By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
U.S. President, Donald Trump, has lost his Twitter account over what the tech giant said was a breach of its safety rules.
By that action, Donald Trump, loses the means of communicating to the 88 million of people following him all around the world on the App.
According to Twitter, the decision to remove Trump from the App follows the riot that broke out at the Capitol Hill and the invasion of the U.S. Congress on January 6. The tech giant believes that Donald Trump’s tweets play major role in fueling the riot.
Twitter says: “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
Twitter cited the tweets from Donald Trump that led it to permanently delete his account.
According to the tech giant, on January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Twitter also quoted another tweet from the U.S. president. “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
For Twitter, those two tweets represent a threat to the already growing tension in the U.S. But some others think it is a modern day censorship of free speech. According to the people who held such views, the tech giants have replaced tyrants in defining what constitute free speech and who should have a voice.
Trump’s ally, Ben Carson, tweeted: “Silencing a significant number of voters and erasing history is no way to unite us; it only further divides. Big tech & social media platforms want to act like media orgs but don’t want to be held accountable with the rest of media. Speech should be free whether you agree or not.
“You want to ban @realDonaldTrump, fine you’re a private company, but @Twitter deleting the President’s account which highlights this admin & its history is wrong. @Facebook & @instagram banning all images from the Capitol riot is a dangerous precedent to set. We aren’t in China,” he said.
@brielleann also tweeted: “Everyone celebrating this Twitter suspension while also being ok that China and Iran are literally tweeting propaganda and slaughtering their people is bananas. Are people truly this AGGRESSIVELY STUPID not to get the long term ramifications of this?