Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Twitter CEO: Trump Ban Right but Sets 'Dangerous' Precedent


Thu 14 Jan 2021 | 01:30 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

Twitter chief Jack Dorsey considered  the messaging platform's ban of US President Donald Trump was a right move, but said it sets a "dangerous" precedent and represents a failure to promote healthy conversation on social networks.

"Having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications," Dorsey said in a string of tweets about his take on the company's decision late last week to permanently bar the president.

"While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation," Dorsey said, inviting feedback from users.

"This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet," he said.

Trump's access to social media platforms has been largely cut off since a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington last week.

In addition to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and Snapchat also placed bans over his accounts, while YouTube temporarily suspended his channel.

Social media operators say the embittered leader could have used his accounts to incite more unrest in the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration due on Wednesday.

Dorsey rejected the notion that social media giants coordinated efforts, reasoning that it was more likely they each came to the same conclusion about the potential for violence.

On Monday, Twitter took things one step further, announcing it had also suspended "more than 70,000 accounts" linked to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory that claims Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

Facing accusation from free-speech advocates, the company said in a blog post explaining its decision that after close review of the president's recent tweets it had "permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."

Twitter also blocked efforts by Trump to sidestep the ban of his @realDonaldTrump account when he posted tweets from the official presidential account @POTUS and the @TeamTrump campaign account.

"We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now," ACLU senior legislative counsel Kate Ruane said at the time.

"But, it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions."