U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a “Save America” rally on Jan. 6, 2021.
After Twitter, Facebook and other social media blocked President Trump’s account, there is news that Trump’s legal team is preparing to sue these social media platforms. Experts say that social media is turning the United States into a totalitarian state, and it is expected that there will be a wave of unsubscribes from both mainstream media and social media platforms in the United States.
Paul Sperry, a media researcher at the Hoover Institution and former Washington, D.C., director of Investor’s Business Daily, tweeted on Jan. 10 that “the Trump legal team is preparing to sue Twitter, Facebook, etc.” because the U.S. social media giants are collaborating with Democratic administration officials to deny Trump’s right to free speech.
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, the inventor of email, agreed, tweeting, “Glad that Trump finally followed the winning legal strategy in the lawsuit I filed on October 30.”
In the last two days, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple and other social media platforms and big tech companies have collectively shut down Trump’s accounts on various platforms in an attempt to block all of Trump’s civilian outlets.
In response, Secretary of State Pompeo tweeted from his personal account, “Silencing is dangerous. This is not the American way. Sadly, this is not a new tactic of the left. They have been working for years to silence their opponents. We can’t let them silence 75 million Americans. This is not the Chinese Communist Party.”
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, also tweeted that the immense power of social media platforms as the keepers of public discourse has never been more misrepresented – a power that should be very troubling to even supporters of the Trump ban.
A number of sociological experts and scholars have also spoken out, criticizing the U.S. social media giants for what they are now doing that has turned the United States into something like a totalitarian state.
In a related report, the Epoch Times quoted unnamed legal experts as saying that, from a legal perspective, if social media platforms want to ban Trump’s speech, they must first find Trump guilty of inciting racial hatred and other crimes. But from the observation of Trump’s speech, he did not make the speech of inciting violence, and the U.S. judiciary did not convict him. Under such circumstances, it is really too much for the U.S. media, social media platforms, and even some Democratic Party politicians to rush to convict Trump.
The newspaper also quoted Yu Tsung-ki, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Affairs at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, as saying that although the U.S. media and big tech companies are blocking Trump on the grounds that Trump supporters are storming Congress, Americans and the global public can see that this is not the case.
Yu Zongji said, the U.S. social media giants are now doing “not much different from a totalitarian state”. Even if Trump is the president of the United States, he will also face such treatment, which will deepen the global public’s fear of media monopoly, the future of the U.S. political and civil society will begin to reflect on this abnormal state. He pointed out that there are now many emerging media, and Trump has also indicated that he does not rule out the establishment of new media platforms, which will bring considerable challenges to the ecology of the established mainstream media and social media platforms.
Yu further analyzed that the mainstream media, social media platforms, and even Wall Street financial giants in the United States are mostly lured and slaughtered by the Chinese Communist Party because they tend to favor China’s economic interests and market, and thus dare not condemn the Chinese Communist Party’s interference in the U.S. election.
“This is a great warning to democratic countries.” Yu Zongji said, “The American public feels considerable backlash and distrust towards the behavior of the media and technology giants in this election, and not only Republicans, but most Americans will choose to abandon or unsubscribe from mainstream media in the future.”
Twitter permanently shut down Trump’s account on Jan. 8, and Facebook and Instagram announced in quick succession that they were suspending Trump’s account at least until presidential inauguration day. Subsequently, Twitch and Snapchat followed suit and banned Trump’s account, Shopify canceled its online store associated with Trump, and Reddit deleted a Trump subgroup.
After Twitter permanently blocked Trump and some conservatives, a large number of Trump supporters flocked to another online social media platform, Parler, causing Parler to skyrocket to No. 1 in the Apple App Store’s free app downloads.
Trump issued a statement on the 8th saying, “We have been in talks with other sites and will be making a major announcement soon, while we are also considering the possibility of creating our own platform in the near future.”
Dr. Ayadollah tweeted on the 10th to Trump across the pond, “As the man who invented email, I will provide you with a platform that will destroy Big Tech (Inc.). I promise.”
After the U.S. Congress certified Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s Electoral College vote win, Trump had released a video on the evening of Jan. 7 stating that he would make an orderly transition of power on Jan. 20. He ended his statement by saying, “My wonderful supporters, I know you are disappointed, but I also want you to know that our incredible journey has just begun!”
In response, some media outlets said that perhaps Trump’s indictment of Twitter and Facebook is the prelude to his new journey.
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