After the violent incident at the U.S. Capitol, social media Twitter announced that it would permanently block Trump‘s personal account. The blocking of Trump’s personal account was announced by Twitter, and many Trump fans launched a pro-Trump campaign, replacing their personal account avatars with Trump photos.
On January 6, some “protesters” stormed the U.S. Congress, interrupting the joint session of the two houses of Congress to count electoral votes. At least one person died in the clash.
In a video message on Twitter on January 7, Trump began by condemning the violence at the Capitol, stressing that the United States must always be a nation governed by the rule of law. He called on protesters to peacefully abide by the law and leave Congress. Twitter deleted some of Trump’s tweets.
At around 6:30 p.m. on the 8th, Twitter announced that it had permanently shut down Trump’s personal account, fearing that he was inciting violence. In addition, the accounts of several people associated with Trump, such as former national security adviser Flynn and prominent pro-Trump lawyer Powell, were also permanently shut down.
On Jan. 8, Twitter announced that it had permanently frozen Trump’s username account. Pictured is a screenshot of President Trump’s Twitter account.
At 8:29 p.m. that night, Trump changed his presidential account labeled as U.S. government to publish tweets again, but both tweets were quickly deleted by Twitter.
Trump tweeted from his official account, POTUS, saying, “We will not be silenced!” The account has 33.4 million followers. “There is no free speech on Twitter,” wrote Trump, who is considering creating his own social media platform in the near future.
Trump supporters say Trump did not incite violence in his speech, that the mainstream media misinterpreted the Jan. 6 rally and that someone infiltrated the protest crowd. There are also concerns that the United States is on the verge of socialism or Marxism.
Parler, a conservative-founded social media outlet, is seen as an alternative to Twitter, and many Trump fans and conservatives have begun to turn to Parler.
In addition, many Trump fans and conservatives have changed their account avatars to show their support for Trump as well as to protest Twitter’s stifling of free speech.
Hao Yibo, the host of New Tang Dynasty TV’s foreigner series, said that Twitter did not expect to shut down one Trump account, but attracted millions of “more Trumps” to speak out for him. The tweets that were deleted in seconds have already been spread in various forms and have a wider impact than the president himself!
However, the new platform Parler is also under pressure from mainstream science companies. Google has temporarily removed Parler from the Play Store, and Apple Inc has threatened to remove it.
After Trump was blocked by tech companies, Pompeo tweeted on his personal Twitter account, “Banning is dangerous and not American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic from the left anymore. They’ve been silencing the opposition for years.”
“We can’t let them silence 75 million Americans, and this is not Communist China.” He wrote.
Han Lianchao, a Chinese-American scholar, believes that the permanent blocking of Trump and some of his supporters’ numbers by major U.S. social media is a breach of democracy; although not a government action, social platforms have become public squares in which citizens’ speech should be protected by the Constitution; the truthfulness of information should be judged by the audience and its legality decided by the courts, and corporate executives and government officials have no right to restrict it!
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