Anti-social networks
Only in the final stretch of Donald Trump’s term do the social networks decide to suspend or restrict the president’s hate messages. But what happened at the Capitol is their responsibility too.
In less than 24 hours, the main social networks were forced to take decisions they had avoided at all costs for the past five years: limiting the reach of Donald Trump’s messages, or even suspending the US president. The reason was the attack on the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
Twitter was one of them. It is well known that the platform has been used by Trump to govern, attack opponents and spread false information. There were many appeals to Jack Dorsey to take some action, and only at the November elections did the company start taking the matter more seriously. Now it has finally decided to sanction the president’s account.
AI translation from the Portuguese. First published in ECO on 7 January 2021.