States Capitol, our teams are working to quickly remove live broadcasts and other content that violates our policies, including those against incitement to violence or regarding images of violence. graphic, ”said YouTube spokesperson Alex Joseph.

Facebook later said it would seek out and remove content that praised the Capitol storming or encouraged violence.

The huge social network said it would also seek to suppress additional calls for protests, including peaceful ones, in the event of a violation of a curfew imposed in the U.S. capital or any attempt to “revive” the congressional assault, which a Facebook spokesperson described as a “disgrace.”

“We ban incitement and calls for violence on our platform,” the spokesperson said. “We actively review and remove any content that violates these rules.”

Instigate violence

Facebook claimed it was in contact with law enforcement officials and continued to impose bans on the conspiracy group QAnon, militarized social movements and hate groups.

A #StormTheCapitol hashtag was blocked on Facebook and Instagram, he said.

Police officer arrests pro-Trump protester in clashes at rally to challenge US Congress certification of 2020 US presidential election results [Shannon Stapleton/Reuters]

Twitter’s initial actions were aimed at limiting the reach of offensive tweets from Trump and others.

“We have significantly restricted engagement with tweets tagged under our civic integrity policy due to the risk of violence,” the Twitter support team said.

“This means that those tagged tweets will not be able to be replied to, retweeted or liked.”

A video clip of Trump posted at the top of his official Twitter account was tagged with a note saying the election fraud allegation was disputed and the tweet could not be answered, retweeted or liked “due to risk of violence ”.

Rival social network Parler, which has been lauded by Trump supporters, ran articles praising the crowd’s assault on Capitol Hill.

“I hope to see some of the DemonRat residences set on fire,” one user wrote.



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