The big tech companies are right to ban Donald Trump from their platforms

Editorial: The president’s praise of the rioters crossed a line that justified an exceptional response from Twitter and Facebook – he is of course entitled to go to the courts to argue his free speech case

Friday 08 January 2021 20:38 GMT
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<p>Donald Trump, speaking to supporters before some of them stormed the Capitol</p>

Donald Trump, speaking to supporters before some of them stormed the Capitol

Twitter, which Donald Trump exploited ruthlessly to win the presidency, has pecked back. Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of the company that provided Mr Trump with a platform, has closed the president’s account. While the practical effect of the ban is limited, with just 10 days of Mr Trump’s term of office to run, the questions of principle that it raises are profound. 

Twitter’s decision is welcome as further acceptance by an internet company of responsibility for things that are posted on its website. Long gone are the days when the tech giants could pretend that they were merely providers of a service and what their customers did with it was not a matter for them. 

Twitter started marking Mr Trump’s tweets as “disputed” when the president used them to make unfounded claims about the election after 3 November. During the storming of the Capitol, Twitter suspended Mr Trump’s account, and Facebook (and its subsidiary Instagram) followed suit. Both companies recognised that the president was using their platforms to incite violence. Now Twitter has gone further and banned Mr Trump altogether. 

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