Well, Facebook finally grew a pair. The company will block the President from posting to the platform for the remainder of his term. This applies to Instagram too. Good.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a post on his personal Facebook page that said “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” The full post can be found here. You can also read it below:
The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.
His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.
Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.
Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.
We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.
While domestic terrorists stormed the US Capitol, the president continued to push out divisive tweets and Facebook posts, falsely claiming election fraud. He then sent out a now-deleted video on Twitter of him telling the terrorists that he “loved them” and that they were “very special,” but they should leave the US Capitol.
Facebook, which has normally taken more of a backseat to Trump’s dangerous antics on the platform, declared an “emergency situation” and removed the same video mentioned above. His Instagram has also been locked for 24 hours. But with this new ban, he doesn’t have to worry about waiting anymore, unless he waits for his window after his presidential term.
Good. Good. Good.
Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
Editors’ Recommendations:
- Too little, too late: Social media platforms finally take a stand against Trump
- Trump is holding $740 billion in military spending hostage over an internet law he doesn’t like
- Facebook doesn’t really plan on changing how it deals with Donald Trump
- It seems like the Trump administration forgot about that whole TikTok ban thing
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